Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, was a favourite of Elizabeth I who gained popularity through military service and cultivated an image of Protestant chivalry. His expeditions in France, Spain and the Azores produced mixed results, and his command in Ireland ended in unauthorised negotiation and return to court.
After losing influence, Essex led a failed uprising in London in 1601. He was convicted of treason and executed. Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex was born in Bromyard and died in Tower of London.
Steven Veerapen’s Elizabeth and Essex examines Robert Devereux’s volatile relationship with Elizabeth I as a mixture of favour, military ambition, factional rivalry and frustrated expectations that ends in rebellion and execution. Tony Riches’s Essex – Tudor Rebel makes Devereux himself the centre of a biographical novel following his rise at court, campaigns and disastrous return from Ireland. Philip Gooden’s Death of Kings brings the Essex Rebellion into the playhouse, where a performance of Richard II commissioned by his supporters becomes evidence of political intent. Margaret George’s Elizabeth I portrays Essex through the queen’s later reign, when his charm and ambition turn from asset to danger. William Savage’s Paying in Blood uses the rebellion and its aftermath as part of the political world surrounding a murder investigation at the end of Elizabeth’s reign.
