Edmund Dudley, an ambitious lawyer had led to his subsequent appointment within the king's Privy Council. Reflective of his growing-social status, widower Dudley had remarried; his bride was Elizabeth Grey, the daughter of Edward Grey, and his wife Elizabeth Talbot, daughter and heir of John Talbot, 1st Viscount Lisle - eldest son of John Talbot, 1st Earl of Shrewsbury from his second marriage to Margaret Beauchamp, the daughter of Richard Beauchamp, 13th Earl of Warwick.

In early summer 1528, an outbreak of 'sweating sickness', the unknown Tudor illness, spread throughout the city of London and subsequently the Royal Court. The three-month long epidemic saw 40,000 London residents become infected with this highly-contagious disease, over 80 percent of the city's population, with 2000 deaths that summer being attributed to 'the sweat'.

On 10 February 1604, Lettice Knollys, Dowager Countess of Leicester, filed a bill in the Court of the Star Chamber against Sir Robert Dudley, the illegitimate but acknowledged son of her second husband Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester. Dudley, also known as "Robin Sheffield", had disputed that he was not of illegitimate birth, but rather that he was born from a legal union between his parents - Leicester and his one time paramour Douglas Howard, Lady Sheffield.

At the time of her death in February 1608, Elizabeth Talbot, Countess of Shrewsbury, best known by her sobriquet "Bess of Hardwick", was one of the richest and powerful women in England, her fortunes having significantly risen throughout her lifetime.

On Good Friday, 14 April, Anne's personal physician, Dr Thomas Muffit, one of the witnesses to her will, noted that she presented as "very weak...more likely to die than live". Having been informed of her pending mortality, Dr Muffit encouraged the Duchess to set her affairs in order, including making changes to the will, as promised the previous week; Anne died on Easter Sunday, 16 April 1587.