Robert Dudley's church and local influence

Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, received the lease of Denbigh Castle in 1563 and began a large church within the walled town, though little had been completed when he died in 1588. An eighteenth-century view shows the scale of the unfinished building. The idea that Dudley planned a cathedral is treated cautiously because its bishop could have become a rival centre of regional authority. A great church or priory-like institution one level below cathedral status would have served his interests better. Control over a valuable clerical living could reward ambitious priests and bind their careers to his patronage. The ruins therefore preserve an Elizabethan effort to project influence through religious office as well as architecture.