At the Royal Court, where his ducal father was autocrat, the handsome boy of all the accomplishments found immediate favour and rapid promotion.  He was dubbed a knight when most youths of his years were still wrestling with their Latin Grammar; he was appointed for life Master of the Buckhounds; and was chosen one of the six gilded youths who ministered to the King in the Privy Chamber.  And in love he was as precocious as at the Royal Court and in mental and manly accomplishments, for at eighteen we find him standing at the altar in the King’s Palace at Sheen, near Richmond, with his youthful Sovereign as best man.

Whether it was really a love-match or not is open to doubt, perhaps; for Robert Dudley seems to have had little voice in the choice of his bride.  For his elder brother, Guildford, the Duke chose a wife of exalted rank, none other than the Lady Jane Grey, grand-daughter of Louis XII.’s Queen and Henry VIII.’s sister.  But for his boy, Robert, a plain knight’s daughter seems to have been good enough in his eyes; and she was Amy, child of Sir John Robsart, of Siderstern, a lady whose fate was to be as full of pathos and tragedy as that of his brother Guildford’s wife.

For a time, however, Fortune seemed to smile on this union of the Duke’s son and the Knight’s daughter, who was as fair as she was to be unfortunate, and who was not without a goodly dower of Norfolk lands, on which her youthful husband settled for a few years of peaceful life.  He soon became a man of mark in the county of his adoption, taking the lead in local affairs, administering his estates with skill, and finally blossoming into a Member of Parliament to represent his neighbours at Westminster.  But the call of Court life was always in his ears; and many a long spell he stole from his wife and his rural duties to spend among the gaieties of Whitehall or the splendours of Henri II.’s French entourage.

With the death of the boy-king, Edward VI., a change tragic and unexpected came in the young knight’s life.  His ambitious father coveted a crown for his daughter-in-law, the Lady Jane Grey, whom he had induced Edward, on his death-bed, to nominate as his successor; and Northumberland, thus armed with Royal authority and spurred by his insatiable ambition, sought by force of arms to give effect to his scheme almost before the breath had left the late Sovereign’s body.  How his daring project failed is well-known history—­how the Princess Mary on her way southward to her throne eluded Robert Dudley, who was sent to intercept her; how she equally outwitted Northumberland and his army, and made her triumphant entry into London as Queen; and how her vengeance fell on those who had sought to snatch the crown from her.

From the Duke and Lady Jane to Robert Dudley, all the traitors who had conspired to do this dastardly deed were sent to cool their misguided ardour in the Tower, from which Northumberland, Jane and her husband were led to the headsman’s block; while Robert Dudley was among those who were left to languish in durance, and to while away the tedious hours of captivity by carving their emblems and names on the walls of their cells, where they may be seen to this day, or to stroll disconsolately on the Tower leads by way of melancholy exercise.