When she assumed the throne in 1558, she made it clear to the members of her court that they shouldn't plan to have their wives or female companions around the place. She intended to be singular as she consolidated power, but perhaps she had another motive as well; by banishing the wives, Robert Dudley, newly appointed Master of the Horse to Her Majesty the Queen, was not required to send for his wife, Amy Robsart, to join him in London.

Elizabeth and Robert were not overly discreet in their enjoyment of one another's company, while the young queen's advisors, especially William Cecil, her Secretary of State, grew more and more insistent that Elizabeth find a suitable strategic marriage to enter into with some titled European. This, of course, was not to be. Her relationship with Robert became such a scandal that Cecil himself decided it would cause her government to fall, and everything carried on very precariously until the morning of September 8, 1560, when Amy Robsart was discovered dead at the bottom of a flight of stairs at her home at Cumnor Place. The scandal banished Robert from court for more than a year, and while he and Elizabeth would remain close for the rest of his life, the intense romance that characterized the beginnings of her reign was over.

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