Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester

The last significant attempt to record the broad facts of Leicester's remarkable career was published in 1727, while much more recently there have been books that dealt centrally with his relationship with Elizabeth I. Particularly important in reviving interest in him was the publication in 1955 of Eleanor Rosenberg's Leicester, Patron of Letters, a detailed study that broke new ground, and was followed in 1969 by Wallace MacCaffery's The Shaping of the Elizabethan Regime, which moved Leicester towards the centre of Elizabethan politics. It became clearer that the Earl was not simply an ornament at Elizabeth's court, but a leading and influential figure in the Privy Council, the heart of the administration. He worked in tandem with Walsingham against the measured prevarications of Burghley and his faction, and the Earl's intimacy with the Queen was critical in the shift in foreign policy that developed after the Massacre of St. Bartholomew's. By the mid-1580s Leicester was the leading figure of the conciliar group that sought an active, interventionist policy against Spain.