Mary loaded him with gifts and honours. When Elizabeth succeeded to the throne, she appointed him Master of Horse to the Crown, and restored his family lands which the treasonable rising had forfeited. Robert Dudley became the rising sun in the young Queen's court. Debonair, handsome, witty and fearless, there seemed to be little to which he would hot dare aspire. Yet, even then, it would have needed a bold prophet to suggest him os the future King of; England.
And then Elizabeth began to be: stow'on him "smiles which differ-fent from those which she gave s0. Treely to the other professed admire fs of her person, Unfortunately for him, there was a fly in the ointment of his ambition. He had a young wife He had married in early life young beauty called Amy Robsart whose wealth he meant to help him Upwards. When he began to rise al court, he immured his wife in a Tonely house in Berkshire and posed in London as a gay and eligible bachelor.
Many tales have been told of the death of Amy Robsari. Sir Walter in "Kenilworth," took the view his path towards the English throne Itfs certain, at least, that ugly ruincurs circulated even in Elizabeth's [court that the miserable girl had been poisoned. But the Queen frowned on Such tales. She made it perfectly lear that she would allow no hint fof scandal to mar the reputation of her handsome favourite. In those. days, there was a brief step between the Queen's frown and the scaffold.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.