Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester (1532-1588) was one of the most powerful figures in Elizabeth's court and was almost surely the person she would have married if she could have. Dudley was the son of John Dudley, Duke of Nothumberland, who had dominated the council of Edward VI and had engineered the attempt to put Lady Jane Grey on the throne in place of Mary I. Elizabeth had known Dudley when she was a princess. When she became queen, she made him her Master of Horse and his brother Ambrose became master of Ordinance (meaning that between them, they ran the military). In the 1560s he repeatedly sought to marry Elizabeth, but the suspicious death of his wife, Amy Robsart, made that impossible. Later he led Elizabeth's army against Spanish forces in the Netherlands, and commanded the army that prepared the defense of England against the Spanish Armada. He was the uncle of Sir Philip Sidney and the stepfather of Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex.