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Elizabeth and Leicester
An absorbing and illuminating account of the relationship between Robert Dudley and Queen Elizabeth I-a dramatic romance that has inspired countless films. Leicester's influence on the Queen was constant and incalculable, though he was reviled by his fellow courtiers, detested by the populace, and lampooned by writers. His character; lavish entertaining; encouragement of the arts; and day-to-day activities as he rose from courtier to leader of the English forces all come vividly to life.
384 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1961
95 people want to read
About the author
Elizabeth Jenkins
48 books58 followersFrom Elizabeth Jenkins' obituary in The New York Times:
As a novelist, Ms. Jenkins was best known for “The Tortoise and the Hare” (1954), the story of a disintegrating marriage between a barrister and his desperate wife that Hilary Mantel, writing in The Sunday Times of London in 1993, called “as smooth and seductive as a bowl of cream.” Its author, Ms. Mantel wrote, “seems to know a good deal about how women think and how their lives are arranged; what women collude in, what they fear.”
To a wider public Ms. Jenkins was known as the author of psychologically acute, stylishly written, accessible biographies. Most dealt with important literary or historical figures, but in “Joseph Lister” (1960) she told the life of the English surgeon who pioneered the concept of sterilization in medicine, and in “Dr. Gully’s Story” (1972) she reconstructed a Victorian murder and love triangle.
Margaret Elizabeth Jenkins was born on Oct. 31, 1905, in Hitchin, Hertfordshire, where a year earlier her father had founded Caldicott, a prep school.
She studied English and history at Newnham College, Cambridge, where at the time women could take exams but not receive degrees. The principal of the college was Pernel Strachey, sister of the biographer and Bloomsbury figure Lytton Strachey, and through her Ms. Jenkins met Edith Sitwell and Leonard and Virginia Woolf.
She found the company intellectually distinguished but rude and unpleasant. Woolf’s description of Ms. Jenkins’s first novel, “Virginia Water” (1929), as “a sweet white grape of a book” did not erase the impression.
Despite good reviews for her first novel and a three-book deal with the publisher Victor Gollancz, Ms. Jenkins began teaching English at King Alfred’s School in Hampstead, where she remained until the outbreak of World War II.
In this period she wrote two of her most admired biographies, “Lady Caroline Lamb” (1932) and “Jane Austen” (1938), as well as the chilling “Harriet” (1934), a novel about the sufferings of a mentally disabled woman whose husband, a scheming clerk, marries for her money.
During the war Ms. Jenkins worked for the Assistance Board, helping Jewish refugees and victims of the German air raids on London. She later worked for the Board of Trade and the Ministry of Information.
“Elizabeth the Great” (1958) showed her biographical talents at their most effective. Although she relied on the standard historical sources, Ms. Jenkins added a psychological dimension to her portrait that other historians had scanted.
The historian Garrett Mattingly, in a review, wrote that Ms. Jenkins “is really not much interested in war and diplomacy, politics and finance.” Her specialty, he argued, was the human heart. “We believe Elizabeth Jenkins,” he added, “because, by imaginative insight and instinctive sympathy, she can make the figures of a remote historical pageant as real, as living, as three-dimensional as characters in a novel.”
Ms. Jenkins returned to the Elizabethan period in “Elizabeth and Leicester” (1961) and roamed further afield in “The Mystery of King Arthur” (1975) and “The Princes in the Tower” (1978). In “Six Criminal Women” (1949), she presented short studies of two murderers, a pickpocket, a blackmailer and a con artist living between the 14th and 19th centuries. A more wholesome gallery of characters was put on view in “Ten Fascinating Women” (1955).
In 1940 she helped found the Jane Austen Society and took part in its campaign to buy Austen’s house at Chawton, where Austen spent the last eight years of her life. It is now a museum.
Her novels included “Doubtful Joy” (1935), “The Phoenix’ Nest” (1936), “Robert and Helen” (1944), “Brightness” (1963) and “Honey” (1968).
In 2004 Ms. Jenkins published a memoir, “The View From Downshire Hill.” Its title refers to the Hampstead neighborhood whe
As a novelist, Ms. Jenkins was best known for “The Tortoise and the Hare” (1954), the story of a disintegrating marriage between a barrister and his desperate wife that Hilary Mantel, writing in The Sunday Times of London in 1993, called “as smooth and seductive as a bowl of cream.” Its author, Ms. Mantel wrote, “seems to know a good deal about how women think and how their lives are arranged; what women collude in, what they fear.”
To a wider public Ms. Jenkins was known as the author of psychologically acute, stylishly written, accessible biographies. Most dealt with important literary or historical figures, but in “Joseph Lister” (1960) she told the life of the English surgeon who pioneered the concept of sterilization in medicine, and in “Dr. Gully’s Story” (1972) she reconstructed a Victorian murder and love triangle.
Margaret Elizabeth Jenkins was born on Oct. 31, 1905, in Hitchin, Hertfordshire, where a year earlier her father had founded Caldicott, a prep school.
She studied English and history at Newnham College, Cambridge, where at the time women could take exams but not receive degrees. The principal of the college was Pernel Strachey, sister of the biographer and Bloomsbury figure Lytton Strachey, and through her Ms. Jenkins met Edith Sitwell and Leonard and Virginia Woolf.
She found the company intellectually distinguished but rude and unpleasant. Woolf’s description of Ms. Jenkins’s first novel, “Virginia Water” (1929), as “a sweet white grape of a book” did not erase the impression.
Despite good reviews for her first novel and a three-book deal with the publisher Victor Gollancz, Ms. Jenkins began teaching English at King Alfred’s School in Hampstead, where she remained until the outbreak of World War II.
In this period she wrote two of her most admired biographies, “Lady Caroline Lamb” (1932) and “Jane Austen” (1938), as well as the chilling “Harriet” (1934), a novel about the sufferings of a mentally disabled woman whose husband, a scheming clerk, marries for her money.
During the war Ms. Jenkins worked for the Assistance Board, helping Jewish refugees and victims of the German air raids on London. She later worked for the Board of Trade and the Ministry of Information.
“Elizabeth the Great” (1958) showed her biographical talents at their most effective. Although she relied on the standard historical sources, Ms. Jenkins added a psychological dimension to her portrait that other historians had scanted.
The historian Garrett Mattingly, in a review, wrote that Ms. Jenkins “is really not much interested in war and diplomacy, politics and finance.” Her specialty, he argued, was the human heart. “We believe Elizabeth Jenkins,” he added, “because, by imaginative insight and instinctive sympathy, she can make the figures of a remote historical pageant as real, as living, as three-dimensional as characters in a novel.”
Ms. Jenkins returned to the Elizabethan period in “Elizabeth and Leicester” (1961) and roamed further afield in “The Mystery of King Arthur” (1975) and “The Princes in the Tower” (1978). In “Six Criminal Women” (1949), she presented short studies of two murderers, a pickpocket, a blackmailer and a con artist living between the 14th and 19th centuries. A more wholesome gallery of characters was put on view in “Ten Fascinating Women” (1955).
In 1940 she helped found the Jane Austen Society and took part in its campaign to buy Austen’s house at Chawton, where Austen spent the last eight years of her life. It is now a museum.
Her novels included “Doubtful Joy” (1935), “The Phoenix’ Nest” (1936), “Robert and Helen” (1944), “Brightness” (1963) and “Honey” (1968).
In 2004 Ms. Jenkins published a memoir, “The View From Downshire Hill.” Its title refers to the Hampstead neighborhood whe
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
April 18, 2023
Compared to works on the period by A.L. Rowse, this was a relatively easy read, the sixteenth century English being somewhat modernized and the joint biography following a roughly chronological schematization. Although treating of both Elizabeth and Robert Dudley, the account basically ends with his death and the disposition of his remains, Elizabeth surviving into the early seventeenth century.
Judging by the detail, the relationship between the two is amply documented by extant correspondences. However, author Jenkins appears, judging by her footnotes, to rely heavily on secondary works by others rather than by an examination of the documentary evidences themselves.
The real hero of this book is Elizabeth I. Despite her neuroses, amply discussed, she was, in the author's opinion, an exceptionally good monarch and accomplished individual truly devoted to her office on behalf of the English people. Leicester, her most constant, albeit unconsummated, lover comes across as a much more complicated, and less admirable, figure. An English Protestant, he dealt traitorously with Spanish Catholics; projected as Elizabeth's most devoted lover, he had affairs with several women, marrying one of more of them; a military leader, he was incapable of utilizing superior commander. He was generous and he was selfish. He was kind and he was cruel. In short, while a coherently clear picture of Elizabeth is provided, Leicester's remains murky.
Judging by the detail, the relationship between the two is amply documented by extant correspondences. However, author Jenkins appears, judging by her footnotes, to rely heavily on secondary works by others rather than by an examination of the documentary evidences themselves.
The real hero of this book is Elizabeth I. Despite her neuroses, amply discussed, she was, in the author's opinion, an exceptionally good monarch and accomplished individual truly devoted to her office on behalf of the English people. Leicester, her most constant, albeit unconsummated, lover comes across as a much more complicated, and less admirable, figure. An English Protestant, he dealt traitorously with Spanish Catholics; projected as Elizabeth's most devoted lover, he had affairs with several women, marrying one of more of them; a military leader, he was incapable of utilizing superior commander. He was generous and he was selfish. He was kind and he was cruel. In short, while a coherently clear picture of Elizabeth is provided, Leicester's remains murky.
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September 1, 2016I thoroughly enjoyed this history of Elizabeth and Robert Dudley. The author gives the reader known facts, comments on speculation and rumor, and weaves a clear historical picture of Elizabeth I's relationship with Dudley and several of her important courtiers. She also gives a clear picture of life among the upper classes of England at that time.
December 28, 2013
This book was one of the books I read on the subject of the death of Amy Robsart. It is fairly well researched, however there are a few inaccuracies. They are not about any of the main details, however a better source is Chris Skidmore's Death and the Virgin Queen.
May 11, 2025
Within the first paragraph Jenkins states the Tudors established a reign with “three of the most able sovereigns in history”.
I stopped, and immediately pitched it.
Elizabeth was capable.
Henry VIII was an absolute, utter tyrant who gleefully announced he would crush his people because he hated them so much. His father, Henry VII, obtained the throne through conspiracy and chance. He was so wildly unpopular that by the end of his reign people were rejoicing at his death. He was stingy beyond the point of being careful, distrustful and manipulative, and restored laws enforcing “voluntary donations” from the people/cities to fund his personal avarice.
Edward VI was barely king, and wildly fanatical, accomplishing nothing in his brief reign.
Mary I was literally “Bloody Mary” who tried through torture and death to force Catholicism back into a country that didn’t want it, and were dying for that freedom.
So…..no. There were not three capable, able Tudors.
I stopped, and immediately pitched it.
Elizabeth was capable.
Henry VIII was an absolute, utter tyrant who gleefully announced he would crush his people because he hated them so much. His father, Henry VII, obtained the throne through conspiracy and chance. He was so wildly unpopular that by the end of his reign people were rejoicing at his death. He was stingy beyond the point of being careful, distrustful and manipulative, and restored laws enforcing “voluntary donations” from the people/cities to fund his personal avarice.
Edward VI was barely king, and wildly fanatical, accomplishing nothing in his brief reign.
Mary I was literally “Bloody Mary” who tried through torture and death to force Catholicism back into a country that didn’t want it, and were dying for that freedom.
So…..no. There were not three capable, able Tudors.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews