Artwork to explore why Elizabeth I would not marry Robert Dudley
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Exclusive: Immersive artwork offering fresh perspective on queen’s relationship with courtier to go on display at Kenilworth Castle. The intimate relationship between Queen Elizabeth I and her courtier Robert Dudley, the 1st Earl of Leicester, has fascinated people for centuries.
![[A portrait of Robert Dudley by the nineteenth-century artist Louis Coblitz]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/fe9bba2dc6bd9361b5f998f0be349990feddbdb2/0_0_2716_3599/master/2716.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
Though she never married (and famously declared herself the “Virgin Queen”), the last Tudor monarch maintained a close bond with the earl for decades – one that has inspired a score of literary and screen depictions including Elizabeth (starring Cate Blanchett and Joseph Fiennes) and Elizabeth I (starring Helen Mirren and Jeremy Irons).
![[The Elizabethan garden at Kenilworth Castle in Warwickshire]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/e0229eb4263bd354feec088eeffc825c34321c83/0_0_4186_2511/master/4186.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
Now, an immersive artwork offering a fresh perspective on the relationship is to be installed at Kenilworth Castle, the former home of Dudley that Elizabeth visited 450 years ago in what became her longest visit to a courtier’s residence. English Heritage has commissioned the artist Lindsey Mendick to create the work at the site in Warwickshire, where the Tudor queen spent nearly three weeks in the summer of 1575 – 10 years after she evaded Dudley’s marriage proposal on Christmas Day 1565.
It is believed that Dudley spent years developing Kenilworth into a “wonder house” for Elizabeth’s entertainment, at immense cost. During her stay, he laid on lavish festivities, including fireworks, which were heard 20 miles away, and a garden created for her visit. All of this cost about £1,000 a day, the equivalent of about £7m in today’s money.
