Robert Dudley, first Earl of Leicester (1532/3–1588)
Artist: Steven van der Meulen (Flemish, active c. 1543–1563)
Date: ca. 1565
Medium: Oil on panel
Collection: Yale Center For British Art, New Haven, CT, United States
Description
This portrait gives a good sense of Robert Dudley’s assertive, self-regarding, and ambitious character. It was painted when he was still a credible suitor for the hand of Elizabeth I. Dudley retained his status as the queen’s favorite his whole life and was rewarded with appointments in the royal household, and grants of land and titles. But he never won the ultimate prize of marrying the queen. In 1560 his wife, Amy Rosbart, was found dead at the foot of a flight of stairs. Though probably an accident, suggestions that Dudley had removed her to make way for the queen did lasting damage to his reputation. A patron of Continental artists, and always conscious of his image, he had the Italian painter Federico Zuccaro make pendant portraits of him and Elizabeth I in 1575. But by this point Dudley’s ambitions to marry the queen were thwarted, and thereafter he poured his energy into war against Catholic Spain.
