The family behind the Tudors

Queen Elizabeth I was resplendent, the crimson red of her wig offset by flowing white and the flash of steel, as she spoke to the troops assembled at West Tilbury on 19 August 1588. Her words, “I know I have the body of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart and stomach of a king”, would echo though the ages.

This was precisely what the architect of that moment, Sir Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, had in mind when he had written to his queen less than two weeks before, asking her to visit the troops at Tilbury: “Thus shall you comfort, not only these thousands, but many more that shall hear of it.” It was no accident that he stood beside her on that day as she publicly commended him: “My lieutenant general... whom never prince commanded a more noble or worthy general.” The words were recorded for posterity, just as he had intended them to be.

That Robert Dudley, the brother, son and grandson of traitors, should stand beside the queen at such a moment would have shocked many. Four years earlier, he had been described in the pamphlet as a man “of so extreme ambition, pride, falsehood and treachery, so born, so bred up, so nuzzled in treason from his infancy, descended of a tribe of traitors”. Nevertheless, every Tudor monarch had relied on the Dudley family for security, support and popularity. Members of the house of Dudley had been sacrificed to build up