by Derek Wilson
By this time John had a sizeable family to look after. Throughout the early years of their marriage Jane gave birth almost annually. Of the children who survived infancy there were, by 1533, Henry, Mary, John, Margaret, Ambrose and Catherine. On St John the Baptist’s day (24 June) in that year another son was born.12 The Dudleys already had one John among their children and decided to christen the new arrival Robert. Thus the most famous member of the family made his entry into the world. (Eleven weeks later Anne Boleyn was brought to bed of a daughter. She was named Elizabeth.) The following year, about the time of Sir Edward’s death, John and Jane had another son. He was called Guildford in memory of the grandfather he would never know. After him came another five siblings. The Dudley menage of the 1530s was a busy, noisy, bustling place.
By the standards of the time John was an affectionate, even an indulgent father.
What should I wish any longer this life, that seeth such frailty in it? Surely, but for a few children which God has sent me, which also helps to pluck me on my knees, I have no great cause to desire to tarry much longer here.13
So he wrote in the dark days near the end of his life when the reversal of his fortunes persuaded him to reflect on the things that really matter, but even during the days when he was determinedly pursuing wealth and influence his family provided a comforting base. In later years he was accused of every kind of moral failing but no public lampoon or private letter exists which suggests that he was a womanizer. When he was abroad on diplomatic business he wrote home often and always returned with gifts for his wife and children. When he had to report to the Council unhappy tidings from the disturbed northern border he appended a personal note to his despatch: ‘I pray you keep this from my wife.’14 Dudley’s concern extended beyond his immediate flesh and blood. When the Plantaganets took up residence in Calais John and Jane received one of their daughters, Elizabeth, into their own home. John took the responsibility seriously, even to the extent of remonstrating with the girl’s father:
. . . for my part I have and will do as becometh a brother to do to his sister; but if your lordship should not be as good lord and father unto her as to the rest of your daughters ye may be sure there is but few would harken unto her [regard her as a good marriage prospect]; for of late there was one brake off from communication of marriage only because it was bruited that you had given your land wholly to my sister Frances – as knoweth our Lord, who keep you in his blessed tuition.15
If the following letter is any indication of their father’s general attitude it seems that the Dudley brood were pretty well spoiled. It was written when the eldest boy was on his first foreign mission and running into the usual temptations that beset young greenhorns away from the restraints of home.
I had thought you had more discretion than to hurt yourself thorough fantasies or care, specially for such things as may be remedied or helpen. Well enough you must understand that I know you cannot live under great charges. And therefore you should not hide from me your debts whatsoever it be, for I would be loth but you should keep your credit with all men. And therefore send me word in any wise of the whole sum of your debts, for I and your mother will see them forthwith paid and whatsoever you do spend in honest service of our master, so [long as] you do not let wild and wanton men consume it, as I have been served in my days, you must think all is spent as it should be, and all that I have must be yours and that you spend before you may with God’s grace help it hereafter by good and faithful service, wherein I trust you will never be found slack . . .16
Jane added a PS: ‘Your loving mother that wishes you health daily.’ There is every reason to envisage the growing family who lived in the Dudley town house much of the year and retired to one or other of their manors for the hot, unhealthy summer months as contented and well-to-do.
Their first serious shock came in May 1536. On the tenth of that month John wrote to Lady Lisle (Plantagenet’s second wife):
. . . As touching the news that are here, I am sure it needeth not to write to you nor to my lord of them, for all the world knoweth them by this time. This day was indicted Mr Norris, Mr Weston, William Brereton, Markes [Mark Smeaton] and my Lord of Rochford. And upon Friday next they shall be arraigned at Westminster. And the Queen herself shall be condemned by Parliament.17
6
The Pendulum and the Pit
No one has ever offered a fully satisfactory explanation for the downfall of Anne Boleyn. Sometime in the early months of 1536 Henry VIII, who had been utterly enraptured with the new woman in his life and for six long years had defied pope, emperor and English public opinion in order to make her his queen, instructed Cromwell to find a pretext for her death. There were several factors which might have affected the timing of this decision. In January the discarded Catherine of Aragon died. Henry could not have ended his second marriage while she was still alive because he would have been expected to take Catherine back. Now, however, he could re-establish relations with the Emperor and the sacrifice of Anne upon the altar of their friendship would dramatically demonstrate his sincerity. In January also the king had a bad fall in the tiltyard. For a couple of hours (according to some sources) he was unconscious and his physicians feared the worst. Some historians have identified this crisis as marking a drastic personality change in Henry. He had always been self-willed and capable of gratuitous cruelty but now his mood swings became quite unpredictable and his behaviour often irrational. Yet another event in the fraught early weeks of 1536 was Anne’s miscarriage of a man child. It was the sad conclusion of her third pregnancy, and all she had to show for her ordeals was one child, a daughter. This, for Henry, was uncomfortably like a rerun of his first marriage – and time was not on his side. Henry’s brush with death brought home to him the increased urgency of establishing the dynasty.
These three events indicate why Henry might have regarded this as a propitious time to take fresh thought about ways to secure a male heir but they do not explain why he resolved to murder not only his wife but other members of the court, some of whom had been close friends. There have been those who have seen the hand of the ‘machiavellian’ Cromwell in all this. In those winter months of 1536 he was putting the finishing touches to his plans to despoil the monasteries and there could be no doubt that the measure would provoke widespread alarm, discontent and, possibly, even rebellion. This was, above all, the time for the king to be seen to be strong, determined and ruthless. Getting rid of Anne and her ‘accomplices’ would serve a double purpose: it would gratify all those with whom the queen was enormously unpopular and it would send a signal to those opposed to the course of government policy that no one who offended the king could expect to escape retribution. Yet the suggestion that Cromwell could have conceived such a risky stratagem, persuaded the king to endorse it and calmly seen it through without, apparently, fearing that rivals would get to Henry and change his mind strains credulity. The minister had risen with the support of the Boleyns. They had shared not just a common concern to rid the king of his first wife but a commitment to a reformist programme. There could only have been one place where the fate of Anne Boleyn was decided and that was in the mind of England’s tyrannical ruler. As ever, Henry proposed the policy and demanded its efficient execution by his loyal servants.
By mid-March rumour was spreading through the court like spilled oil. The queen herself set a match to it on 2 April when she had her almoner preach a sermon in which Cromwell was compared to Haman who, in the book of Esther, tried to encompass the downfall of the Persian queen and ended up on the gallows he had erected for his enemy. Thereafter the atmosphere in the royal household was crackling with nervous static. At the end of the month the arrests began and on 2 May Anne herself was conveyed by barge to the Tower.
Still no one outside the circle of Cromwell and his confidential agents knew precisely what was going on and it was a week before the minister called a meeting which was designed to put an end to speculation. Twenty-two gentlemen of the privy chamber we
re summoned to the great man’s presence, among them John Dudley. They must have been in urgent need of reassurance. As well as Anne’s brother, Lord Rochford, three of their privy chamber colleagues were marked to die for treasonable adultery. It was the following day that Sir John was able to assure Lady Lisle that it was resolved upon that ‘the Queen herself shall be condemned by Parliament.’ The chilling words indicate clearly that Anne’s fate had been settled well before the travesty of a trial had been held. Writs for the new parliament had been hurried out on 27 April, its immediate object being to set the seal of a spurious legality on the execution of Anne, the bastardizing of her daughter and the legitimizing of Henry’s offspring by his next wife. To those evaluating their alliances and friendships these were bewildering and hazardous days. The Boleyn network was torn to shreds. But the Catholic faction which hoped to benefit from the queen’s fall and to be poised to strike at Cromwell failed to make the most of their moment. Their tactics depended largely in persuading Princess Mary to grovel her way back into her father’s good books, but she refused to demean herself and sully her mother’s memory by such a submission until it was too late to help her friends back into power. Even Cromwell’s position was not secure. He was playing for high stakes and a moment’s miscalculation could have brought upon him the fatal wrath of his unpredictable master. This was probably another reason for the meeting he called on 9 May; he was building his own faction based on old friends and new allies in the privy chamber.
Was it chance or shrewd judgement that once more placed John Dudley within the victors’ camp? Not only did he remain loyal to Cromwell throughout these tense and troubled weeks; he had another alliance which would, in the long run, prove even more valuable. Edward Seymour, John’s friend, colleague and partner in various land deals, was about to be rocketed to wealth and influence. Edward was almost John’s exact contemporary but he had lagged behind in promotion within the household. He lacked John’s impressive ancestry and his rise had been much slower and more problematic. He was a younger son of a Wiltshire gentleman who had served in the early campaigns of the reign and had managed to see Edward and his sister, Jane, placed at court. From there on Edward had to rely solely on his own talents if he was to take full advantage of his position. His chief attributes were a certain cultured charm and driving ambition. Whereas Dudley had become an esquire of the body in 1524, it was not until 1529 that Seymour joined that select band. However, Henry enjoyed his company, especially at the gaming tables, and various loans and grants came the young courtier’s way. But in 1535–6 his career accelerated dramatically. The spur was Henry’s attraction to Jane Seymour, who was one of the queen’s ladies. Her portrait and contemporary accounts agree: Jane Seymour was no beauty. But she was bright and Henry liked intelligent women – as long as they were submissive. It may have been her ambitious brother or some other scheming courtier with a dislike of the Boleyns who saw the potential offered by the king’s latest infatuation: what Anne had achieved Jane might also bring off. She was tutored to guard her virtue devoutly in the hope that her resistance would only fuel Henry’s determination. It was the availability of another young, fecund potential wife that underscored Henry’s determination to be rid of Anne. As Jane rose, so Edward rose with her. In March he was appointed a gentleman of the privy chamber. Both at Greenwich and at Hampton Court he and his sister were allotted quarters conveniently close to the king’s so that his majesty could pass privily to and fro. On 17 May Cranmer obligingly pronounced Henry’s second marriage null and void. On 30 May Anne was beheaded in the precincts of the Tower and within a fortnight the king and Jane Seymour were married.
Thus the pendulum of power swung away from the Boleyns and towards the Seymours. Over the next seventeen months Edward became Viscount Beauchamp, Governor of Jersey, Chancellor of North Wales and Earl of Hertford. He was admitted to the Council and received substantial grants of land to support his new dignities. The new balance of power at court was clearly indicated in August 1537 when Edward’s sister, Elizabeth, was married to Cromwell’s son, Gregory. How did John Dudley respond to his colleague’s meteoric rise?
To all outward appearances – and those are all the historian has to go on – Dudley accepted the changed relationship with a good grace. It was, of course, in his interests to do so. Patronage and royal favour were now in the gift of the Cromwell–Seymour caucus. The minister had also reached new heights of personal aggrandizement. He was raised to the peerage as Baron Cromwell of Wimbledon and took over the office of Lord Privy Seal, which had been stripped from Thomas Boleyn. In the tiny world of the Tudor court every nuance of status and precedence was carefully noted and carried great significance. Thus, for example, Baron Cromwell, the most junior member of the aristocracy, declined to take a lowly place on entering the House of Lords. He had an Act passed which provided that the Vicegerent in Spirituals (himself), as the king’s direct representative, should have the place of honour in the assembly even (and especially) above the premier peer, the Duke of Norfolk. If John was at all upset at being overtaken by someone less talented, he had little time to brood. Within the year he went to war again.
1536 was an annus horribilis for Henry VIII. Scarcely had he put the events of the spring behind him and settled into his new marriage than his only son, the illegitimate Duke of Richmond, died of tuberculosis. Seventeen-year-old Henry Fitzroy had filled an important place in his father’s life. As his wives produced healthy daughters and a succession of sickly babies the existence of the young duke was living proof that Henry was capable of siring a man child. And there was always the possibility that Fitzroy could become the heir to the throne. His claim was just as good as that of Henry’s daughters, both of whom had now been bastardized. The king was desperate for a legitimate male heir but should fate continue to deny that to him Richmond was a fallback and Henry contemplated the possibility of willing the crown to him. Now death had removed that option and the spectre of the dynasty’s end reared up more frighteningly than ever. But that was nothing compared to the new threat to the regime which erupted in September – rebellion.
It had all started at Louth, a market town on the edge of the Lincolnshire fens. On Michaelmas Day (29 September) the citizenry gathered outside their church of St James, but recently refurbished and provided with an impressive 295 foot spire by the devoted parishioners, for the annual procession of crucifixes, statues and precious reliquaries. The building and its comforting rituals had always connected the people to a supposedly changeless past, but as they came together in 1536 they did so in a spirit of anxiety and foreboding. A shout from the crowd summed up the prevailing mood: ‘Go ye and follow the crosses, for if they be taken from us we are like to follow them no more.’1 Reality and rumour had profoundly disturbed this remote locality. Nearby religious houses were in the process of being torn down. Royal commissioners (inevitably regarded as snoopers) were travelling from village to village assessing the wealth of the churches. Cromwell had delivered injunctions instructing clergy to preach in support of the king’s supremacy and to abolish superstitious practices. To many conservative countrymen it seemed that tyranny and heresy were in league to overthrow all that was valuable in traditional society. They believed that worse was to come: backbreaking taxes were about to be imposed; churches were to be stripped of anything valuable which could be appropriated for the king’s pleasure; and what else might a monarch not do who had disposed of the pope, the monastic orders and both of his queens? The country folk decided they would not wait to find out. Next day self-appointed leaders took all the church ornaments into safe keeping and resolved to send the king’s commissioners packing. What began in Louth spread rapidly throughout the fenland. Summoned by church bells and egged on by their clergy, an anxious crowd became an angry mob and, within days, the first blood of the rebellion had been shed.
If Cromwell was surprised by the turn of events he certainly had no excuse; for weeks his agents in several areas far from the capital had been warnin
g him of the discontent caused by the changes he was forcing on the nation. But he had been dismissive of such alarmist reports and quite unrepentant. In fact, shows of resistance by unruly subjects helped his cause because they made the king angry. Henry contemptuously dismissed the Lincolnshire malcontents as ‘the rude commons of one shire and that one of the most brute and beastly of the whole realm,’2and Cromwell took his cue from his master. As the expressions of discontent spread to neighbouring counties he instructed his agents,
There can be no better way to beat the King’s authority into the heads of the rude people of the North than to show them that the King intends reformation and correction of religion. They are more superstitious than virtuous, long accustomed to frantic fantasies and ceremonies, which they regard more than either God or their prince. They are completely alienated from true religion.3
But the messengers who galloped into Westminster were soon bringing more disturbing news: thousands of people were flocking to the rebels’ pious banners representing the wounds of Christ and among them were some of the nobles and gentlemen to whom the government looked to maintain law and order. The dissidents were armed and determined, and defiant words were not going to stop them. Even the king was soon forced to acknowledge that the Lincolnshire Rising and the Pilgrimage of Grace which followed hard on its heels in Yorkshire constituted the biggest crisis of his reign. Not only were his policies being challenged, there was a real threat that England would return to the anarchy that had preceded his father’s grabbing of the crown.
