by Derek Wilson
As David Starkey has remarked, ‘The history of the Dudleys and the Tudors was intertwined – like a tree and, Dudley’s many enemies would have said, its parasitical ivy.’8 The simile would certainly have appealed to several sixteenth-century observers and has broadly been sanctioned by the judgement of later historians. In fact the analogy is too simple. Not only does it do no justice to a remarkable family; it distorts our understanding of the age in which they lived. How then should we characterize the relationship of the two families? Is it helpful to think in terms of symbiosis, two organisms supporting and sustaining each other? This does not work because the relationship was fatal to the Dudleys. It seems that, surprisingly, the image that fits best is that of the tree and the ivy. With this difference: it is the Tudors who sucked life from the Dudleys and not vice-versa.
History has variously judged the ruling house which controlled the nation’s destiny during its most tumultuous and formative century. Henry VII and Henry VIII are granted a grudging admiration. Elizabeth retains the Gloriana image so carefully created for her by her managers. Mary may invoke a degree of sympathy among readers of her story but is unlikely ever to escape the epiphet ‘Bloody’. As for little Edward, he remains an enigmatic might-have-been. About the Dudleys, however, there has traditionally been a unity of opinion. The leaders of the dynasty have all been allotted their share in the black legend. Edmund has habitually been represented as, at worst, the instigator of harsh and unjust financial policies and, at best, the willing tool of a rapacious regime. John has gone down in popular legend as a villain second only to Richard Crookback; an ambitious schemer who made a bid for the Crown by trying to foist his daughter-in-law, Jane Grey, upon an unwilling nation. Only in recent years have historians begun to re-valuate Northumberland’s positive contribution to the political life of mid-sixteenth century England. As for Robert, the ludicrous libels of his enemies have enjoyed a vigorous afterlife. Historians routinely disapprove of court favourites but Leicester deserves better than to be dismissed with such scornful comments as, ‘England, indeed, was well rid of him’9 and ‘Leicester represented all that was worst in the politics and culture of the English Renaissance.’10
What I have tried to show in these pages is that the Dudleys were remarkable for two attributes – their talent and their loyalty. Their gifts varied. The family produced administrators, politicians, courtiers, patrons, soldiers and mariners. Yet, what they had in common were verve and imagination, the ability to think creatively and act decisively. Such people were vital to the Tudor regime. What the men and women who wore the crown understood was power – how to gain it and how to keep it. The Tudors – all of them, even Edward VI – were monsters. They had to be. Wielding despotic power was the only way to save England from falling back into anarchy. Between 1485 and 1603 the Crown survived frequent aristocratic rebellions, popular uprisings, plots and assassination attempts. In doing so it relied on state control of the judiciary, concentration of landed wealth in royal hands, trampling on the liberties of subjects and regimenting their religious beliefs. Such a regimen was seldom popular, never universally. It was inevitable, therefore, that the servants the rulers relied on to devise and execute the policies which kept them in power would bear the brunt of common criticism. The Dudleys accepted this – not, to be sure, with the same eagerness that they accepted the rewards of loyal service, but they were realists enough to know that unpopularity went with the territory.
The perquisites of high office were potentially enormous. Descended from the second son of a middling baronial family, the Dudleys rose to be among the wealthiest individuals in the land. They had no reason to apologize for that and nor has their biographer. The Dudleys, like their colleagues, had to play the game of Tudor politics by the established rules. They did so for personal and dynastic advantage. They also did so because there was no alternative. The four adult Tudors who reigned between 1485 and 1603 were strong-minded individuals who allowed their advisers very little latitude. Henry VII could keep councillors and privy chamber staff in line with an icy glance or sharp word. His son resorted to the knock on the door in the middle of the night. Elizabeth threw tantrums.
But Dudley loyalty was also based on conviction. All members of the family believed in the right of hereditary rulers to expect total obedience from their people. That belief even held firm when the monarch was a minor. It was Northumberland’s tragedy that he could not and would not back his own judgement against the fervently expressed will of an anointed king. The principle of strong monarchy was one that Sir Robert upheld in the advice he gave to James I, even though he had, personally, suffered appallingly from the exercise of royal will.
Each generation of this remarkable family gave one hundred per cent loyalty to their Tudor sovereigns. And the Tudors, ivy-like, absorbed for their own purposes everything the Dudleys had to give. Edmund Dudley, his son and grandsons stood at the right hand of royal power, and were tireless in supporting it. When regimes changed they were swept aside. Yet always the family returned to prominence, commended to their sovereign by their talents and their personal dedication. They sacrificed their health and, in some cases their lives, to preserve the Tudors in power. In the end they sacrificed not only their own dynasty but also their reputation. For generations to come the Dudleys were branded as malicious, treacherous, murderous, licentious, overweening, avaricious schemers. It is important to set the record straight.
When we put aside malice and prejudice and draw as close as we can to these remarkable people, the story that emerges is quite extraordinary. Two constant themes appear: the Dudleys were intensely loyal to every one of the Tudor autocrats. They exercised semi-regal power and came incredibly close to succeeding the Tudors as rulers of England. But it is not the might-have-beens of history that matter. The real value of studying the Dudley story lies in understanding what happened to them during the most formative century in our history. No other family survived utter degradation to rise to the summit of power, not once but twice. It is the ups and downs of the Dudleys that provide us with a new perspective on England’s most creative and destructive ruling dynasty. And no other family’s story reveals just how costly it was in the sixteenth century to remain
Droit et Loyal
References
The place of publication is London unless otherwise specified
Chapter 1 – Broad is the Path and Wide the Gate
1. D. R. Guttery, ‘The Two Johns: Patron and Parson’, in County Borough of Dudley Library, Museums and Arts Dept., Transcript No. 13 (1969), p. 4.
2. E. Hall, The Union of the Two Noble and Illustre Families of Lancastre and Yorke, ed. H. Ellis (1809).
3. No university registers exist for the years Edmund is supposed to have been there but Anthony Wood, the seventeenth-century historian of Oxford, in Athenae Oxoniensis, ed. P. Bliss (Oxford, 1813), I, p. 11, asserted that Edmund was a student (though he got the date wrong) and this is more likely to be true than otherwise.
4. Cal.S.P. Span., I, 178.
5. Ibid.
6. Edmund Dudley, The Tree of Commonwealth, ed. D. M. Brodie (Cambridge, 1948), p. 38.
Chapter 2 – Notoriety
1. Edmund Dudley, The Tree of Commonwealth, ed. D. M. Brodie (Cambridge, 1948, p. 101).
2. Ibid., p. 35.
3. E. Hall, The Union of the Two Noble and Illustre Families of Lancastre and Yorke, ed. H. Ellis (1809), pp. 499–500.
4. The Complete Works of St Thomas More, III, pt 2, ed. C. R. Thompson (New Haven, 1980), pp. 101–3.
5. Ibid., IV, E. Surtz, et al, eds., 1970, pp. 19–2.
6. Polydore Vergil, Anglica historia, ed. D. Hay, Camden Society, new series, LXXIV (1950), p. 147.
7. G. R. Elton, The Tudor Constitution (Cambridge, 1960), p. 18.
8. Francis Bacon, History of the Reign of Henry VII, ed. J. R. Lumley (1876), p. 217.
9. Francis Bacon, History of the Reign of King Henry VII, ed. J. Weinberger (1996), pp. 183–5.
; 10. J. Stow, A Survey of London, ed. C. L. Kingsford (Oxford, 1908), I, p. 224.
11. Letters and Papers of Henry VIII, I, I, 146.
12. S. J. Gunn, ‘The Courtiers of Henry VII’ in J. Guy, ed. The Tudor Monarchy, 1997, p. 179.
13. Dudley, op cit., p. 6.
14. Ibid, p. 6.
15. Letters and Papers of Henry VIII, I, pt 2, 3408 (28) (hereafter ‘L and P’); D. Knowles, The Monastic Orders in England (Cambridge, 1959), pp. 74–5.
16. Dudley, op. cit., p. 21.
17. Letters and Papers of Henry VIII, Add. I, i, 92.
Chapter 3 – A Tree and its Fruit
1. Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince, trans. W. K. Marriott (1992), p. 108.
2. Ibid., p. 108.
3. F. Grosse and T. Astle, eds, The Antiquarian Repository, 1807–9, II, p. 316; S. J. Gunn, ‘The Courtiers of Henry VII’, in J. Guy, ed., The Tudor Monarchy (1997), p. 165.
4. L and P of Henry VIII, I, 231.
5. C. J. Harrison, ‘The petition of Edmund Dudley’, English Historical Review, 87 (1972), pp. 82ff.
6. E. Hall, The Triumphant Reign of King Henry VIII, ed. C. Whibley (1904), I, 1.
7. Ibid.
8. S. J. Gunn, op cit., p. 170.
9. Ibid., p. 2.
10. L and P of Henry VIII, I, pt 2, pp. 1548–9.
11. Harrison, op. cit., p. 86.
12. Ibid., p. 87.
13. J. E. B. Mayor, ed., English Works of John Fisher, Earl English Text Society, extra series XXVII (1886), pt 1, p. 270.
14. Lord Herbert, History of Henry VIII (1719), I, p. 6.
15. Dudley, op. cit., p. 21.
16. Ibid., p. 39.
17. Ibid., p. 37.
18. Ibid., p. 25.
19. Ibid., p. 65.
20. Ibid., p. 24.
21. Ibid., p. 31.
22. Hall, The Triumphant Life . . ., I, p. 19.
23. J. Guy, Tudor England (Oxford, 1988), p. 81.
Chapter 4 – Connections
1. See Muriel St Clair Byrne, ed., The Lisle Letters (Chicago, 1981),I, p. 139. There can be no complete certainty about the early years of Arthur Platagenet. Edward IV sired more than one bastard son. Miss Byrne has looked into all the evidence and makes a good case for identifying him with a son born to Elizabeth Lucy, the king’s mistress in the 1460s.
2. Ibid., p. 149.
3. D. M. Loades, ed., The Papers of George Wyatt, Camden Society 4th series, V (1968), p. 5.
4. Calendar of State Papers, Spanish (hereafter ‘Cal. S.P. Span’), II. p. 71.
5. E. Hall, The Triumphant Reign of King Henry VIII, 1908, I, p. 43.
6. L and P of Henry VIII, I, 3903.
7. Byrne, ed., The Lisle Letters (Chicago, 1981), II, p. 571.
8. J. G. Russell, The Field of Cloth of Gold (1969), p. 2.
Chapter 5 – Crises and Calculations
1. Simon Fish, A Supplication for the Beggars, see G. R. Elton, The Tudor Constitution, (Cambridge, 1960), pp. 322–3.
2. A. A. Dollason, History of the Owners of Dudley Castle (Dudley, n.d.), pp. 46–7.
3. L and P of Henry VIII, X, 1045.
4. Ibid., XIII, App. 6.
5. Ibid., V, 1834.
6. R. Morison, A Discourse . . . Shewing the Godly and Vertuous Resolution . . ., in J. G. Nichols, ed., Literary Remains of Edward VI (1857), I, ccxxiv.
7. L and P of Henry VIII, VII, 309.
8. Ibid., IX, 886, VIII, 882.
9. Ibid., IX, App. 6.
10. G. R. Elton, The Tudor Constitution (Cambridge, 1960), p. 62.
11. Preamble to the Dissolution Act, 1536, Cf. Elton, op. cit., p. 374.
12. We know the date but the year is a surmise. It was certainly either 1532 or 1533. In later years it seems to have been assumed that Robert and Princiess Elizabeth were of an age and there is not good reason to doubt this.
13. P. F. Tytler, England Under the Reigns of Edward VI and Mary (1839), II, p. 155.
14. The National Archives, S.P. 15/4, No. 3.
15. L and P of Henry VIII, XIII, I, 337.
16. HMSC, Report on MSS Magdalene College, Cambridge, II, no. 729, pp. 1–2.
17. L and P of Henry VIII, X, 837.
Chapter 6 – The Pendulum and the Pit
1. L and P of Henry VIII, XI, 854.
2. Cal. S.P. Span, I, pp. 463–4.
3. L and P of Henry VIII, VIII, I, 995.
4. Ibid., XI, 816.
5. Ibid., XI, 909.
6. R. B. Merriman, Life and Letters of Thomas Cromwell, II, p. 95.
7. Ibid., p. 125.
8. L and P of Henry VIII, XIV, I, 1271.
9. Ibid., XIV, I, 1267.
10. R. Rex, ‘The friars in the English Reformation’, in P. Marshall and A. Ryrie, eds., The Beginnings of English Protestantism (Cambridge, 2002), p. 41.
11. R. B. Merriman, op. cit., I, p. 279.
12. W. Tyndale, The Obedience of a Christian Man, ed. R. Lovett (1888), pp. 91–2.
13. T. Hatcher, G. Haddoni Legum Doctoris, S. Reginae Elizabethae a supplicum libells . . . (1567), p. 419.
14. J. Foxe, Actes and Monuments, ed. J. Townsend and S. R. Cattley (1838), V, p. 260.
15. H. Brakspear, ‘Dudley Castle’, Archaeological Journal, LXXXI, p. 12.
Chapter 7 – King’s Knight and God’s Knight
1. L and P of Henry VIII, XIV, ii, 572.
2. E. Hall, The Triumphant Reign of King Henry VIII, ed. C. Whibley (1904), p. 835.
3. R. B. Merriman, Life and Letters of Thomas Cromwell, II, p. 223.
4. Muriel St Clair Byrne, ed., The Lisle Letters (Chicago, 1981), V, 1435.
5. J. Stow, Survey of London (Oxford, 1908), II, pp. 100–101.
6. L and P of Henry VIII, XVI, 1138.
7. Ibid., XVI, 101.
8. J. Foxe, Actes and Monuments, ed. J. Townsend and S. R. Cattley, V, pp. 515–6.
9. C. Sturge, ‘Life and Times of John Dudley, Earl of Warwick and Duke of Northumberland’, University of London Ph.D. thesis (1927), p. 23.
10. Letters and Papers of Henry VIII, XVII, 1221.
Chapter 8 – Tempestuous Seas
1. Hamilton Papers, ed. J. Bain (1890–92), I, pp. 286–7.
2. State Papers of King Henry VIII (1830–52), I, pt 2, cxciii.
3. E. Hall, The Triumphant Reign of King Henry VIII, ed. C. Whibley (1904), p. 346.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid, II, p. 347.
6. State Papers, V, cccxciii.
7. L and P of Henry VIII, XIX, ii, 338.
8. Cal S.P. Span., XXI, i, 289.
9. Chronicle of the Grey Friars of London, ed. J. G. Nichols, Camden Society, 1st series, LIII, 1852, p. 55.
10. J. Bale, Select Works, ed. H. Christmas, Parker Society (1949), pp. 196–7.
11. J. Foxe, Actes and Monuments, ed. J. Townsend and S. R. Cattley (1838) V, p. 565.
12. Hall, op. cit., II, p. 359.
13. Cal S.P. Span., VIII, p. 557.
Chapter 9 – Feast in the Morning
1. S. Alford, Kingship and Politics in the Reign of Edward VI (Cambridge, 2002), p. 174.
2. J. Foxe, Actes and Monuments, ed. J. Townsend and S. R. Cattley (1938), V, pp. 691–2.
3. Ibid., VI, pp. 164–5.
4. Peter Heylyn, A Table or Catalogue of All the Dukes . . . (1680), p. 511.
5. Calendar of State Papers Domestic (hereafter ‘Cal. S.P. Dom.’) Edward VI, 28.
6. Cal. S.P. Span. IX, pp. 340–41.
7. Alford, op. cit., p. 99.
8. Cal. S.P. Dom. Edward VI, 182, 188.
9. Ibid., 109, 128, 113.
10. Ibid., 111.
11. Ibid., 113.
12. Ibid., 123.
13. Ibid., 217.
14. Hugh Latimer, ‘Sermon on the Plough,’ in Sermons by Hugh Latimer, Parker Society (Cambridge, 1845), pp. 64–5.
15. S. Brigden, New Worlds, Lost Worlds (2000), p. 184.
16. See M. Aston, England’s Iconoclasts (Oxford, 1988), p. 256.
&n
bsp; 17. D. MacCulloch, Tudor Church Militant (1999), p. 126.
18. J. Strype, Ecclesiastical Memorials . . . (1816), II, ii, pp. 362–4.
19. Ibid., II, i, p. 151.
20. Works of Martin Luther (Weimar, 1883), IV, p. 280.
21. Cal. S.P. Dom. Edward VI, 133.
22. British Library Cotton MSS, Titus F.3, ff277–9v; Strype, op. cit., II, ii, 429–37.
23. Latimer, op cit., p. 162.
24. Dictionary of National Biography (DNB).
25. The Seymour papers at Longleat, Wiltshire, II.
26. Cal. S.P. Dom. Edward VI, 333.
27. See J. Cornwall, The Revolt of the Peasantry (1977), p. 147.
28. Cal. S.P. Dom. Edward VI, 335.
29. British Library Harleian MSS 1576, p. 8208.
30. A. Neville, De Furoribus Norfolcensium Ketto Duce . . ., trans. A. Wood (1615), pp. 18–19. Neville wrote his account of the rebellion in 1575, when Warwick’s son Robert Dudley was the leading figure at court, and presented his father in a favourable light. However, the words attributed to Warwick here are very much in character and there seems no reason to doubt that Neville had them from an eye witness, perhaps Robert Dudley himself.
31. G. R. Elton, Studies in Tudor and Stuart Politics and Government (Cambridge, 1974), p. 237.
32. Foxe, op. cit., VI, p. 291.
33. See D. MacCulloch, op. cit., pp. 45–7.
34. Cal. S.P. Dom. Edward VI, 378, 379, 356, 373, 387.
35. Ibid., 368.
36. Ibid., 377.