Despite the humid evening, an excited crowd of history buffs packed the converted church hosting Lewes Speakers Festival to hear Tudor historian and novelist Alison Weir introducing her new novel.

Focusing on the long, flirtatious relationship between Elizabeth I and Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, Weir explained the psychological and practical reasons the Virgin Queen had for avoiding marriage, as well as the many ways her protagonists teased and tormented each other.

Excitement rippled through the audience as Weir described the recent discovery of the autopsy notes about the suspicious death of Dudley’s wife. Misfiled for over four centuries, they reveal that she suffered two blows to the head and a broken neck - pointing to foul play.

Speaking fluently from notes, quoting from her books and primary sources, and accompanied by a slideshow of paintings of Elizabeth and her court, Weir declaimed the monarch’s still-stirring Tilbury speech: “Though I am but a weak and feeble woman, I have the heart and stomach of a king – and a king of England too!”

It was impossible not to admire the queen’s calculated “marriage game”: in Weir’s words, she “exploited her marriageability to the advantage of her kingdom for a quarter of a century.”