In many respects Lord Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, was the most significant statesman of the Elizabethan Age, ranking only behind the queen herself in precedence. Dudley contributed to the nation's cultural, military, financial, and academic well-being, earning the esteem of Elizabeth, who was certainly enamored of him. Looking anew at the historical sources, Robert Stedall suggests that despite Elizabeth's carefully crafted public persona of the Virgin Queen, she was in fact much closer to Dudley than we may have supposed.