Title: Elizabeth & Leicester
Description: “Even their contemporaries felt that the relationship of Elizabeth and Robert transcended the details on practicality. There had to be some explanation for their lifelong fidelity, and those contemporaries put it down to 'synaptia', a hidden conspiracy of the stars, whose power to rule human lives no-one doubted: 'a sympathy of spirits between them, occasioned perhaps by some secret constellation', in the words of the historian William Camden, writing at the beginning of the seventeenth century. Theirs was a relationship already rooted in history and mythology. And that moment when Elizabeth heard she had come to the throne encapsulated much about their story. If our well-loved picture of Elizabeth's accession is something of a fantasy - if the reality is on the whole more interesting - you might say the same about our traditional picture of her relationship with Robert Dudley.”
Subjects: Biography, Courts and courtiers, History, Queens, Relations with men, Royal Favorites, Court and courtiers, Elizabeth i, queen of england, 1533-1603, Leicester, robert dudley, earl of, 1532?-1588, Queens, great britain, Great britain, biography, Great britain, history, elizabeth, 1558-1603, Great britain, court and courtiers
Places: England, Great Britain
People: Elizabeth I Queen of England (1533-1603), Robert Dudley Leicester Earl of (1532?-1588)
Time periods: Elizabeth, 1558-1603