In the autumn of 1558, the church bells across England ring out the joyous news that Elizabeth I is the new queen.

One woman hears the tidings with utter dread. She is the Amy Dudley, wife of Sir Robert, and she knows that Elizabeth’s ambitious leap to the throne will snatch him back to the very centre of the glamorous Tudor court. Can Amy’s constant love compete with the allure of the new queen?

Elizabeth’s excited triumph is short-lived. She has inherited a bankrupt country, riven with enmity, where treason is normal and a foreign war a certainty. Her faithful advisor William Cecil warns her that she will only survive if she marries a strong prince, but the only man Elizabeth desires is her childhood friend, the irresistible Robert Dudley.

The Virgin’s Lover answers the question which has fascinated historians for centuries. Based on an unsolved Tudor incident, using documents and evidence from the time, Philippa Gregory paints a picture of a country on a brink of greatness, a young woman grasping at her power, a young man whose ambition is greater than his means and the wife who cannot forgive them.