She detested Guilford – he was indeed a spoilt, conceited and disagreeable young man – and she told her father that she would not marry him. Her obedience was forced by a beating, and … Guilford made no secret of his dislike for his bride.¹

Although expressing a widely held view, this description of the marriage of Lady Jane Grey and Lord Guildford Dudley has, with the exception of the beating,² no basis in a source of the times. None of the ambassadors reporting about the engagement and wedding remarked on any domestic scenes or personal details, and whether the intellectually minded Jane was beaten – or brow-beaten – into marriage or not, the Italian visitors to Queen Mary’s court who claimed she resisted the match do not say she did so because of Guildford’s person or personality.

Lady Jane Grey's prayerbook with her last lines to her father; she signed herself "Jane Duddley"

Lady Jane Grey was very likely born in the spring of 1537,³ making her 16 at the time of her wedding on 25 May 1553. Guildford Dudley’s birth year is traditionally given as between 1534 and 1536, yet is there no specific evidence for any of these dates. Since the Dudleys had a newborn son in March 1537, though, and one of Guildford’s godfathers was the Spaniard Diego de Mendoza who visited England from May 1537 till August 1538, it is quite possible that Guildford was born in 1537 or 1538.⁴ He may thus have been of the same age or even younger than his bride. He certainly was a handsome boy: ‟a comely, virtuous and godly gentleman“ called him the chronicler Grafton, who had known him.⁵

After magnificent celebrations (with two theatrical companies, one male, one female, performing), married life started inauspiciousy for the groom:

My Lord Guilford Dudley, recently married to Suffolk’s eldest, one of his brothers, the Admiral and other lords and ladies, recently fell very ill after eating some salad at the Duke of Northumberland’s, and are still suffering from the results. It seems the mistake was made by a cook, who plucked one leaf for another.⁶

For Jane’s married life we are dependent on her own account in the form of an exculpatory letter to the victorious Queen Mary, which she wrote in August 1553 and which survives only in Italian translations. From Jane’s story it is clear that she considered herself a married woman and that she usually passed the nights with her husband.⁷ Declared Edward VI’s heir by the dying king, on 10 July 1553 Jane took official residence in the Tower of London; the Marquess of Winchester presented the crown jewels to her, saying that there was a second crown for her consort, a notion disagreeable to the new queen:

after the departure of the said My Lord, I was with my husband, and of that I discussed with him much, that I reduced him to consent, that, if he must be made King, it should be done by me, and by way of the Parliament. Afterwards I commanded to be called the Earl of Arundel, and the Earl of Pembroke, and I told them, that, when the crown came to me, it was resolved by me not to wish to make my husband King, nor ever to consent to it: but that it contented me to make him a Duke. The which being related to his mother, she angered herself with me in every way, and persuaded her son, that he should not sleep with me anymore: the which he obeyed, declaring to me that he did not desire to be a Duke, but King. Thus I knowing, that the following morning by order of the mother he had to go to Syon, I was forced, as lady, and loving of my husband, to send to the Earl of Arundel, and the Earl of Pembroke, that they should work [it] so that he should come to me, which they did. And so I was deceived by the Duke, and by the Council, and ill treated by my husband, and by his mother.⁸

Jane naturally was careful not to draw attention to her own family, while blaming all the rest – and of course the Duchess of Northumberland had tried to poison her, both before her accession and after.⁹ What does not figure in any of Jane’s accusations, though, is her marriage,¹⁰ and neither family ever made an attempt at dissolving this union between Grey and Dudley after the catastrophe of 1553, two points which should lend some support to the notion that it was a normal aristocratic match¹¹ rather than part of a plot against Mary’s succession. For Jane, the married status was a serious matter and no row could change this. That it was more than mere decorum became clear on 19 July, the last day of her reign, when she stood godmother to the six-day-old son of one of the Tower guards: Jane wished that the baby be christened Guildford.¹²

First part of a short farewell message from Guildford Dudley to his father-in-law at the bottom of a page in his wife's prayerbook

A few hours later, Jane and Guildford were prisoners, lodged in separate buildings. It seems unlikely that they would have been allowed visits to each other, but during the final months of their captivity they could have met while taking the air in the Tower gardens, and in any case there would have been some eyecontact.¹³ The Duke of Northumberland was executed on 22 August; seven weeks later the Imperial ambassadors reported that his widow was “doing her utmost to secure a pardon for her children”, but that so far the queen had not decided on anything.¹⁴ Then, on 13 November 1553, Jane and Guildford, on foot and heavily guarded, passed through the city to stand trial at Guildhall. Guildford was convicted of compassing to depose Queen Mary by supporting his father with troops and by proclaiming and honouring his wife as queen; Jane was found guilty of signing various papers as ‟Jane the Queen“.¹⁵ The Imperial ambassadors summarized:

To-day three sons of the Duke of Northumberland, Jane of Suffolk and the Bishop of Canterbury were taken to the hall at Cheapside, and were there condemned to death. The only one of the Duke’s sons who has not been condemned is now my Lord Robert. When execution is to take place is uncertain, for though the Queen is truly irritated against the Duke of Suffolk, it is believed that Jane will not die.¹⁶

Second part of Guildford Dudley's message to his father-in-law, with his signature

In the end it was indeed Jane’s father who secured the young couple’s undoing by his participation in Wyatt’s Rebellion against Mary’s Spanish marriage. His efforts at raising an army having failed miserably, Henry Grey arrived in the Tower as a prisoner on 10 February 1554, two days before Jane and Guildford were scheduled to die. Both wrote short messages to the duke in a prayerbook, in the hope that it would ultimately reach him:

the lorde comforte youre grace and that in his worde whearen all creatures onlye are to be comforted and though it hathe pleased god to take awaye ij of youre children yet thincke not I moste humblye beseche youre grace that you have loste them but truste that we by leavinge this mortall life have wanne an immortal life and I for my parte as I have honoured youre grace in thys life will praye for you in this life

youre gracys humble daughter
Jane Duddley

youre lovyng and obedyent son wishethe vnto your grace long lyfe in this world wth as muche ioy and comforte, as dyde I wyshte to my selfe, and in the world to come ioy euer lasting

your most humble son to his dethe
Gduddley¹⁷

Guildford, for his part, also wanted to take leave from his wife, but Jane saw not fit to it:

Came the day of her death, and that of the husband, he, that was the first that should die, desiring to give her the last kisses, and the last embrace, asked her, that she might be contented, that he might go to see her. And she responded to him, that, if the sight of them might have given comfort to their souls, more gladly she would be contented to see him; but that, she finding that their sight would increase the misery in both, and bring much more suffering, it was best for now to forego that act, later then in a brief time they would see [each other] in another part, and live perpetually joined in an indissoluble bond.¹⁸

Notes
1 Chapman 1958 pp. 274 – 275
2 Rosso f. 10b
3 Ives 2009 p. 36
4 Higginbotham 2011
5 Ives 2009 pp. 275, 185
6 CSP Span 12 June 1553
7 Rosso ff. 54b – 55, 57
8 Rosso ff. 57 – 57b
9 Rosso f. 57b
10 Rosso f. 57b; Chronicle of Queen Jane pp. 25 – 26
11 Argued, for example, by W. K. Jordan, David Loades, Eric Ives.
12 Ives 2009 pp. 186, 215
13 Ives 2009 p. 252
14 CSP Span 9 October 1553
15 Bellamy 1979 p. 54
16 CSP Span 14 November 1553
17 BL Harleian MS 2342 ff. 78 – 80, 59v – 60
18 Rosso ff. 57b

Sources
The Chronicle of Queen Jane. (ed. J. G. Nichols, 1850)

Calendar of State Papers, Spain. Volume 11 – 1553. (ed. Royall Tyler, 1916) http://www.british-history.ac.uk/source.aspx?pubid=973

Giulio Raviglio Rosso: History of the Events that Occurred in the Realm of England in Relation to the Duke of Northumberland after the Death of Edward VI. (ed. J. S. Edwards, 2011) http://www.somegreymatter.com/rossointro.htm

Lady Jane Grey’s Prayer Book: BL Harleian MS 2342 http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/record.asp?MSID=7220&CollID=8&NStart=2342

Bellamy, John (1979): The Tudor Law of Treason: An Introduction. Routledge & Kegan Paul.

Chapman, Hester (1958): The Last Tudor King: A Study of Edward VI. Jonathan Cape.

Higginbotham, Susan (2011): ‟How Old Was Guildford Dudley? (Beats Me).“ http://www.susanhigginbotham.com/blog/posts/how-old-was-guildford-dudley-beats-me/

Ives, Eric (2009): Lady Jane Grey: A Tudor Mystery. Wiley-Blackwell.

A portrait type showing Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester in a slashed leather jerkin and red sleeves and a red trunk hose survives in several versions. The pose and headgear resemble another portrait, done before 1564, in a bluish brocade costume. That portrait, which shows Leicester with his dog by his side, is sometimes believed to belong to this group, and at least the other versions in red seem to be copies of the picture at the centre. All the paintings can be dated to around the mid-1560s and have generally been attributed to the Flemish painter, Steven van der Meulen, who may or may not be identical to Steven van Herwijck.

The jewel Robert Dudley is wearing in his hat depicts the mythical heroic Roman Marcus Curtius on horseback, who literally saved his hometown from the abyss by riding into a chasm that had opened in the Forum. The iconography was particularly fitting for the queen’s Master of the Horse, an office Dudley had performed from the second day of the reign, 18 November 1558.

This head-and-shoulders version from the National Gallery of Victoria still bears a 16th century wax seal on its reverse and, as on his other portraits, Dudley’s wart on his right cheek is clearly hinted at.

See also: Handkerchiefs, Tennis, and the Order of St. Michael

Sources
Grosvenor, Bendor (2009): “The identity of ‘the famous paynter Steven’: Not Steven van der Meulen but Steven van Herwijck”. British Art Journal. Vol. IX. No. 3.

Hearn, Karen (ed.) (1995): Dynasties: Painting in Tudor and Jacobean England 1530–1630. Rizzoli.

Philip Mould Historical Portraits: http://historicalportraits.com/Gallery.asp?Page=Item&ItemID=1295&Desc=Robert-Dudley,-Earl-of-Leicester-

This was still the case when the seafaring chaplain Richard Madox visited Leicester House in March 1582 and observed ‟ther was Robin my lords bastard by my lady Esex.“² He was speaking of Robert Dudley junior, the Earl of Leicester’s illegitimate son by Lady Douglas Sheffield, and the lady of the house, who obviously was still content to be regarded as the earl’s mistress rather than his wife, although the court had found out about the marriage soon enough. Not before the late summer of 1582 she apparently decided to reside in her husband’s residence as Lady Leicester, a circumstance that once more sparked an outburst of royal anger.³

Lettice, Countess of Leicester c.1585, by George Gower

Due to the queen’s displeasure Lettice was practically banished from society life, including in her own residences. Leicester House and Wanstead, the Essex country seat, saw many illustrious visitors, from the queen to ambassadors and the philosopher Giordano Bruno. ‟He especially invited me to dine with him and his wife, who has much influence over him and whom he introduces only to those to whom he wishes to show a particular mark of attention.“ – Thus the French ambassador expressed elegantly that Lady Leicester was rarely seen and never in the company of other guests. Leicester tried his best to seek companions for her, but unsurprisingly no-one wanted to be associated with a disgraced person: ‟I dined today with the Earl of Leicester and his lady to whom he is much attached. They both received me very kindly and … expressed a wish that the Countess and my wife should be on intimate terms“, the same French ambassador, Michel de Castelnau, informed Mary Stuart, adding, ‟the Earl has never promised me more for your Majesty’s service, and the means to keep him in this humour is to gain his wife and assure her that you will be her friend.“⁴ Lady Castelnau for her part preferred to visit Sir Philip Sidney’s wife Frances; at 16 the latter was over 20 years younger than her, while Lady Leicester was of the same age, and the two women would also have shared a sad history of miscarriages.

One of the very few persons of rank willing to socialize with Lady Leicester turned out to be the Earl of Derby, Leicester’s good friend, who used to play cards with her.⁵ Lettice regularly went to places in and near London by boat, perhaps to visit relatives, for she had always been in close contact with her many brothers and sisters, some of whom had been in Leicester’s service. Sir Francis Knollys, Lettice’s father, had been a friend of the Dudley family since the days of King Edward VI.

Many modern writers believe that Lettice Knollys was pregnant at the time of her wedding to Robert Dudley, because she wore a morning dress or ‟loose gown“ for the occasion. While a pregnancy is entirely plausible, there is no other evidence to support it. In February 1580 she was about to give birth at her father’s house in Oxfordshire, where she had often retired since her widowhood; nothing else is known of this child, though. Finally, in June 1581 Leicester’s heir, Robert, Lord Denbigh, was born in Leicester House, and a further advanced pregnancy was reported in September 1582 by the French ambassador, yet the outcome is again unknown.⁶

The little Lord Denbigh’s cradle at Leicester House was draped with crimson velvet, ‟with trains of crimson taffetta“, his little chair was ‟upholstered in green and carnation cloth of tinsel“,⁷ and at some point in the following years he was with his mother on holiday; their host later reminded them of ‟the great charge I was at when you with the young lord and other your honour’s friends and company lay with me“.⁸

Lettice Dudley financed her personal expenses and servants out of her revenue as Dowager Countess of Essex, but the couple made each other seasonal presents: In late 1584 Robert Dudley paid 22 pounds for ‟two doublets for my lady“, and was rewarded with a new bed on New Year’s Day.⁹ The countess had two maids, Bridget Fettiplace and another Lettice, Lettice Barrett. Mrs. Barrett regularly sent boxes of preserved fruit to the earl when he stayed at court.¹⁰

As a member of the high nobility Lettice would not have had much to do with cookery, although she would have prepared any of the elaborate Elizabethan sugarwork herself – it was too costly to be left in the hands of servants. The countess would also have learnt how to prepare food as a young girl. A highly educated person, it is reasonable to assume that she would have read books and made music; it is unknown whether the Earl of Leicester actively played any instruments as late as the 1580s, but in 1558 he certainly employed a man to tend to his virginal.¹¹ His household also boasted its own musicians and a little orchestra.

Leicester House was a palatial residence with 20 apartments and a beautiful terrace garden towards the Thames; the earl’s household comprised about 150 people, many of whom lived at the house. Lettice’s children from her first marriage, the daughters Penelope and Dorothy and the sons Robert and Walter, naturally had their own rooms as well, and frequently resided with their mother. In the great gallery there was a major art collection, displaying many portraits, including the earl in ‟full proportion … with Boy his dog by him“ and ‟my lady’s whole proportion … and my young lord standing by her“. Of the little Lord Denbigh, who to the greatest grief of his parents died aged three in July 1584, there were further pictures as a baby (naked) and a toddler (dressed).

Lettice’s own family circle was certainly well-represented: alongside her elder children there were her brothers, her father, and Earl Walter, her first husband, who was remembered with ‟one small picture of the Earl of Essex father“. Her maid, ‟Mistress Lettice Garrett“, had no less than two pictures to herself. Of Leicester’s family there were portraits of his brother Ambrose, Earl of Warwick, and his nephew Philip Sidney, ‟when he was a boy“.¹² Both Ambrose and Philip were extraordinarily close to Robert Dudley, and both were regular residents at his houses.

Perhaps the most intriguing portrait of all is ‟the picture of my Lady with blackamoors by her“.¹³ Indeed a ‟blackamoor“, or moor, belonged to the Leicester household, and he received five shillings in April 1584 ‟by your lordship’s commandment“. – The previous year he had been given a new mattress. Very often these moors were children, and they were certainly fashionable in court circles, for Sir Walter Raleigh’s ‟blackamoor“ was also given 20 shillings by the Earl of Leicester in 1585.¹⁴

"Blackamoors", or little moorish boys, gave the noble household of the Renaissance the extra exotic kick. From a painting by Paolo Veronese, 1573.

In August 1585 the Earl and Countess of Leicester for the first time visited Kenilworth Castle as a married couple; it was planned as a short summer trip. Stopping for the night at Abingdon, they gave small rewards to the ‟three singers under my lady’s window in the morning“.¹⁵ However, Elizabeth became extremely angry when she found out that Leicester was holidaying with his wife, and the earl had to return as soon as possible. Lady Leicester’s return caused another crisis: ‟I see not her Majesty disposed to use the services of my Lord of Leicester [in the Netherlands expedition]. There is great offence taken at the conveying down of his lady,“ Francis Walsingham observed. Lettice did not completely give in to the royal fury, though, and when Leicester returned once more from a short trip – a baptism to which he, as was usual, could not take his wife – she went to Barnet to await him with a welcome committee.¹⁶

See also: A Great Love: Lettice and Robert Dudley

Notes
1 Adams 2004a
2 Donno 1976 p. 92
3 Adams 2004a; Adams 2004b
4 Jenkins 2002 pp. 280 – 281
5 Adams 1995 p. 259
6 Adams 2004a
7 Jenkins 2002 p. 252
8 HMC Bath V pp. 220 – 221
9 Adams 2004a; Adams 1995 pp. 198 – 199
10 Adams 1995 pp. 28, 205, 306
11 Adams 1995 pp. 58 – 59, 62
12 HMC Bath V pp. 207, 222
13 HMC Bath V p. 207
14 Adams 1995 pp. 178, 210
15 Adams 1995 p. 290
16 Adams 1995 pp. 389 – 390

Sources
Manuscripts of The Marquess of Bath, Volume V: Talbot, Dudley and Devereux Papers 1533–1659. (1980) Historical Manuscripts Commission. HMSO.

Adams, Simon (1995): Household Accounts and Disbursement Books of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, 1558–1561, 1584–1586. Cambridge University Press.

Adams, Simon (1996): “At Home and Away. The Earl of Leicester”. History Today. Vol. 46 No. 5. May 1996.

Adams, Simon (2004a): “Dudley, Lettice, countess of Essex and countess of Leicester (1543–1634)”. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press.

Adams, Simon (2008b): “Dudley, Sir Robert (1574–1649)”. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press.

Bossy, John (1991): Giordano Bruno and the Embassy Affair. Yale University Press.

Donno, E. S. (ed.) (1976): An Elizabethan in 1582: The Diary of Richard Manox, Fellow of All Souls. Hakluyt Society.

Jenkins, Elizabeth (2002): Elizabeth and Leicester. The Phoenix Press.

Sim, Alison (1997): Food and Feast in Tudor England. Sutton Publishing.

Around 1585 George Gower made a grand portrait of Lettice Dudley, now at Longleat House and the best known of her likenesses. The facial details seem compatible enough with the two Hilliard miniatures of the countess, and the portrait certainly bears a striking resemblance to some of those of her son, the Earl of Essex. A portrait purportedly of the Countess of Leicester found in some older publications, such as Milton Waldman’s Elizabeth and Leicester, is now believed to be of her daughter Dorothy Perrot (the parrot prominent in the picture being a pun on her married name).

By the 1590s Lettice Knollys had been widowed for the second time – and had remarried once again. She was still Lady Leicester, though, her third husband being just Sir Christopher Blount. Hilliard made another miniature of her (above), some 12 to 17 years after his first one: The beholder is struck by both her precious jewellery and her serene and benign expression.

Sources
Freedman, Sylvia (1983): Poor Penelope: Lady Penelope Rich. An Elizabethan Woman. Kensal Press.

Haynes, Alan (1997): Untam’d Desire: Sex in Elizabethan England. Stackpole Books.

Hearn, Karen (2005): Nicholas Hilliard. Unicorn Press.

Jenkins, Elizabeth (2002): Elizabeth and Leicester. The Phoenix Press.

http://www.artvalue.com/auctionresult–hilliard-nicolas-1547-1619-uni-portrait-of-a-noblewoman-possi-2697881.htm

http://luna.folger.edu/luna/servlet/detail/FOLGERCM1~6~6~149523~109204:Lettice-Knollys,-Countess-of-Lecest

Whether this proceeded from any virtue of his, whereof he gave some shadowed tokens, or from their common condition of imprisonment under Queen Mary, or from his nativity, and the hidden consent of the stars at the hour of their birth, and thereby a most straight conjunction of their minds, a man cannot easily say.¹

From these lines a diehard tradition has evolved that queen and favourite were born on the same day, that is 7 September 1533. Modern biographers eager to stick with this tradition have been maintaining that Leicester’s “alternative” date of birth, 24 June 1532, was only advanced by George Adlard in 1870 in his compilation of materials about Amy Robsart. Quoting Adlard, who claimed to have seen a letter of Robert Dudley to Queen Elizabeth in which he gave 24 June as his birthday, they quickly dismissed it: ‟Until the Adlard letter is found one must assume that there is no very good alternative to Camden’s date.“²

Interestingly, this ‟Adlard letter“ could have been found all the time – in the Public Record Office, in the Calendar of State Papers Foreign Series, 1587, and in Frederick Chamberlin’s work Elizabeth and Leycester (1939), which quotes it on the first page of Chapter 5, entitled ‟The First Twenty Years“:

This 24 of June … pleaseth god … ys my byrth day.

The only point in which Adlard was wrong is that the letter was addressed to William Cecil, Lord Burghley and not to Elizabeth.

Of Leicester’s modern biographers, Alan Kendall (1980) was keenest to argue for Camden’s trustworthiness on the grounds that ‟his mother-in-law was Robert Dudley’s paternal grandmother, from whom Camden may have had precise information“; alas, this grandmother died before 1525, perhaps around the time of her son John’s marriage and certainly years before Robert’s birth (and unsurprisingly she was never Camden’s mother-in-law). Kendall also held on to Camden’s stars in the face of the Hilliard miniature of the earl which the National Portrait Gallery had acquired in 1961. It is inscribed in typical Hilliard style with ‟Ano.Dni.1576 Aetatis Sue 44“, which is to mean that he was 44 years old in 1576 and cannot have been born later than 1532.³

Robert Dudley by Nicholas Hilliard. The inscription reads ‟Ano.Dni.1576 Aetatis Sue 44“.

Derek Wilson (1981), writing at about the same time as Kendall, gave 24 June as Robert Dudley’s birthday. Ignoring the NPG miniature, he pleaded for the year 1533 though, as this year ‟fits better with the known birth dates of Robert’s brothers and sisters.“ Sadly, exactly these dates are lacking from any of the surviving documents,⁴ but the family tree in Wilson’s book is clearly based on a pedigree commissioned by the Earl of Leicester.

The manuscript entitled Genelogies of the Erles of Lecestre and Chester is believed to date from c.1572–1573 and is preserved at the University of Pennsylvania. On folios 18r–18v the children of John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland and Jane Guildford (with the exception of Robert) are enumerated, each with a short description. In some cases the age at death is given, in others not. This fact may point to the document’s general reliability, indicating that the information may well have come from Robert Dudley himself, who perhaps remembered only some of his siblings’ ages or birthdates.

If the ages given in the manuscript were taken as correct, Robert’s birthdate of 24 June 1532 would indeed have followed very close on the births of his elder brothers John and Ambrose: John, Earl of Warwick, dying in October 1554 at age 23, could not have been born before late 1530. Still, Ambrose could have been born, say, ten or eleven months later, around August 1531, and Robert again ten months later, in June 1532. – The theoretical possibility of two of the three brothers being twins should also be considered; from the dynastic viewpoint – and that was what mattered most to contemporaries – the order of birth was important, not when the children were born. Given the scarcity of personal source material it should not surprise if twins, especially non-identical ones, should have passed without comment in surviving documents. Neither a quick succession of births nor the possibility of twins should be dismissed outright in favour of a biographer’s gut feeling of ‟probability“ or the casual remark by a 17^th century historian about stars. (Emmanuel van Meteren, who had known the earl for decades and also wrote in the early 17^th century, thought Leicester was born as early as 1525⁵).

The question of Robert Dudley’s birthdate should have been settled a long time ago by his own letter regarding the day and the miniature by Nicholas Hilliard regarding the year. (Hilliard knew Dudley very well, the earl was his earliest patron and godfather to a number of his children). So, Robert Dudley, as his grave proclaims, was born as his parents’ fifth son – on 24 June 1532, the day of St. John the Baptist, a great feast day at the time and perhaps his father’s name day.

Notes
1 Wilson 1981 p. vi
2 Kendall 1980 p. 5; Jenkins 1961 p. 5
3 Adams 2004
4 Adams 2004
5 Haynes 1987 p. 20

Sources
Genelogies of the Erles of Lecestre and Chester: U Penn Ms. Codex 1070 http://dla.library.upenn.edu/dla/medren/detail.html?id=MEDREN_4218616

Adams, Simon (2004): ‟Dudley, Robert, earl of Leicester (1532/3–1588)“. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press.

Chamberlin, Frederick (1939): Elizabeth and Leycester. Dodd, Mead & Co.

Haynes, Alan (1987): The White Bear: The Elizabethan Earl of Leicester. Peter Owen.

Hearn, Karen (ed.) (1995): Dynasties: Painting in Tudor and Jacobean England 1530–1630. Rizzoli.

Jenkins, Elizabeth (1961): Elizabeth and Leicester. Victor Gollancz.

Kendall, Alan (1980): Robert Dudley Earl of Leicester. Cassell.

Wilson, Derek (1981): Sweet Robin: A Biography of Robert Dudley Earl of Leicester 1533–1588. Hamish Hamilton.

The portrait is further marked by two large coat of arms, at the upper left and right, representing the Order of of St. Michael and the Order the Garter, respectively. The Garter emblem seems to have been part of the original composition of the picture, while the other coat of arms is a later addition, after Robert Dudley became a member of the prestigious French order in early 1566. The coronet above the Garter coat of arms has been shown to be an addition as well, which clearly dates the portrait to some time before September 1564, when Dudley was made Earl of Leicester.

Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk. Like his rival Leicester he is holding his right hand at a purse with a handkerchief.

It has been observed that the Dudley portrait is rather similar in composition to Hans Eworth’s portrait of Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk, Robert Dudley’s most powerful enemy for the better part of the 1560s. Both men have a purse for their handkerchief hanging from their sword belt, and in Dudley’s case the piece of fine fabric is clearly visible because he is about to tuck it into the purse. The handkerchiefs may represent ‟tokens of affection“ and it has been speculated that Dudley’s might be ‟a memento of the Queen herself“.

There are further associations of this portrait with the Duke of Norfolk, handkerchiefs, and the Order of St. Michael. In March 1565, the Earl of Atholl told the English ambassador in Scotland, Thomas Randolph, a curious story about sporting life at the English court:

That early the Duke’s grace and my lord of Leicester were playing at tennis, the Queen beholding of them, and my Lord Robert being hot and sweating took the Queen’s napkin out of her hand and wiped his face, which the duke seeing said that he was too saucy, and swore that he would lay his racket upon his face; whereup rose a great trouble and the Queen offended sore with the Duke.

Within a year of this semi-legendary tennis court incident the French king wrote to Elizabeth, asking her to name two Englishmen worthy of the Order of St. Michael, the French equivalent to the Order of the Garter. Ideally, such an honour would have been bestowed on the English monarch, but as Elizabeth was a woman she could not be a knight at the same time. It was clear that King Charles IX, expecting that the Earl of Leicester might still become Elizabeth’s husband, was thinking of him as recipient, but it would have been undiplomatical to give him the honour right away. – Indeed, Elizabeth’s first reaction when she heard of the offer was to name Leicester, and only some time later did she settle on Norfolk as the second candidate. There was to be a joint investiture of the new knights, hopefully conducive to burying their dissensions. Norfolk was at first reluctant to accept but finally obeyed the queen’s wishes, whose aim it was ‟to prevent jealousy among the nobility“.

The Emperor Charles V with his dog, by Jacob Seisenegger. Some art historians believe this type of picture served as a model for the Dudley portrait.

And so on 24 January 1566 Charles IX’s special envoy, M. de Ramboilliet, led the festivities at Whitehall Plalce. At ten o’clock in the morning Leicester and Norfolk, as yet having had no breakfast, ‟embraced each other and communed awhile“, before being led to the ceremony proper. The new knights were each clad in

white velvet shoes, hose, girdle and scabbard; netherstocks of white silk knit, coats with white sleeves on, of cloth of silver, edged with silver lace, and in short gowns of russet velvet, furred with leopards, the sleeves decorated with aiglettes of gold.

It all ended with a magnificent banquet, yearly to be repeated by duke and earl at considerable expenses. So, friendship was guaranteed in a way; and indeed their relations became increasingly cordial over the next years.

Sources
Hearn, Karen (ed.) (1995): Dynasties: Painting in Tudor and Jacobean England 1530–1630. Rizzoli.
Williams, Neville (1964): Thomas Howard, Fourth Duke of Norfolk. Barrie & Rockliff.

In many of his portraits Robert Dudley has the air of the natural dancer about him, and indeed he was Elizabeth’s favourite partner: seemingly effortless, he used to leap into the air ‟after the Florentine style, with a high magnificence that astonished beholders“.³ Familiar with the stage from his youth, Dudley performed the lead role in a play given by the Inner Temple at Christmas 1562. It was once again a Venetian diplomat who witnessed the event and observed that Lord Robert was a ‟man of tall personage, a manly countenance, somewhat brown of visage, strongly featured, and thereto comely proportioned in all lineaments of body“.⁴ His dark good looks have universally been associated by biographers with his supposed nickname of ‟The Gypsy“; however the original anecdote played at a very different thing, Dudley’s alleged lack of noble or honourable ancestors. In a society where this group of the population was ‟to be used as felons“ – persecuted, and even tortured and executed – to be called a gypsy would have been a terrible slur to one’s name.⁵

On his deathbed the Earl of Sussex, Thomas Radclyffe, is said to have warned his colleagues of his old enemy: ‟but beware the Gypsy, for he will be too hard for you all. You know not the beast as I do.“⁶ This was first written down by Sir Robert Naunton in the 1630s, about 50 years after the words were supposedly uttered. Naunton’s description of the Earl of Leicester, ‟tall and singularly well-featured, of a sweet aspect“, repeated the familiar themes;⁷ notwithstanding, his anecdotes cannot be regarded as anything better than apocryphal. As Elizabeth’s principal favourite Dudley was a perfect target of slander, especially since there was a body of pertinent literature available to draw on, from Leicester’s Commonwealth (1584) onwards. Naunton’s main purpose was covert criticism of the Stuart court and favouritism, not a realistic representation of the Elizabethan political scene. In his account the queen becomes the perfect ruler, relying on Caesar’s maxim of “divide and rule” – and putting Dudley in his place: ‟I will have here but one mistress and no master“.⁸

Another author of the Stuart court, Sir Henry Wotton, wrote to a similar purpose when he described Leicester as the ‟complete courtier … wont to put up all his passions in his pocket.“⁹ This dictum was meant and has always been quoted in a derogatory sense. As late as 2006 a popular author could repeat in all earnest: ‟Leicester was the perfect courtier, civil and well mannered, never giving sway to his passions, but even that only reinforced the impression of self-serving calculation and guile.“¹⁰ The irony is that this is from a biography of Francis Walsingham, who of all colleagues complained most loudly about the earl’s temper; in a 1585 council session one of his proposals was opposed by no-one except Leicester, ‟who according to his accustomed manner is very passionate in the matter“.¹¹ For this his passionate manner there is plenty of proof from letters and reports, including about a number of tiffs with Elizabeth. The earl certainly was the model of a courtier if ever there was one, but in the sense of Castiglione’s Il Cortegiano (1528), a work which he possessed in the original Italian and certainly had studied along with his practical training at court: ‟My bringing-up has been too long about Princes to misuse anything towards them.“¹²

Notes
1 Wilson 1981 p. 95; Skidmore 2010 p. 2
2 Wilson 1981 p.96
3 Skidmore 2010 p. 94
4 Richardson 1907 p. 33
5 Skidmore 2010 pp. 126 – 127; Haynes 1992 p. 52
6 Wilson 1981 p. 249
7 Richardson 1907 p. 34
8 Adams 2002 pp. 56 – 57
9 Adams 2002 p. 54
10 Budiansky 2006 p. 88
11 Hamilton Papers II p. 667
12 CSP Scottish VII p. 248

Sources
Calendar of the State Papers Relating to Scotland and Mary, Queen of Scots, 1547–1603. Volume VII. (ed. W. K. Boyd, 1913).

The Hamilton Papers: Letters and Papers illustrating the Political Relations of England and Scotland in the XVIth Century. (ed. Joseph Bain, 1892).

Adams, Simon (2002): Leicester and the Court: Essays in Elizabethan Politics. Manchester University Press.

Budiansky, Stephen (2006): Her Majesty’s Spymaster: Elizabeth I, Sir Francis Walsingham, and the Birth of Modern Espionage. Plume.

Haynes, Alan (1992): Invisible Power: The Elizabethan Secret Services 1570–1603. Alan Sutton.

Richardson, Aubrey (1907): The Lover of Queen Elizabeth: Being the Life and Character of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester 1533–1588. T. Werner Laurie.

Rosenberg, Eleanor (1958): Leicester: Patron of Letters. Columbia University Press.

Skidmore, Chris (2010): Death and the Virgin: Elizabeth, Dudley and the Mysterious Fate of Amy Robsart. Weidenfeld & Nicolson.

Wilson, Derek (1981): Sweet Robin: A Biography of Robert Dudley Earl of Leicester 1533–1588. Hamish Hamilton.

A condition for Northampton’s pardon after his support of Lady Jane Grey had been that he take back his adulterous former wife and give up his second one. His new and old wife also became one of Queen Mary’s favourite ladies, while he remained out in the cold, dispossessed of his titles and lands. So was his now former wife, Elizabeth Brooke. Jane Dudley, the Duke of Northumberland’s widow, remembered her in the will which she wrote shortly before her death in January 1555. Between bequests to her daughters and her brother-in-law Sir Andrew Dudley, the duchess left her a gown of black, furred velvet together with other clothes and “a chair, two cushions, and a new bed of black velvet.“¹ That Elizabeth Brooke is listed among close family members indicates that despite all what had happened she was still a personal friend, apparently quite a close one. The bequest is also a generous one in comparison.

Queen Elizabeth’s accession in November 1558 dramatically changed the fortunes of both the Dudley family and William Parr, who was restored to his titles and once again switched his wives. All became close friends of the queen. Relations between Northampton and Robert Dudley were cordial enough: Among the presents exchanged were a nightingale and a crossbow for Lord Robert and a ring and money for the marquess.

The sudden death of Amy Dudley in September 1560 meant a serious crack in the friendship, however. The prospect of Lord Robert becoming King Robert was too much for William Cecil, Elizabeth’s Principal Secretary and his good friend Nicholas Throckmorton, English ambassador to France. Both men were prime movers in bringing to the queen’s attention the scandal which at the same time they helped to create. Throckmorton wrote especially frantic letters, to Cecil, to Lord Clinton, the Earl of Bedford, the Earl of Pembroke – and to Northampton: ‟My Lord, I wish I were either dead, or that I were hence, … and my ears glow to hear“ the scandalous gossip of Paris. Northampton was warned again and again of the dire consequences for the commonwealth if Dudley should marry the queen, and interestingly Throckmorton thought it necessary to remind the marquess not to engage in the matter, to ‟be only a looker on“, while yet his lordship would be wise if he could bring himself ‟to hinder it“.² It is clear that Throckmorton regarded Northampton still as a friend of Dudley’s. He need not have worried so much.

Procession of the Knights of the Garter as depicted in 1576; in 1563 the Marquess of Northampton left the ceremonies because the knights had petitioned the queen to marry Robert Dudley

Many of the courtiers opposed to Elizabeth marrying Lord Robert had been involved in the rise and fall of Lady Jane Grey; Arundel, Northampton, and Pembroke, as well as Cecil and Throckmorton had good reasons to be apprehensive. As Pope Pius IV explained to one of his cardinals:

The greater part of the nobility of that island take ill the marriage which the said queen designs to enter with the Lord Robert Dudley. His father was beheaded as a rebel and usurper of the crown, and they fear that if he becomes king, he will want to avenge the death of his father, and extirpate the nobility of that kingdom.⁴

Elizabeth majestically brushed such notions aside, answering upon ‟questions moved“ that Lord Robert ‟was of a very good disposition and nature, not given by any means to seek revenge of former matters past“.⁵

The queen’s love for Lord Robert showed no signs of abating, and rumours that the nobility would rise should she marry him were rampant: Arundel, Northampton, and Pembroke being the names most often mentioned in this context. Northampton was also one of Cecil’s ‟best pillors“ in thwarting any plans Dudley might have entertained to further his marriage with the help of King Philip II.⁶ Even so, a year later, in April 1562, there was talk that Lord Robert was in ‟in great hope of the marriage“ and that he would soon be a duke. At the Feast of the Knights of the Garter on St. George’s Day no less a figure than the Duke of Norfolk – previously Dudley’s most formidable enemy – petitioned Elizabeth to marry, ‟at first generally, and at length of the Lord Robert“. Nearly all the knights ‟there present“ agreed, the only killjoys being the Earl of Arundel and the Marquess of Northampton, both of whom stormed out of the meeting.⁷

Towards the mid-1560s it became increasingly clear to Robert Dudley (as it did to King Philip) that Elizabeth had little inclination to marry at all; Dudley, now Earl of Leicester, was still hoping, however, and meanwhile had won over Throckmorton, Pembroke, and Northampton as friends. In 1566 parliament debated Elizabeth’s longtime plans to marry the Archduke Charles of Austria, and even the succession – Leicester and Northampton were among a group of peers who petitioned the queen to receive a delegation on the issue:

The Queen was so angry, that she addressed hard words to the duke of Norfolk, whom she called traitor or conspirator, or other words of similar flavour. … The earls of Leicester and Pembroke, the marquis of Northampton, and the Lord Chamberlain, spoke to her on the matter, and Pembroke remarked to her that it was not right to treat the Duke badly, since he and the others were only doing what was fitting for the good of the country, and advising her what was best for her, and if she did not think fit to adopt the advice, it was still their duty to offer it. She told him he talked like a swaggering soldier, and said to Leicester that she had thought if all the world abandoned her he would not have done so, to which he answered that he would die at her feet, and she said that that had nothing to do with the matter. She said that Northampton was of no account, and he had better talk about the arguments used to enable him to get married again, when he had a wife living, instead of mincing words with her. With this she left them, and had resolved to order them to be considered under arrest in their houses. This she has not done, but she has commanded them not to appear before her.⁸

The ghost of Amy Robsart was raised once again in the spring of 1567, when her half-brother John Appleyard was approached on behalf of mysterious high-ranking persons in order to incriminate Dudley in his wife’s death – the reward should be £1,000 upwards in cash. When the earl heard about this plot against him he sent his trusted steward Thomas Blount to summon Appleyard, who did not appear as promised, however:

Hearing no more, after some days the Earl sent to Blount from Greenwich, where the Court lay, to bring Appleyard to him, which he did. My Lord Marquis was then with Leicester. (The Marquis said that he remembered this.) Within a few words the Earl became so angry with Appleyard that it seemed that, if they had been alone, he would have drawn his sword upon him. He bade him depart and to Blount said that he was a very villain.⁹

Much has been made of this outburst of temper, most recently by omitting the important detail that Northampton watched the scene, thus implying that Dudley was alone with Blount (a mere servant) and Appleyard (the would-be victim).¹⁰ Leicester’s fury is understandable, though, for Appleyard had witnessed the inquest’s proceedings after Lady Amy’s death and had been content with the coroner’s verdict of accident for several years. From Elizabeth’s accession onwards he had profited nicely from his brother-in-law’s court patronage; but in recent years he had developed the opinion that the case had never been closed and that his sister had been murdered (and that he knew the killer, who was not the earl, interestingly). Summoned before a commission of the privy council – consisting of Cecil, Arundel, Northampton, and Pembroke – Appleyard disclosed nothing, however, and in 1570 he led his own little Norfolk rebellion. Leicester’s connections rescued him from the death penalty and worked his release from prison four years later, when Appleyard’s health was failing.

On 27 and 28 September 1570 the Marquess of Northampton visited Ambrose and Robert Dudley at their castles of Warwick and Kenilworth. A year later Leicester, as a member of the most prestigious French order of chivalry, celebrated the feast of St. Michael at Warwick. William Parr assisted at this grand ceremony, which saw Robert Dudley apparelled all in white velvet. The marquess died only a month later, and was buried in the chancel of St. Mary’s Church, Warwick; in 1588 the Earl of Leicester was buried in the adjacent Beauchamp Chapel.

Notes
1 Collins 1746 p. 34; Higginbotham 2010
2 Skidmore 2010 pp. 243, 249, 255 – 256
3 Skidmore 2010 p. 247
4 Adams 2002 p. 165
5 Adams 2002 p. 165
6 Doran 1996 pp. 45, 48 – 51
7 Skidmore 2010 p. 273
8 CSP Span I pp. 591 – 592
9 HMC Pepys p. 112
10 Skidmore 2010 pp. 302 – 303

Sources
Calendar of … State Papers Relating to English Affairs … in … Simancas, 1558–1603. Volume I. (ed. by Martin Hume, 1892–1899). HMSO.

Calendar of the Manuscripts of … The Marquess of Salisbury … Preserved at Hatfield House, Hertfordshire. Volume I (1883). Historical Manuscripts Commission. HMSO.

The Chronicle of Queen Jane. (ed. J. G. Nichols, 1850)

Report on the Pepys Manuscripts Preserved at Magdalen College, Cambridge. (1911) Historical Manuscripts Commission. HMSO.

Adams, Simon (ed.) (1995): Household Accounts and Disbursement Books of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, 1558–1561, 1584–1586. Cambridge University Press.

Adams, Simon (2002): Leicester and the Court: Essays in Elizabethan Politics. Manchester University Press.

Collins, Arthur (ed.) (1746): Letters and Memorials of State. Volume I. T. Osborne.

Doran, Susan (1996): Monarchy and Matrimony: The Courtships of Elizabeth I. Routledge.

Higginbotham, Susan (2010): “The Last Will of Jane Dudley, Duchess of Northumberland”. http://www.susanhigginbotham.com/subpages/lastwilljanedudley.html

Nelson, Alan (2003): Monstrous Adversary: The Life of Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford. Liverpool University Press.

Skidmore, Chris (2010): Death and the Virgin: Elizabeth, Dudley and the Mysterious Fate of Amy Robsart. Weidenfeld & Nicolson.

Wilson, Derek (1981): Sweet Robin: A Biography of Robert Dudley Earl of Leicester 1533–1588. Hamish Hamilton.

http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=51379&strquery=william+parr#s10

Treated ungenerously by Somerset after their victory over the Norfolk rebellion, it was little wonder that William Parr, Marquess of Northampton and John Dudley, Earl of Warwick joined with other lords in removing their arrogant superior from power. Naturally, both men were among the six new Lords of the Privy Chamber, and Northampton also received the office of Lord Chamberlain from Warwick, while the earl became Great Master of the Household. These positions enabled them to rule the court.

Dudley and Parr continued as good friends and it is revealing of their closeness that Somerset at one point in 1551 contemplated both men’s arrest (as a preliminary to Warwick’s ‟execution“).¹ The two of course did not wait for this to happen, and it was Somerset who a few months later was arrested. At his trial the most spectacular accusations again concerned Northumberland and Northampton, as well as the latter’s brother-in-law William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke – the charges were so fanciful, though, that they had to be dropped; but Somerset was still convicted for felony. The problem now was what to do with him, whether to execute him or not. Northumberland repeatedly ‟talked with him a long time“, which made Northampton and Pembroke impatient and angry (William Parr may have wished to see his executed brother-in-law Thomas Seymour avenged, of whom he would allow no-one to speak ill) – the Imperial ambassador concluded that Northumberland ‟is sorely puzzled at present, and does not know how all this is to end.“²

Somerset’s trial and execution reinforced his role as popular hero, while Northumberland’s part became that of the bogey-man. His rule of the country progressed nevertheless; already two years earlier the Imperial ambassador had noticed who was in charge when he described a heated and fruitless discussion with Northampton – and Pembroke, ‟who knows no other language but his native English and can neither read nor write“. At some point the two became ‟more embarassed than before, and finally … said to me that they would communicate the business to Warwick, the Lord Admiral, and would afterwards give me their answer; from which it is clear that the said Warwick has the whip hand of them all, using for his own ends these Marquises and Master Herberts whom no one dares to contradict.“³

Northumberland usually dealt with the minutiae of day-to-day government by briefing William Cecil on council business. At the end of such a routine letter he gives a glimpse into his social life, and we are not surprised to meet William Parr:

My Lord Marquis hath been with me, I thank him; and some good fellows with him: we have been merry. To-morrow he departeth from me by five of the clock in the morning towards my Lord Cobham’s, who, as I understand from them this day, is in no little peril of life. Thus I leave, wishing to you the good that your own gentle heart can desire. At Otford, this last of May, at ten in the night.

Your assured faithful friend, Northumberland.⁴

In March 1551 parliament had finally passed a private bill which allowed Northampton to legalize his current marriage and at the same time to hold on to most of his first wife’s property and inheritance. Two years later the young king became fatally ill; it has been argued that Northampton ‟bittterly opposed“ the succession of Mary Tudor, as it would jeopardize both his new marriage and his position.⁵ He was around the king when Edward instructed the lawyers to draw up his will and when he talked Archbishop Cranmer into supporting his scheme, and the marquess and his wife were present to do homage to Queen Jane at Syon House on 9 July 1553. With other noblemen, Northampton accompanied Northumberland into battle against Mary, and he was the only aristocrat outside the Dudley family to be tried for high treason. At Westminster Hall on 18 August 1553, he

he sank to his knees and spoke at length in palliation of his offence, saying he had been compelled by orders from the Council of the Lady Jane after her proclamation as Queen, sealed under the great seal of England, to follow the Duke in his undertaking; he could not disobey the orders without danger of committing the self-same crime and offence of which he was now accused for having taken up arms with the Duke against Queen Mary. He was not present when the late King Edward’s will was signed by the Councillors; he signed it after the King’s death. He gave other excuses too, which we could not gather because we did not understand the English language. He wept and implored grace and mercy.⁶

One of Northampton’s other excuses was that he had been away hunting during Jane’s entire reign.⁷ Nonetheless, he was convicted with Northumberland, and a few days later returned with him to the old faith in a public ceremony. His performance may not have been in vain for, unlike the duke, he was spared the axe. In his scaffold speech Northumberland insisted that he had not been alone in placing Lady Jane on the throne, and that he was not ‟the only original doer thereof I assure you, for there were several other which procured the same“.⁸ Was William Parr one of the others?

According to William Cecil, speaking of the marriage between Lady Jane and Lord Guildford, ‟the lady marquis of Northampton was then the greatest doer.“ It was perfectly normal for the wives of peers to engage in match-making, though, and it seems that even Cecil (who would have known) associated the match with the succession only in hindsight.⁹ The Duke of Northumberland had been interrogated, of course, and ‟when he was asked if he had promoted the marriage of his son to the said Jane, and why he had done so, he replied that the marriage had been pushed forward by the Earl of Pembroke“, but he also mentioned the Marquess of Northampton and the Duke of Suffolk.¹⁰

After Dudley’s death the Imperial ambassadors summarized:

We are informed that the execution of the sentences passed on the rest of the prisoners was delayed in the hope of obtaining a pardon; and that the Marchioness of Exeter, … Dame Clarentius and the … Marquis’ first wife have sued for his pardon. They have told the Queen, in order to move her to pity, that he never ceases weeping.¹¹

On the eve of his execution, John Dudley had concluded his last letter: ‟I can say no more but God give me patience to endure and a heart to forgive the whole world.“¹² William Parr may have been crossing his mind.

continued at Friendship Broken and Renewed: Northampton and Leicester

Notes
1 Jordan 1970 p. 90; Hoak 1980 p. 48
2 CSP Span 27 December 1551; CSP Span 31 January 1550
3 CSP Span 31 January 1550
4 Tytler 1839 p. 112
5 James 2004
6 CSP Span 27 August 1553
7 Skidmore 2007 p. 285
8 Loades 1996 p. 270
9 Strype 1824 p. 485
10 CSP Span 16 August 1553; CSP Span 4 September 1553
11 CSP Span 4 September 1553
12 Loades 1996 p. 269

Sources
Calendar of State Papers, Spain, Volume 10 – 1550–1552 (ed. Royall Tyler, 1914): http://www.british-history.ac.uk/source.aspx?pubid=972

Calendar of State Papers, Spain, Volume 11 – 1553 (ed. by Royall Tyler, 1916): http://www.british-history.ac.uk/source.aspx?pubid=973

Alford, Stephen (2011): Burghley: William Cecil at the Court of Elizabeth I. Yale University Press.

Hoak, Dale (1980): ‟Rehabilitating the Duke of Northumberland: Politics and Political Control, 1549–53“. In: Jennifer Loach and Robert Tittler (eds.): The Mid-Tudor Polity c. 1540–1560. Macmillan.

Ives, Eric (2009): Lady Jane Grey: A Tudor Mystery. Wiley-Blackwell.

James, Susan (2004): “Parr, William, marquess of Northampton (1513–1571)”. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press.

Jordan, W. K. (1970): Edward VI: The Threshold of Power. The Dominance of the Duke of Northumberland. George Allen & Unwin.

Loades, David (1996): John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland 1504–1553. Clarendon Press.

Skidmore, Chris (2007): Edward VI: The Lost King of England. Weidenfeld & Nicolson.

Strype, John (1824): Annals of the Reformation. Volume IV.

Tytler, P. F. (1839): England under the Reigns of Edward VI. and Mary. Volume II. Richard Bentley.

William Parr, c.1540. Drawing by Hans Holbein

On 20 June 1543 John Dudley, Viscount Lisle updated his absent friend William Parr with promising court news: Parr’s sisters, Katherine, Lady Latimer and Anne, Lady Herbert, had been seen in the company of ‟my Lady Mary’s Grace and my Lady Elizabeth“, the King’s daughters. Three weeks later William Parr became Henry VIII’s new brother-in-law, while Jane Dudley, Lady Lisle supported the bride at the wedding ceremony.¹

It has often been claimed that John Dudley had no friends. Indeed his stomach ulcer may have prevented him from much socializing (and the required drinking), but the chief cause for such assertions is simply that in August 1553 he died a man without a friend. Yet William Parr, about nine years younger than Dudley, certainly had been one throughout the previous decade.

What may have drawn William Parr and John Dudley to each other were their reformist religious views; views which naturally gained importance at the court of Katherine Parr. In the summer of 1546 the conservatives around Stephen Gardiner, the Bishop of Winchester, sought to regain some of their former strength: they took up the case of Anne Askew, a very outspoken and ‟heretical“ former housewife with excellent court contacts. The proceedings against her were well advanced when William Parr and John Dudley – perhaps nervous that she should name the ladies that had befriended her – tried to convince her to adopt the doctrine of the Henrician church:

Then came my lord Lisle, my lord Essex [Parr], and the bishop of Winchester, requiring me earnestly that I should confess the sacrament to be flesh, blood, and bone. Then, said I, to my lord Parr and my lord Lisle, that it was a great shame for them to counsel contrary to their knowledge. Whereunto, in few words, they did say, that they would gladly all things were well.²

Dudley and Parr, while not made of the stuff of martyrs, tried to rescue Anne Askew from the terrible torture and death that lay ahead for her, a no less Christian quality.

Six months later, a new king was in place, the nine-year-old Edward VI. His uncle, Edward Seymour, made himself Lord Protector and Duke of Somerset; Dudley and Parr became Earl of Warwick and Marquess of Northampton, respectively.

In July 1549, Northampton was appointed to lead a royal army against the Norfolk rebels who were about to take over the city of Norwich. On 1 August his men suffered a humiliating defeat in a battle that saw the captured Lord Sheffield butchered by ‟a butcherly knave … who by occupation was both a carpenter and a butcher“, while Northampton had been distracted by a feint petition for pardon.³ – Somerset himself had judged the Norfolk ‟commotion“ a minor affair, to be dealt with a small contingent of troops. Now, he blamed Northampton for tactical errors and poor leadership, while remaining undecided how to proceed further. In the meantime John Dudley had been scheduled to lead contingents to several destinations between Scotland and the West Country, none of which had come to pass, when he learnt of his commission to go to Norfolk to face the rebels; his letter of thanks was almost entirely concerned with the psychological well-being of William Parr:

I do think myself much bounden to my Lord’s Grace and the Council to receive so great a charge, so I cannot but wish that it might please the same to permit and suffer my Lord Marquis of Northampton to continue still in the force of his commission, … forasmuch, the nobleman having lately by misfortune received discomfort enough, haply this might give him occasion to think himself utterly discredited, and so for ever discourage him; which, in my opinion, were great pity.

Wherefore, if it might please his Grace to use his services again, I shall be as glad for my part to join with him, yea, rather than fail, with all my heart to serve under him, for this journey, as I would be to have the whole authority myself; and by this means his Grace shall preserve his heart, and hable him to serve hereafter, which, otherwise, he shall be utterly in himself discouraged – I would wish that no man for one mischance or evil hap, to the which we be all subject that must serve, should be utterly abject; for, if it should be so, it were almost a present discomfort to all men before they go to it, since those things lie in God’s hand.

Therefore, good Mr. Cecill, use your accustomed wisdom, and good heart that you bear to my Lord’s Grace, in declaring this matter with effect to the same, and with diligence let me hear from you again … Fare you well.

At Warwick, this Sunday, at four in the morning,
the 10th of August.
Your faithful friend,

J. Warwick⁴

John Dudley's signature as Earl of Warwick

As it turned out, Northampton served as Warwick’s second-in-command in the second attempt to deal with the rebel host, this time with a much larger force. Northampton’s renewed appointment ‟gave Warwick the benefit of the former’s knowledge of conditions at Norwich and reaffirmed his judgment that the earlier debacle had not been entirely the result of Northampton’s mismanagement.“⁵ The campaign was still no easy affair; several offers of pardon were rejected by Kett’s men, and it needed days of house-to-house fighting in Norfolk and a full-scale battle at Dussindale to defeat them: ‟on both sides, the casualties had been appalling“.⁶

continued at Close Allies – Northampton and Northumberland

Notes
1 Porter 2011 pp. 142, 143
2 Foxe p. 544
3 Beer 1982 p. 123
4 Tytler 1839 pp. 193 – 194
5 Beer 1982 p.128
6 Wood 2007 pp. 67 – 69

Sources
The Acts and Monuments of John Foxe. Volume V. (ed. George Townsend, 1846).

Beer, B. L. (1982): Rebellion and Riot: Popular Disorder in England during the Reign of Edward VI. The Kent University Press.

James, Susan (2004): “Parr, William, marquess of Northampton (1513–1571)”. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press.

Porter, Linda (2011): Katherine the Queen: The Remarkable Life of Katherine Parr. Pan.

Tytler, P. F. (1839): England under the Reigns of Edward VI. and Mary. Volume I. Richard Bentley.

Wood, Andy (2007): The 1549 Rebellions and the Making of Early Modern England. Cambridge University Press.