Dudley, Robert, Earl of Leicester (1532 -1588)

Robert Dudley was the fifth, but after 1557 the second surviving, son of John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland and Jane Guilford. Like his father and brothers, he was involved in the plot to place Lady Jane Grey on the throne, but was released from the Tower and pardoned on the 18 October 1554. He was made Master of the Ordnance at the Siege of St Quentin 1557, Master of the Horse to Queen Elizabeth, a Knight of the Garter in 1559, and created Earl of Leicester in 1564. In 1566 the French King Charles IX made him a Knight of the Order of St Michael. He was sent as Governor and Captain General to the United Provinces in 1585, and was made Lieutenant General in 1588. His taste for magnificence seems to have carried over to his books, more than seventy of which survive. The majority have stamp 4, usually with the initials R D. 5 and 6 were probably cut for the books on which they appear and were presents from Archbishop Matthew Parker, and bound in his bindery. The Nixon article contains a very full discussion of the binders who bound for Dudley with a list of all books from his library known to him.