Friday, September 3, 2010

Robert Dudley and Elizabeth Tudor Married in the Tower of London

Robert Dudley and Elizabeth Tudor were imprisoned in the Tower of London together for separate offenses during the reign of Queen Mary, Elizabeth's older sister. It is said that they became very close during their predicament.  Following is a quote from Alfred Dodd's book, The Marriage of Elizabeth Tudor.
"According to Froude (England, Vol. VI, p. 220), Elizabeth had been Dudley's playfellow in childhood. Whether so or not, they both met in the Tower under the shadow of the scaffold, for neither of them had any expectation of coming out alive. Their common fate naturally drew them together. As prisoners of note they were allowed a certain amount of freedom in the grounds. Deventer von Kunow, in Francis Bacon, Last of the Tudors, says that "a chronicle in the Tower states that the couple were married there by a monk" (p. 11). Yet Dudley was then a married man.

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