 Like her brother Lord Robert, the royal favourite, she belonged to the Queen's closest companions.In the 1559 negotiations over Archduke Charles, the Habsburg candidate for Elizabeth's hand, she acted as go-between for the Queen and her own brother in their dealings with the Spanish ambassador Álvarez de Quadra and his Imperial colleague, Caspar von Brüner.Through Mary Dudley, Elizabeth discreetly indicated her serious intention to marry the Archduke and that he should immediately come to England.