Kenilworth

The tragic story of the secret marriage of Amy Robsart to Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, favourite and potential consort of the Queen, is imbued with the drama of Tudor England, its exuberance of spirit, vigor of language, violence and treachery, ostentation and gaiety, shifts and stratagems, and above all, its pervading sense of transience. Steeped in and engrossed by historic England, Scott relished the opportunity to create a pageant of Elizabethan life.
From the swashbuckling Lambourne to the Machiavellian Varney, from the vacillating Leicester to Amy and the Queen herself, Scott grasps something of the passions of Marlowe, the histrionics of Kyd and the cynicism of Marston. Kenilworth comes as close to the theatrical and the melodramatic as Rob Roy or The Bride of Lammermoor, and Scott's sheer zest in writing is there for any reader to enjoy.