Page "Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester" Paragraph 38

The prospect of marriage to the Countess of Essex on the horizon, Leicester finally drew a line under his relationship with Lady Douglas Sheffield.

Contrary to what she later claimed, they came to an amicable agreement over their son's custody.

Young Robert grew up in Dudley's and his friends ' houses, but had " leave to see " his mother until she left England in 1583.

Leicester was very fond of his son and gave him an excellent education.

In his will he left him the bulk of his estate ( after his brother Ambrose's death ), including Kenilworth Castle.

Douglas Sheffield remarried in 1579.

After the death of Elizabeth I in 1603, the younger Robert Dudley tried unsuccessfully to prove that his parents had married 30 years earlier in a secret ceremony.

In that case he would have been able to claim the earldoms of Leicester and Warwick.

His mother supported him, but maintained that she had been strongly against raising the issue and was possibly pressured by her son.

Leicester himself had throughout considered the boy as illegitimate.