Henry Hastings, Earl of Huntingdon On May 25, 1553–not May 21, as is often reported–a triple wedding took place at Durham Place, the Duke of Northumberland’s London house. The couples were Guildford Dudley and Jane Grey, Henry Herbert and Katherine Grey, and Henry Hastings and Katherine Dudley. (Note the profusion of Henrys and Katherines and […]
A Triple Wedding at Durham Place: May 1553 Read More »
Either on January 15, 1555 (the date in her inquisition postmortem), or January 22, 1555 (the date on her tomb), Jane Dudley, Duchess of Northumberland, died. My piece about her will can be found here. She was buried on February 1, 1555. The duchess’s cause of death is unrecorded, although experiencing the deaths of her
The Funeral of Jane Dudley, Duchess of Northumberland Read More »
On January 22, 1552, Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset, uncle and former Protector to Edward VI, was executed on Tower Hill. Somerset was a complex man, neither the “Good Duke” of one stereotype nor the greedy megalomaniac of another, but he was probably out of his element as Protector and had a knack for alienating
The Deaths of a Duke and a Duchess Read More »
While looking for something else over the weekend, I stumbled upon these excerpts from an inventory of the goods of John Dudley, Viscount Lisle, later Earl of Warwick. John was the oldest surviving son of John Dudley, Earl of Warwick, who became the Duke of Northumberland in 1551. In 1871, Henry Thomas Riley published excerpts from
Buttons and Books: Some Goods of John Dudley, Viscount Lisle (d. 1554) Read More »
One of the many failings of Lady Jane Grey’s contemporaries, for the purposes of a novelist at least, is that no one bothered to write down the age of Guildford Dudley. Secondary sources give his age at his death as anywhere from seventeen to nineteen. One clue exists as to Guildford’s age, however: his godfather.
How Old Was Guildford Dudley? (Beats Me.) Read More »
In writing my forthcoming novel about Jane Dudley, Duchess of Northumberland, and Frances Grey, Duchess of Suffolk, one of my biggest challenges with Jane Dudley (née Guildford) was to figure out which queens she served. She can be linked with the last three of Henry’s queens: the first three are questionable. In his 1973 biography of
Jane in the Court of at Least Three Queens Read More »
On August 22, 1553, John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, died upon the scaffold at Tower Hill for his attempt to divert the succession from Mary Tudor to Lady Jane Grey. His reputation remained poor for centuries to come and only in the past few decades has undergone a much-needed reappraisal by historians. I came to
Ten Things to Like About John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland Read More »
At eight in the morning of Monday, August 21, 1553, ten thousand people crowded together at Tower Hill to see John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, pay the price for having attempted to keep Queen Mary off the throne of England. As the imperial ambassadors reported it, “The scaffolding was erected; the townsmen were in arms;
The Life of a Dog: The Pleas that Failed Read More »
On August 16, 1553, John Burcher, a cloth merchant living in Strasburgh, wrote to Heinrich Bullinger of the recent events in England, which of course included the recent death of Edward VI, the brief reign of Jane Grey, and the triumph of Mary I. Burcher wrote: That monster of a man, the duke of Northumberland, has been
From Hearsay to History: The Fate of Edward VI’s Body Read More »
On April 24, 1509, just three days after Henry VII died, “yerely in the mornyng the morow after Saint George day by thavis of the king and his councell were taken Sir Richard Empson knyght and Mr Edmund Dudeley esquire and sent as prisoners to the Tour of London.” The young king, Henry VIII, had
The Execution of Edmund Dudley Read More »