The Uncrowned Kings of England: The Black Legend of the Dudleys

by Derek Wilson

  First came in ladies all in white and red silk, set upon coursers trapped in the same suite, fretted over with gold, after whom followed a fountain curiously made of russet satin, with eight gargoyles spouting water, within the fountain sat a knight armed at all pieces. After this fountain followed a lady all in black silk draped with fine silver, on a courser trapped in the same. After followed a knight in a horse litter, the coursers and litter apparelled black with silver drapes. When the fountain came to the tilt, the ladies rode round about, and so did the fountain and the knight within the litter. And after them were brought two goodly coursers apparelled for the jousts: and when they came to the tilt end, the two knights mounted on the two coursers abiding all comers. The King was in the fountain and Sir Charles Brandon was in the litter. Then suddenly with great noise of trumpets, entered Sir Thomas Knyvet in a castle of coal black, and over the castle was written, The dolorous Castle, and so he and the Earl of Essex, the lord Howard and other ran their courses, with the king and Sir Charles Brandon, and ever the king broke most spears.5

  Although Arthur was a member of the king’s personal guard, it is not surprising that he left most of the tiltyard heroics to younger men. He is only mentioned in the records as taking part in one joust, at Greenwich on 1 June 1510. However, when it came to the real thing – war – he was determined not to be left out. Opportunities were not slow in coming. Henry VIII was set upon reliving the exploits of his legendary namesake, the hero of Agincourt.

  His bellicosity, dressed in the iridescent garb of Christian chivalry, allowed him to be easily duped by Ferdinand of Aragon into joining a military alliance against France. Henry’s wily father-in-law reckoned that England could be used as a useful irritant to his enemy while the main forces opposing French pretensions concentrated on the important task of ridding Italy of Louis’ army. Henry’s councillors, urged penny-pinching caution but the kings tiltyard companions encouraged Henry’s quest for glory. Fortunately, Henry had at hand the man who could turn his dreams into reality. Thomas Wolsey, who at the start of the reign was merely the king’s almoner, was an administrative genius. He assured Henry that he could have his splendid campaign and that he, Wolsey, would make all the arrangements about equipment, transport and victuals that would guarantee success. Henry eagerly put the thirty-seven-year-old priest in charge and fell to planning his grand strategy.

  There were to be two English contributions to the war. A land force was to be put ashore near Biarritz in the far south-west of France and work its way northwards while a naval contingent harried the Channel and Atlantic coasts to prevent the French fleet supplying their own troops.

  Arthur Plantaganet was not a member of the land army and he must later have been very thankful of the fact, for, once the English force were camped on the plain in the shadow of the Pyrenees, they were deserted by their Aragonese allies and wasted away with hunger and dysentery. Instead, he begged an honourable place in the naval force which was to scour the home waters under the command of the Lord Admiral, Sir Edward Howard, one of the king’s boon companions. Henry did not immediately respond and it was not until the following year, 1513, that he gave his uncle charge of the Nicholas of Hampton. Sadly Arthur threw away his chance for glory. The Lord Admiral discovered the bulk of the French fleet securely anchored at Brest, one of the safest havens in the world. The foe declined to come out and fight and Howard was not the kind of commander to content himself with a dreary and inglorious blockade. He ordered his ships to attack the inner harbour and only discovered too late just how impregnable the French position was. Arthur was determined to be in the thick of the action, yielding nothing in valour to his younger companions. Under his command the Nicholas advanced boldly, her leadsman taking regular soundings on the depth of water beneath the hull. Arthur’s impetuosity was his undoing. The ship struck a submerged rock with such force that, as Howard later reported, it was a wonder that she did not split in two. In fact, the warship stayed afloat long enough for most of her complement to escape and reach other vessels. Howard ordered the rescue of all survivors and then, learning the lesson of the Nicholas’ fate, called off the attack. Later Arthur Plantaganet stood before the admiral to make his report and to beg him to intercede with his majesty on his behalf. Both men knew how angry the king would be at the loss of a ship through incompetent handling before a shot had been fired. Someone was going to have some hard explaining to do. Howard did his best for his captain. He wrote to tell the king that Arthur was ‘the sorriest man I ever saw and no man here can comfort him.’ He assured Henry in fulsome terms that there was no-one on the expedition more dedicated than Arthur to his royal master. Arthur had desperate need of this testimonial for he had to go back to court to face the royal wrath in person. Unpleasant though that prospect was, it was absolutely vital. Arthur had to present his version of the ‘accident’ before news of it reached the king from other sources and before the court gossip machine could get to work undermining his reputation. But hurrying home presented its own problem. Henry would want to know why his uncle had compounded his error by deserting his post instead of proving that devotion to duty of which Howard boasted. Captain and admiral came up with an explanation that may be genuine but which looks to the cynical reader like a clever and unchallengeable excuse. Howard went on to explain,

  I have given him licence to go home, for, Sir, when he was in the extreme danger [and hope gone] from him, he called upon Our Lady of Walsingham for help and com[fort and made] a vow that, and it pleased God and her to deliver him out of that pe[ril, he wou]ld never eat flesh or fish till he had seen her.6

  Henry was very devout and Walsingham was a favourite shrine of both himself and the queen. Arthur must have been banking on the fact that the king was unlikely to challenge his commitment to undertake a holy pilgrimage.

  The stratagem seems to have worked, for Arthur did not forfeit royal favour. Within days Arthur’s misfortune was overshadowed by a greater. Edward Howard, leading another hotheaded attack on the French ships, was drowned. The English fleet, totally demoralized, immediately returned home, leaving the enemy at liberty to mount a reprisal raid on the Sussex coast. This threatened Henry’s grand strategy for he had resolved to lead in person an assault on northern France and the plan depended on the Channel being kept free of enemy ships. However, by midsummer he judged it safe to attempt the crossing. What followed was part military campaign and part pageant. Attended by the menfolk of every noble and gentle house who could raise the money for fine accoutrements and impressive retinues, Henry made a stately progress inland. There was a minor skirmish with French forces which English propaganda soon turned into a great victory, dubbed the Battle of the Spurs, and then the invading force trundled on to invest the impressive fortress of Therouanne and the city of Tournai. These were not significant French strongholds, lying as they did in territory claimed by the Emperor Maximilian but under the ‘protection’ of King Louis. However, their capture was claimed by Henry as a great triumph of English arms and to celebrate he remained at Tournai for three weeks after its capitulation impressing his allies and the local citizenry with his prowess in the joust – the closest he ever came to actual military action. And Arthur Plantaganet was among those present on the campaign grabbing his small slice of glory. It was after the siege of Tournai that, along with several other commanders, he received a knighthood. The honour marked the end of his brief military career.

  Another captain who was included in the mass dubbing of knights before the walls of Tournai was Edward Guildford, an old friend of the Dudleys and much more of a father figure to Edmund’s heir than Arthur Plantaganet. All the lawyer’s children with the exception of the eldest, Elizabeth (already married to William, Lord Stourton), were minors at the time of his death and, therefore, royal wards. In February 1512, Edward Guildford petitioned for and was awarded the wardship of the eldest boy, John Dudley, then seven years old. He removed the child from the care of his mother and stepfather and sent him to his own home a
t High Halden, near Tenterden in Kent, to be brought up with his own children.

  As well as being one of the king’s closest companions and a leading light at court, Guildford was one of the three leading landowners in south-east England. The family had been long established in Kent and Sussex but it was Edward’s father, Sir Richard Guildford, who had firmly anchored their fortunes. A committed supporter of Henry Tudor, he had joined the exile in Brittany and fought by his side in 1485. The rewards bestowed by a grateful king had been lavish. As well as extensive lands and lucrative wardships, Sir Richard became a councillor, Master of the Ordnance and Keeper of the Tower Armoury, Comptroller of the Royal Household and Master of the Horse. But these perquisites were not merely the rewards for loyalty; he was a member of Reginald Bray’s circle and a man of very similar stamp. Contemporary records reveal him to have been involved in organizing royal jousts, designing ships for the navy, going on diplomatic missions, draining marshland (the area around Rye is still known as the Guildford Level) and administering some of the estates held by Henry and his queen. The king showed the degree of trust he reposed in Sir Richard when he named him as a trustee in his will. He was unable to discharge that particular responsibility for he died while on pilgrimage to Jerusalem in 1506.

  Richard Guildford’s eldest son Edward, and his half-brother, Henry, followed careers at the centre of national life. Both men belonged to Henry VIII’s inner circle and were his close companions in the tiltyard and in the campaigns against France. Edward followed his father as Master of the Armoury and was appointed Warden of the Cinque Ports. Henry became Master of the Horse in 1515 and was an efficient and enterprising organizer of jousts and court entertainments. He was not only fully conversant with all the details of chivalric ritual which strictly governed feats of arms in the tiltyard, he also delighted his royal master by devising impromptu diversions. In 1510, he decked out the king and a band of his friends ‘in short coats of Kentish Kendal’, borrowed for the occasion from his own servants, in order to disguise them as Robin Hood and his merry men, and they all surprised the queen in her chambers with music and dancing. Henry Guildford eventually became Comptroller of the Household. This was the family in whose midst John Dudley grew from childhood into adolescence.

  Years later John observed, en passant, in a letter to his stepfather Arthur, ‘You bare my father-in-law partly a grudge for doing as he did for to disherit me, being within age, and also should marry his own daughter,’7 and indeed the events of 1512 contributed to a complex feud between Arthur Plantaganet and Edward Guildford. Arthur believed that Edward had used his influence with the king to deprive him of his rights. He doubtless assumed that when he married Elizabeth he would have all the Dudley properties at his disposal and that he would have the guardianship of the heir and, therefore, be in a position to make lucrative arrangements about his marriage. Now part of the estate had been alienated with John, whose upbringing had been taken out of his hands, and he was left with only the property that was Elizabeth’s by dower or jointure for the term of his life. Being a courtier was an expensive business. Clothes, horses, tilt armour, and servants had to be found and maintained. It meant patronizing scholars and artists, offering lavish hospitality at impressive residences in town and country and displaying costly status symbols. The king’s friends had to keep up with him in conspicuous consumption if they were to continue in his favour. This meant, for example, placing heavy wagers on the outcome of every sporting contest, for Henry was an inveterate gambler. All this could be crippling for the ambitious courtier. Hence the importance of land. Manors, farms and woodland brought in regular rents and they provided collateral when a nobleman or gentleman needed to go to the City goldsmiths for the ready cash necessary to support a lavish lifestyle. This is why wardships were so eagerly snapped up when they came on the market. It is easy to see why Arthur Plantaganet should have felt aggrieved when his expectations were not fully realized. However, in all likelihood, Arthur had himself largely to blame for losing out to Edward Guildford. He was not a very forceful character and he was certainly careless where money matters were concerned, so he was no match for a more skilful intriguer and one who had the ear of the king.

  As for young John, we may reasonably speculate on the impact of his change of home and fortune at such a tender age. His earliest years had been passed in pampered luxury as the son of a prominent royal servant and he had spent most of his time in the large house in Candlewick Street with its extensive garden. Then, at the age of five, everything was snatched from him. His father was branded a traitor. Former friends and associates turned their backs on the family and his old playfellows were kept away from him. Two years later he was separated from his mother to be brought up in rural Kent. Still he may have had to endure the taunts of other children who had picked up from their elders stories about the loathsome Edmund Dudley. We do not have to rely solely on imagination and conjecture for this. John’s reaction was to grow up intensely, defensively proud of his ancestry. In later years he resolutely defended his father’s reputation and he was very strongly motivated to restore Dudley dynastic fortunes. As soon as he was in a position to do so he devoted considerable money and energy to rescuing his family estates, in danger of being totally ruined by the ineptitude of their baronial landlords.

  The marriage of Edward Guildford’s only daughter, Jane, to his ward was always part of the deal. In this way the girl was provided for and the Guildford–Dudley links would remain strong after John came of age and assumed control of his own affairs. The children were probably betrothed soon after John joined the household at High Halden, when Jane was only three or four. They were married as soon as propriety allowed, in 1523 or 1524, when she was fourteen and her groom nineteen. Theoretically, either of the young people could have declined to go through with the matrimonial arrangements made in their name but there is no indication that they registered any such objection. By the day of the ceremony John and Jane had been brought up together for a decade or more, and had got well used to the idea that they were destined to become husband and wife. Jane was an intelligent and well-educated young woman. She was tutored in Princess Mary’s household by the radical educationalist Juan Luis Vives and in later years would be a patroness of scholars. All the evidence suggests that she and John were very fond of each other. John remained faithful to Jane through thirty years of married life. She supported him through good times and bad, bore him thirteen children and lived to revere his memory. The will which she wrote with her own hand contained several references to ‘my dear husband’ and, bequeathing a clock to her daughter, Mary, she pointed out that it had been ‘the lord her father’s, praying her to keep it as a jewel’. Back in the calm 1520s there may have been a more mercenary element to the bond between the young people. Edward Guildford had a son, Richard, who must have been about the same age as John and we must assume that, for some time, they were brought up together. However, Richard died young and Jane became sole heiress to her father’s estate. John Dudley thus became a soldier–courtier with excellent ‘expectations’.

  In fact, from a financial point of view, John’s early career was marked by several strokes of good fortune. Richard’s death meant that he and his wife would, on the death of his mother and her father, unite all the substantial lands held by their two families in south-east England. Then, in 1519, his prospects became even brighter. His mother’s niece, Elizabeth Grey, sole heiress of the Lisle estates and titles, died unwed at the age of fourteen. As the girl’s closest living relative, Elizabeth Plantaganet was the sole beneficiary. The person who gained immediately was Arthur Plantaganet. In 1523, when the lawyers had made their ponderous way through the elaborate probate ritual, he became Viscount Lisle and the holder of lands in ten counties ‘with remainder to his heirs male by the Lady Elizabeth, his wife’. But he had no heirs male by the Lady Elizabeth. She died a couple of years later, having presented him with three daughters. At that point John received the Dudley lands which had been his
mother’s, and the reversion of the Lisle estates, which would pass to him, along with the viscountcy, after Arthur’s death. And his good fortune, as we shall see, did not end there.

  All this was in the future when the seven-year-old boy was taken to Kent to begin his new life. There his education was vigorous and demanding. From the beginning he was trained in the skills of a soldier and courtier because those were the skills most valued by the king. For Edmund the law had been the obvious route to royal service. His son and those responsible for his upbringing understood that the new king prized men of action rather than subtle-minded scholars. Guildford knew exactly what was required of those who hoped for high office under the second Tudor and he took a close interest in his ward’s progress. John was trained in horsemanship, weaponry and military strategy, with little emphasis on book learning, though he would have made a good scholar for he had his father’s keen mind. The commonest criticism of him during his years in power was that he was a subtle, amoral schemer, a man who weighed up the pros and cons of every option before deciding on the one that would be most advantageous to himself. Such clearheadedness served him well as a field tactician and as a politician. What he lacked was the breadth of understanding that a grounding in philosophy and ethics would have given him. It was a deprivation of which he became acutely aware as the years passed.

  Having found in John Dudley an apt pupil and one whom he came to look upon as a son, Guildford awaited opportunities to bring him to the attention of England’s two rulers, the king and his chief minister. Wolsey, who had become a cardinal in 1515, was now widely acknowledged as having at least equal standing with his master. He held the offices of Lord Chancellor and Archbishop of York and in his residences at York House and Hampton Court he received ambassadors, dealt with a range of petitions, exercised tight control of government business and lived in princely splendour. The poet John Skelton pointed out in his verse satire, Why Come Ye Not to Court, what many observed with growing resentment: