Jane Dudley, Duchess of Northumberland

Jane Guildford was born in Kent around 1508/1509, the only daughter of Sir Edward Guildford and Eleanor West, daughter of Thomas West, 8th Baron De La Warr. Her schooling occurred at home together with her brother Richard and her future husband, who was her father's ward from 1512.Loades 2008 In 1525, at about 16, she married Sir John Dudley, who was 20 or 21 years old. The match had been arranged by their parents some years before.

Jane Dudley gave birth to 13 children, eight boys and five girls.Loades 1996 p. 23 In most cases it is impossible to establish their birthdates exactly. An exception is Robert, the future favourite of Elizabeth I; he was born in 1532 as the fifth son, and possibly after the eldest daughter Mary, who became the mother of the courtier-poet Philip Sidney.Adams 2008a; Adams 2008b

The family life of John and Jane Dudley seems to have been happy and was free from any scandals;Loades 2008; Ives 2009 p. 106 around 1535 a poem praised the "love and devotion" of their marriage.Ives 2009 p. 307

Sir Edward Guildford died in 1534 before he could draw up his last will. Since his son Richard had predeceased him, Guildford's nephew, John Guildford, claimed the inheritance. The Dudleys maintained that Guildford's daughter Jane was the natural heir. They finally won the resulting court case with the assistance of Thomas Cromwell.Loades 1996 pp. 30–32; Beer 1973 p. 8

Jane Dudley served as a lady-in-waiting to Anne Boleyn, and later to Anne of Cleves.Loades 2008; Loades 1996 p. 41 She was interested in the Reformed religion and, with her husband, moved in evangelical circles from the mid-1530s.Loades 2008; MacCulloch 2001 pp. 52–53 In 1542 John Dudley was created Viscount Lisle. He was on friendly terms with William Parr, whose sister Katherine became Henry VIII's last queen in July 1543.Loades 1996 p. 60–61 As one of her closest friends, the Viscountess Lisle was among the four ladies leading her to the altar on the marriage day.Porter 2010 pp. 143, 163 Jane Dudley belonged also to the courtly sympathizers of Anne Askew, whom she contacted during her imprisonment in 1545–1546. The forthright Protestant was burnt at the stake as a heretic in July 1546 on the contrivance of the religiously conservative court party around Bishop Stephen Gardiner.Loades 2008; Loades 1996 p. 79

File:DukeofNorthumberland Penshurst.jpg, Jane Dudley's husband, 1540s]]

Renaissance humanism and science figured large in the Dudley children's education.Wilson 1981 pp. 11, 15–16; French 2002 p. 33 In 1553 Jane Dudley herself commissioned two works from the mathematician and Hermeticist John Dee about heavenly configurations and the tides.French 2002 pp. 32–33 Jane Dudley was close to her children; her eldest son, Henry, had died during the siege of Boulogne in 1544, aged 19. A postscript she wrote in 1552 under a letter by her husband to their then eldest son, John Dudley, 2nd Earl of Warwick, reads: {{sic|hide=y|"your lovynge mothere that wyshes you helthe dayli Jane Northumberland"}}. She also had health problems: In 1548 her husband was unwilling to leave her side, because she "had had her fit again more extreme that she had any time yet."Beer 1973 p. 68

Under Edward VI John Dudley, Viscount Lisle was raised in 1547 to the title of Earl of Warwick, while Edward Seymour, Earl of Hereford became Duke of Somerset and Lord Protector.Loades 1996 p. 90 In October 1549 the Protector lost his power in a trial of strength with the Privy Council,Loades 2004 pp. 46–50 from which John Dudley, Earl of Warwick emerged as Lord President of the Council and leader of the government.Loades 2004 p. 88 Somerset, who had been imprisoned in the Tower of London, was soon allowed to rejoin the Council.Loades 1996 p. 150 Before his release, the Duchess of Somerset and the Countess of Warwick had arranged daily banquets to reconcile their husbands. A marriage between their respective eldest son and daughter, Anne Seymour and John Dudley, was equally promoted by the two ladies.Beer 1973 pp. 95–96 In June 1550 a grand wedding was staged at the palace of Sheen, attended by the twelve-year-old King Edward.Ives 2009 p. 111 Jane Dudley continued as a great lady at court during the ascendancy of her husband, who became Duke of Northumberland in October 1551. She was influential with him; the financier Thomas Gresham and the diplomat Richard Morrison sought her patronage, and she also interceded for Mary Tudor,Gunn 1999 p. 1267 who had stood godmother to one of her daughters in 1545.Loades 1996 p. 74

King Edward fell ill in early 1553. He drew up a document, "My Devise for the Succession", whose final version of June 1553 was to settle the Crown on his Protestant cousin Lady Jane Grey, overturning the claims of his half-sisters Mary and Elizabeth.Ives 2009 p. 137; Loades 2004 pp. 121–122; Loades 1996 pp. 239–241 Jane Grey was the daughter of Frances Grey, Duchess of Suffolk, a niece of Henry VIII by his younger sister Mary. On 25 May 1553Ives 2009 p. 321 three matrimonial alliances were celebrated at Durham Place, the Dudleys' London town mansion. Two of their younger children were concerned: Guildford, aged about 17, married Lady Jane Grey, while Katherine, who was between eight and ten years old, was promised to the Earl of Huntingdon's heir, Henry Hastings.Loades 1996 p. 239; Adams 1995 p. 44 A few months later these matches came to be seen as proof of a conspiracy by the Duke of Northumberland to bring his family to the throne. At the time the marriages took place, however, their dynastical implications were not considered significant by even the most suspicious of observers, the Imperial ambassador Jehan de Scheyfye.Loades 2004 p. 121; Ives 2009 pp. 152–154 Modern historians have considered them either as part of a plot, or as "routine actions of dynastic politics", in the words of David Loades.Loades 1996 p. 239; Ives 2009 pp. 152–153; Jordan and Gleason 1975 pp. 10–11; Christmas 1997 The initiative for the matches had probably come from the Marchioness of Northampton.Ives 2009 p. 153

After Edward's death on 6 July 1553 Northumberland undertook the enforcement of the King's will.Alford 2002 p. 172 Lady Jane Grey accepted the Crown only after remonstrances by her parents and parents-in-law.Ives 2009 p. 187 On 10 July the Duchess of Northumberland accompanied her son and daughter-in-law on their ceremonial entry into the Tower of London, where they were to reside for the rest of the short reign.Ives 2009 pp. 188, 241 According to Jane's own exculpatory letter to Queen Mary a few months later,Ives 2009 p. 186 Guildford now wanted to be made king. The young people agreed on having him declared king by Act of Parliament; but then Jane changed her mind and declared she would only make him a duke.Ives 2009 p. 189 "I will not be a duke, I will be King", Guildford replied and went to fetch his mother.Chapman 1962 p. 118 Furious, the Duchess took the side of her son, before she told him to leave the Tower and go home. Jane, however, insisted that he remain at court. According to her the Duchess also "induced her son not to sleep with me any more", and it is clear from her writings that Jane disliked her mother-in-law.Ives 2009 pp. 186, 189, 255

To claim her right, Mary Tudor began assembling her supporters in East Anglia and demanded to be recognised as queen by the Privy Council in London.Loades 1996 pp. 259–261 When her letter arrived on 10 July 1553 during dinner, the Duchess of Suffolk, Jane's mother, and the Duchess of Northumberland broke into tears.Chapman 1962 p. 122 Mary was gathering strength, and, on 14 July, the Duke marched to Cambridge with troops to capture her.Loades 1996 p. 261 As it came, he passed a tranquil week until he heard on 20 July that the Council in London had declared for Mary.Ives 2009 pp. 241–242, 246 On the orders of the Privy Council Northumberland himself now proclaimed Queen Mary at the market-place and awaited his arrest.Loades 2004 p. 134 His wife was still in the Tower, but was soon released. She tried to intercede personally for her imprisoned husband and five sons with Mary, who was staying outside London. However, {{convert|5|mi|abbr=on}} before reaching the court, the Duchess was turned away on the Queen's orders, unlike Frances Brandon, the Queen's cousin and mother of Lady Jane. She then wrote a letter to her friend Lady Paget, the wife of William, Lord Paget, asking her to plead with the Queen's ladies for her husband's life.Gunn 1999 pp. 1270–1271 Her plea, if not unheard, went unanswered,Gunn 1999 p. 1269 and the Duke of Northumberland was executed on 22 August 1553 on Tower Hill after having recanted his Protestant faith.

Following Wyatt's rebellion, Guildford Dudley was beheaded on 12 February 1554 shortly before his wife. Knowing the Queen's character, in June 1554, Jane Dudley pleaded with the authorities to allow her remaining sons to hear mass.Adams 2008a During 1554, the Duchess and her son-in-law, Henry Sidney, worked hard pleading with the Spanish nobles around England's new king consort, Philip of Spain. Lord Paget may also have proved helpful, and Henry Sidney even traveled to Spain in their cause. In the autumn of 1554 the Dudley brothers were released from the Tower, although the eldest, John, died immediately afterwards at Sidney's house in Penshurst, Kent.Adams 2002 pp. 157–158 At the same location, Philip Sidney was born on 30 November 1554. His godmother was his grandmother Jane Dudley, while his godfather was Philip of Spain.Stewart 2000 p. 9

Amid the confiscation of the Dudley family's possessions in July 1553, Mary had allowed Jane Dudley to retain her wardrobe and plate, carpets, and other household stuffs, as well as the use of the Duke's house in Chelsea, London,Beer 1973 pp. 195, 197; Loades 1996 p. 308; Wilson 1981 p. 67 where she died on either 15 or 22 January 1555,Loades 1996 p. 272 and was buried on 1 February at Chelsea Old Church.[http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=45515 'Diary: 1555 (Jan – June)', The Diary of Henry Machyn: Citizen and Merchant-Taylor of London (1550–1563) (1848), pp. 79–90]. Retrieved 9 September 2013.

In her will, she tried to provide for her sons financially and thanked the Queen, as well as the many Spanish nobles whom she had lobbied. The Duchess of Alba was to receive her green parrot; to Don Diego de Acevedo she gave "the new bed of green velvet with all the furniture to it; beseeching him even as he hath in my lifetime showed himself like a father and a brother to my sons, so shall [I] require him no less to do now their mother is gone".Adams 2002 p. 134 She also remembered "my lord, my dear husband",Beer 1973 p. 165 and stipulated: "in no wise let me be opened after I am dead. ... I have not lived to be very bold before women, much more I should be loth to come into the hands of any living man, be he Physician or Surgeon."Richardson 1907 p. 5 She avoided being specific on religion, but stressed that "who ever doth trust to this transitory world, as I did, may happen to have an overthrow, as I had; therefore to the worms will I go as I have before written."

{{reflist}}

• Adams, Simon (ed.) (1995): Household Accounts and Disbursement Books of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, 1558–1561, 1584–1586 Cambridge University Press {{ISBN|0-521-55156-0}}
• Adams, Simon (2002): Leicester and the Court: Essays in Elizabethan Politics Manchester University Press {{ISBN|0-7190-5325-0}}
• Adams, Simon (2008a): [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/8160 "Dudley, Robert, earl of Leicester (1532/3–1588)"] Oxford Dictionary of National Biography online edn. May 2008 (subscription required) Retrieved 2010-04-03
• Adams, Simon (2008b): [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/69749 "Sidney, Mary, Lady Sidney (1530x35–1586)"] Oxford Dictionary of National Biography online edn. Jan 2008 (subscription required) Retrieved 2010-04-06
• Alford, Stephen (2002): Kingship and Politics in the Reign of Edward VI Cambridge University Press {{ISBN|978-0-521-03971-0}}
• Beer, B.L. (1973): Northumberland: The Political Career of John Dudley, Earl of Warwick and Duke of Northumberland The Kent State University Press {{ISBN|0-87338-140-8}}
• Chapman, Hester (1962): Lady Jane Grey Jonathan Cape OCLC 51384729
• Christmas, Matthew (1997): [https://www.historytoday.com/matthew-christmas/edward-vi "Edward VI"] History Review Issue 27 March 1997. Retrieved 2010-09-29
• French, Peter (2002): John Dee: The World of an Elizabethan Magus Routledge {{ISBN|978-0-7448-0079-1}}
• Gunn, S.J. (1999): "A Letter of Jane, Duchess of Northumberland, 1553" English Historical Review vol. CXIV pp. 1267–1271
• Ives, Eric (2009): Lady Jane Grey: A Tudor Mystery Wiley-Blackwell {{ISBN|978-1-4051-9413-6}}
• Jordan, W.K. and M.R. Gleason (1975): The Saying of John Late Duke of Northumberland Upon the Scaffold, 1553 Harvard Library {{LCCN|75015032}}
• Loades, David (1996): John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland 1504–1553 Clarendon Press {{ISBN|0-19-820193-1}}
• Loades, David (2004): Intrigue and Treason: The Tudor Court, 1547–1558 Pearson/Longman {{ISBN|0-582-77226-5}}
• Loades, David (2008): [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/8156 "Dudley, John, duke of Northumberland (1504–1553)"] Oxford Dictionary of National Biography online edn. Oct 2008 (subscription required) Retrieved 2010-04-04
• MacCulloch, Diarmaid (2001): The Boy King: Edward VI and the Protestant Reformation Palgrave {{ISBN|0-312-23830-4}}
• Medici, Catherine (2004): [https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/70580 "Dudley (née Guildford), Jane, duchess of Northumberland (1508/9–1555)"] Oxford Dictionary of National Biography online edn. May 2008 (subscription required) Retrieved 2021-05-24
• Porter, Linda (2010): Katherine the Queen: The Remarkable Life of Katherine Parr Macmillan {{ISBN|978-0-230-71039-9}}
• Richardson, Aubrey (1907): [https://archive.org/details/loverofqueeneliz00richiala The Lover of Queen Elizabeth: Being the Life and Character of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester 1533–1588] T. Werner Laurie
• Stewart, Alan (2000): Philip Sidney: A Double Life Chatto & Windus {{ISBN|0-7011-6859-5}}
• Wilson, Derek (1981): Sweet Robin: A Biography of Robert Dudley Earl of Leicester 1533–1588 Hamish Hamilton {{ISBN|0-241-10149-2}}

• [http://www.chelseaoldchurch.org.uk/files Monuments, Chelsea Old Church] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140715175230/http://www.chelseaoldchurch.org.uk/files |date=15 July 2014 }}

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