Rare letter to Elizabeth I from possible love interest sold for £32,700 A rare signed letter to Queen Elizabeth I from her lifelong friend and possible love interest, Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, has been sold for £32,700 – four times more than the estimated price.
Meanwhile, a letter written and signed by Henry VIII’s elder daughter Mary I, Queen of England and Ireland, known as Bloody Mary, fetched £37,700 – more than double the asking price.
Dominic Somerville-Brown, specialist in rare books and manuscripts at Lyon & Turnbull, said: “The letter to Elizabeth from her lifelong favourite Robert Dudley provides a window on to one of history’s most famous love stories.
Wyatt’s Rebellion was intended by its leaders – members of parliament alarmed by Mary’s imminent marriage to Prince Philip of Spain – as a series of four co-ordinated uprisings to take place in Devon, Herefordshire, Leicestershire and Kent.
The document contains an enigmatic reference to an unspecified great matter of state, said to bear directly on the Queen’s life and likely relating to England’s policy towards Scotland in the aftermath of the Throckmorton plot of 1583.
