by Derek Wilson
It is a moving letter, even when we take into account that it was written at a time when hearts were prone to be worn on sleeves and by a man desperate to save himself from a traitor’s death. Was Dudley moved by it? He could not have accepted the writer’s ingenuous plea that he had no cause to be angry with his old comrade in arms. Ever since January 1549, Somerset had consistently presumed upon and abused the ‘friendship and amity’ to which he now appealed. On the other hand, Dudley knew that the ‘persuasions of others’ were seeking to drive a wedge between him and the duke for their own purposes. Clearly, John Dudley did feel a residual affection for Edward Seymour. Their paths had run close and parallel for too long for him to be indifferent to the latter’s fate. Despite all the provocations he had been offered, he only entered late into the intrigues against the Protector and all he wanted to do was reduce Somerset to the level of equality with the other executors of the late king’s will. Wriothesley certainly, and others possibly, had a more drastic fate in mind for the chief enemy of Catholic truth and the landed interest, and Dudley obviously knew the hatred that motivated them. A few weeks later it was he who delivered Somerset from the wrath of his sworn enemies. So it would seem that the virtual prisoner at Windsor did not appeal in vain for sympathetic treatment.
Dudley’s collaboration with the friends of Rome at this time has been variously interpreted over the centuries. Some have assumed that he was a cynical politician who lacked religious principles and would always go with the flow. Others have suggested that he was playing cat and mouse with the Catholic leaders and following a cleverly worked out plan. Both assessments cannot be right; in my opinion neither is. According to contemporaries, Dudley was a man who was difficult to ‘read’. The experienced diplomat and humanist scholar, Sir Richard Morison, described him as someone who had ‘such a head that he seldom went about anything but he conceived first three or four purposes beforehand.’ A French communiqué placed a much more sinister interpretation on the hidden workings of Dudley’s mind. Dudley possessed, said the writer, ‘great acumen’ and carried himself with such dignity that ‘those less well acquainted with him considered him worthy to be the governor of the realm.’ He was ‘affable, gracious and kind in speech’. He was lavish both in his own lifestyle and in his generosity towards others. But all this outward show concealed an inner man who was ‘proud, vindictive and disdainful of any who opposed him’.40 What this comes down to is that John Dudley was secretive and politically cautious. But to be secretive is not to be duplicitous and being politically cautious is not the same as being by nature conspiratorial. In the extremely uncertain days of late summer and autumn 1549 he would have been a foolish man indeed who allowed all and sundry to know his plans and opinions. Dudley had been drawn by others into the plot against Somerset, albeit with a certain amount of grim relish. Once in and forced to keep company with ruthless men more adept than himself at political manoeuvring he was circumspect, and wisely so.
Sunday 13 October was the major turning point in the life of John Dudley and of the nation. That was the day that the Duke of Somerset yielded up the protectorate. On Monday he was conveyed to the Tower where his guards provided him with comfortable quarters and enforced a strict ban on all unapproved visitors. Dudley stepped into the vacant position of government leader by virtue of the constitutional arrangements established in Henry VIII’s will. This had entrusted the new king and the realm, not to the Council, but to the executors named therein. That body was much more evenly balanced between the conservative and progressive parties than was the Council. Dudley was now the undisputed leader of the evangelicals and, with the firm support of Cranmer, constituted a formidable force. With the removal of Somerset and his adherents at court the first priority was to provide the young king’s entourage with replacements acceptable to him and to the new government. Among those ‘safe’ courtiers appointed to the chamber staff were the Marquess of Northampton, Sir Thomas Wroth, Sir Thomas Darcy, Lord Wentworth and Sir Andrew Dudley, Warwick’s brother, all friends of reform. The Earl of Arundel was the only conservative appointee. Dudley took over from Somerset as Lord Great Chamberlain and, at the earliest possible opportunity (19 October), resumed his position as Lord Admiral.
It now remained for him to gather into his hands all the reins of government. Over the next few weeks the battle was on for the control of the Council. The executors installed new members in order to outweigh the Catholics. But Wriothesley and his colleagues did not give up without a struggle and Van der Delft, for one, was confident of their eventual triumph:
the archbishop of Canterbury still holds his place in the council, but I do not believe they will leave him there unless he improves . . . they are not yet making any show of intending to restore religion, in order that their first appearance in government may not disgust the people, who are totally infected. But every man among them is now devoted to the old faith, except the Earl of Warwick, who is none the less taking up the old observances . . . and it seems probable that he will reform himself entirely . . .41
But the ambassador was not the only foreign observer reading the entrails and seeing in them what he wanted to see. The Swiss reformer, John ab Ulmis, was writing home about the same time in equally gloating vein:
I am able to write to you as a most certain fact that Antichrist in these difficult and perilous times is again cast down by the general decision of all the leading men in all England; and that not only have they decided that the religion adopted last year is the true one, but a doubly severe penalty has been imposed upon all who neglect it. There is nothing therefore for the godly to fear, and nothing for the papists to hope for . . .42
Van der Delft still believed, in mid-October, that Wriothesley was the dominant figure at the Council board. However, within three weeks, he had come to realize that the balance of personalities was somewhat different. While he was encouraged that Wriothesley was lodged at court where ‘a great number of lords’ resorted to him, he went on to note that Wriothesley had ‘most authority with the earl of Warwick’, thereby tacitly acknowledging that the latter was making the running. No major household or government office came Wriothesley’s way. Indeed, the responsibility he was given, for the defence of Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight, might well have been no more than a ploy to remove him from the centre of power. Parliament under the direction of the Council had begun to dismantle much of Somerset’s social legislation but there was little sign that the process of religious reform was to be dealt with in the same way. Indeed, on 30 October, a royal proclamation was issued in order to scotch rumours about a reversal of religious policy. The ‘old Romish service, mass and ceremonies’, it declared were not about to be restored. It was becoming increasingly obvious that the English Reformation had not been halted by the change of regime.
This did not mean that tension had eased. The leading Catholics, frustrated by the failure of their bid for dominance in Council and chamber, scanned a wider horizon in their desperation to find some way of halting the evangelical bandwagon. They worked for a treaty with the emperor against the French. They renewed their intrigues with Princess Mary’s household. Both avenues turned into culs-de-sac and when Sir Thomas Arundel was discovered to be in secret correspondence with Mary, Dudley responded swiftly and angrily by blocking his appointment as the new Comptroller of the Household.
In the second half of November both great rivals were confined to their homes by illness. Dudley was, apparently, troubled with a ‘rheum in the head’. Wriothesley’s indisposition was, if we believe contemporary reports, more serious:
. . . the earl of Southampton is ill and in danger of death. If he were to fail us now I should fear matters might never be righted . . . a good part of the council is now well disposed but would astray and follow the rest without him for there is not a man among them of sound enough judgement to conduct opposition . . .43
So Van der Delft mournfully reported on 26 November. Wriothesley had for some weeks absented himself from Counc
il meetings and according to one source was suffering from consumption. However, he was well enough a few days later to ride to the Tower with some of his colleagues to interrogate Somerset and this might suggest that his malady was, in part at least, psychological. The seasoned intriguer had allowed himself to believe that he would triumph over his enemies and God’s enemies and being outmanoeuvred by Dudley may have plunged him into black depression from which he was only roused by the prospect of giving Somerset the third degree. Bullying prisoners was something for which Wriothesley had a distinct flair. Several men and women had suffered questioning and, in some cases, torture at his hands when the government required information or confession, Catherine Howard, Anne Askew, the Earl of Surrey, to mention just the more celebrated. Thomas Wriothesley was a man who derived personal satisfaction from destroying careers and lives. Interrogating the hated Somerset would have been a treat he would not have wanted to deny himself, sickness or no sickness.
What emerged from this examination was a wild plot, the last desperate throw of the Catholic dice. It is reminiscent of the strikes against Cranmer and Catherine Parr, in which Wriothesley was also involved; yet another attempt to decapitate the evangelical cause. Under interrogation Somerset’s defence was that he had done nothing without the approval of the Council. It occurred to Wriothesley and his co-conspirators that if the ex-Protector were put on trial and made the same claim, then his inevitable condemnation must stain the leading radical councillors who had backed him. Richard Scudamore, a London evangelical who passed on news to his friend Sir Philip Hoby at the imperial court, claimed to know what was afoot. Wriothesley planned to bring down two birds, Somerset and Dudley, with one stone:
. . . being hot to be revenged of the both for old grudges past when he lost his office, [he] said . . . I thought ever we should find them traitors both; and both is worthy to die for by my advice. My lord of Arundel in like manner gave his consent they were both worthy to die, and concluded there that the day of execution of the lord protector the earl of Warwick should be sent to the Tower and have as he had deserved.44
Wriothesley’s indisposition might have obliged him to be absent from the Council. Dudley used the excuse of an attack of rheum to make the Council come to him. Frequent meetings were held in his Holborn mansion, where he could more easily dominate the proceedings. Thither the whole Council was summoned to hear the reports of Somerset’s examination and to decide on the prisoner’s fate. The scene in Dudley’s bedchamber, even if exaggerated, carries conviction. It was coloured with that sense of theatre for which Dudley had a penchant. The members of England’s executive ascended to the main chamber of Ely House and were ushered in by a servant. There they discovered the Earl propped up on cushions, with ‘a warlike visage’ and one hand resting on a long broadsword which lay upon the coverlet. As they stood or sat around the great bed, Wriothesley enumerated Somerset’s faults and commented on his demeanour. He gave it as his judicial opinion that the duke was guilty of ‘many high treasons’, for which the penalty was death. Everyone looked to the sick man for his reaction. Dudley’s reply was brief, blunt and unequivocal: ‘My Lord, you seek his blood and he that seeketh his blood would have mine also.’45 The message to the councillors was clear; ‘whoever is not for us is against us.’ From this point on it became obvious that Dudley planned to release Somerset and would probably readmit him to the Council. The Reformation would stay on track and probably gather momentum. Above all, it appeared that England had a new master.
10
The Cares that Wait upon a Crown
England had a king and one who was no longer a child. At twelve years of age Edward was already showing signs, or so his tutors averred, of becoming the third great Tudor monarch. He resembled his grandfather more than his father, serious beyond his years, meticulous about taking notes and keeping records, emotionally detached almost to the point of cruelty and, above all, intensely religious. He seemed to be growing steadily into the role allotted him of England’s Josiah, after the great reformist king of the Old Testament, and there was every indication that he would become an extremely capable monarch. According to Hooper the boy’s devout and scholarly disposition set the tone for all the members of his household (which included at least two of Dudley’s sons):
He receives with his own hand a copy of every sermon that he hears and most diligently requires an account of them after dinner from those who study with him. Many of the boys and youths who are his companions in study are well and faithfully instructed in the fear of God and in good learning.1
Several of these ‘boys and youths’ would become the mature courtiers of Elizabeth’s reign and ensure a continuity of Protestant idealism.
Historians inevitably compare Somerset and John Dudley as ‘uncrowned kings’ of England but the circumstances in which the two men found themselves were very different. Somerset was the closest relative of a child monarch and could never throw off the pretensions that arose from the fact that he and Edward had shared blood. He believed that this gave him a special place in the state and certainly set him above his fellow councillors. Dudley, by contrast, was very conscious that he was the first among equals, and sometimes he even eschewed that eminence in his dealings with his colleagues. As for his relationship with the king he understood that his was only a caretaker position. No one could foresee that Henry VIII’s only son would die young. Everyone expected him to grow into a monarch who would achieve the same regal stature as his father and grandfather. In a little more than five years Edward would assume full control. Those years would be vitally important for king and country and Dudley saw himself as having a dual role during this period. He had to tutor the young king in all aspects of policy and that meant persuading Edward to endorse those attitudes and decisions of which his Council approved. At the same time he had to encourage Edward to develop his own ideas. He had fertile ground to work with in this respect, for the boy already possessed a determined, not to say stubborn, streak.
The fact that Somerset and Dudley exercised the same de facto power in government is not as relevant as the fact that they understood and used that power differently. Professor Hoak, the expert on Edward VI’s Council, has succinctly pointed out the distinctive features of their attitudes. Somerset, he explains, ‘called together only so many councillors as he thought it convenient to consult occasionally.’ Dudley ‘exercised very much the same power as the Lord President of an organised, continuously working board staffed by his supporters or appointees.’2 On Somerset’s fall the offices of Protector of the Realm and Royal Governor were abolished. Government then devolved constitutionally upon the body of executors appointed by Henry VIII. This group assumed the right to nominate members of the Council. Dudley now dominated it and was able to expel Wriothesley and Arundel from the Council and replace them with his own allies. He assumed the office of President of the Council and since he also became Lord Great Master of the Household he was supreme in the two centres of power. There was nothing novel about one man holding both these positions; it had become customary to link them. In fact, what Dudley did was restore the honour of the council presidency which had become a cypher under Somerset’s regency. What was new was the transformation of prestige offices into an effective power base.
The relationship between Dudley, the king and the Council looked different from different perspectives. A French diplomat regarded the Lord President as nothing but a cynical manipulator. Dudley, he reported,
had given such an opinion of himself to the young King that he [the King] revered him as if he were himself one of his subjects – so much so that the things which he knew to be desired by Northumberland [Dudley became Duke of Northumberland in October 1551] he himself decreed in order to please the Duke and also to prevent the envy which would have been produced had it been known that it was he [the duke] who had suggested these things to the king. He [Northumberland] had placed [in the King’s household] a chamberlain, [Sir John] Gates who was his intimate friend and p
rincipal instrument which he used in order to induce the King to something when he did not want it to be known that it had proceeded from himself; [it was Gates] who was to report back to him everything said to the King, for this Gates was continually in the Chamber . . . All of the others who were in the Chamber of the said [King] were creatures of the Duke. [Sir Henry] Sidney was his son-in-law and it can be said that he had acquired so great an influence near the King that he was able to make all of his notions conform to those of the Duke. When there was anything of importance which he [Northumberland] wanted to be done or said by the King without it being known that it had proceedeth by his motion, he visited the King secretly at night in the King’s Chamber, unseen by anyone, after all were asleep. The next day the young Prince came to his council and proposed matters as if they were his own.3
This can scarcely be considered an impartial assessment and was written after Dudley’s disgrace and execution. However, it was certainly true that the Lord President relied very closely on friends, relatives and clients placed about the king. This does not bear an inevitably sinister interpretation. In the immediate aftermath of the October 1549 coup Somerset’s cronies in the Chamber were replaced by ‘safe’ men including the Earl of Northampton and Sir Andrew Dudley. Of those specifically referred to by the French observer as Dudley’s ‘creatures’, Sir John Gates had been on the privy chamber staff during the last years of the old king and had been a close associate of Sir Anthony Denny. Henry Sidney had been a constant companion of Prince Edward from his earliest days and was one of the boy’s intimate friends. Most of the young king’s other companions were men in whose company he had grown up and with whom he was comfortable. They were chosen as much for their acceptability to Edward as for their loyalty to Dudley. As for those private, nocturnal audiences, they suggest the very opposite of what the French critic implied. Here was the king’s ‘business manager’ actually meeting with his sovereign to explain the intricacies of national and international affairs and to elicit the royal endorsement. He would have been far more culpable if, like Somerset, he had attempted to run the country without reference to the titular monarch.