Amy Robsart

1532–1560

Amy Robsart was the wife of Robert Dudley, later Earl of Leicester, and her death in 1560 became a major scandal at the Elizabethan court. Because Dudley was close to Elizabeth I, rumours surrounding Amy’s fall at Cumnor Place became politically dangerous and long-lived.

In Philippa Gregory’s The Virgin’s Lover, her intimacy with Robert Dudley creates pressure for marriage, even though Dudley’s wife Amy Robsart remains alive. In Jean Plaidy’s Lord Robert, their relationship could have culminated in marriage but for the existence of Amy Robsart, Robert's tragic young wife, who stood between them and refused to be swept away to satisfy a monarch’s desire for a man that was not rightfully her own.

Series

Series featuring Amy Robsart (2 series)

The Plantagenet and Tudor Novels in Order

by Philippa Gregory 16 books 4.4

The Plantagenet and Tudor novels form a chronological sequence of connected but independently readable stories about women near the English throne. They move from the Lancastrian court and the Wars of the Roses through the rise of the Tudors, Henry VIII’s marriages, the mid-Tudor religious crisis and the…

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4.2

Tudor Saga in Order

by Jean Plaidy 11 books 4.0

The Tudor Saga follows the dynasty from Henry VII’s insecure victory through the marriages of Henry VIII and the reigns of his children. The novels place queens, courtiers and claimants at the centre of religious change, diplomatic marriage and the succession crises that transformed sixteenth-century England.

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