John Dudley: Tudor England's Wicked Duke

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0:32This message is brought to you by Apple Card. Ah, fall. That cozy season where we swap the swimwear for sweaters and sunnies for scarves. But before the Halloween decorations are put away or Thanksgiving table has been set, there's already holly jolly music playing in the grocery store, reminding you that the year is coming to a close. Time to kick end of year into high gear. When you use Apple Card with Apple Pay, you earn 2 % daily cash back on all purchases, including food, decorations, gifts, and more. Get a head start on your end of year purchases. Apply for your Apple Card in the wallet app on your iPhone today and start using it right away with Apple Pay.

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3:35Henry VIII is dead. Who now will rule England? His son, his heir, the boy king Edward VI, sits on the throne technically. But like all child monarchs, there are going to be shadowy figures whispering into their ears, pulling the strings behind the scenes. The true power players. And in this iteration of the Tudor court, it was John Dudley. In some ways he's the archetypal Tudor villain, the kind that you imagine lurking in the shadows in a dark velvet cloak. His moniker in history is the Wicked Duke. He dominated politics during the reign of the boy king Edward VI between 1549 and 1553. Dudley was cunning, calculated, ruthless, a brilliant political operator with a Protestant fervour.

4:28He would risk all to get what he wanted. He was a dangerous man. But that isn't to say he wasn't exactly what Tudor England needed at that time. He took the reins in a period of serious crisis. England was unstable, religiously divided, financially strained. He did put an end to expensive wars. He pulled England back from the brink of total economic collapse. He improved administration. He reorganised the navy. He stabilised the country. to his supporters he was decisive and practical driven by survival but he went too far they always do he led a coup attempt effectively to put lady jane grey on the throne of england and that led him eventually to the executioner's block to chart the meteoric rise and disastrous fall of one of tudor england's most influential figures i'm joined by the brilliant professor susanna lipscomb expert in all things Tudors.

5:27She and I recently made a documentary series called How the Tudors Lost Their Heads, which is out now on National Geographic. In it, we reveal some of the era's most famous figures in a new light by investigating the real reasons their lives ended by execution. So, was John Dudley Tudor England's saviour or greatest villain? This is Dan Snow's History Hit.

5:57Susanna, thanks for coming on. It's good to see you, Dan. It's very good to see you too. And I want to talk about what a dramatic place to start, the death of old King Henry. He's ruled for as long as anyone can remember. That must have been an extraordinary moment. It certainly was. I mean, actually, what's so strange about it is that Henry VIII has become such a dominant presence. Everything has been dictated by his whims for decades. And yet, at the moment of his death, the thing I find extraordinary is that very quickly everyone's scrambling to work out what's going to happen next and what position they're going to have and fear of this great tyrant is almost immediately forgotten like his wishes are almost immediately put aside really and they find some backbone or they start looking after their own interests once the great man is breathing his last when there's a transition in this period from one king or to another one monarch to another is that a time of opportunity for the men around the king do they They seek to maintain what they've got, advance.

6:55What goes on then? Yes, it's absolutely a time of opportunity. And the death of Henry VIII is perhaps particularly the case because in his last will and testament, he says that any grants or gifts which have been unfulfilled should be granted. And one of John Dudley's friends, William Padgett, happily has a document. this document from Dudley's friend William Padgett which is endorsed by Henry VIII says things like their friend Edward Seymour should become the Duke of Somerset and that various other people should be a noble or you know reached up in terms of the peerage and so there's this sense that this is a moment to capitalise on that kind of fudging of what Henry actually meant when he said that these things should be that are unfulfilled.

7:44It's like when one of our relatives dyes your mum always wanted me to have that teapot she just specifically said that that's so interesting so they're all so there's oldums and dukedoms kind of flying around exactly if you just substitute teapot for like a peerage yes but is it also time of danger because you've got these big egos these powerful magnets and and you've got now a child on the throne and we have not had great examples in the last 150 years of english history of what happens when a child gets on the throne exactly every every time there's been something that went wrong um pretty much whether you've got a regent or protector or a council and there's a few days where it's there's everything to play for because generally speaking they don't announce the death of the monarch until they've got their plan in place so after henry the eighth dies they keep taking food to his rooms they keep you know the trumpeters keep trumpeting outside at the certain hours and it's all to cover over the fact that he's dead and the same thing happens when edward dies because they're trying to make sure that mary doesn't find out and then i mean that there is they're all jockeying for position behind these closed doors i mean that's there's no no one's in charge yeah and there's no honor you know they're just all just absolutely scrambling that's crazy and his son is nine they're happy that his son will sit on the throne but of course the key thing is who will sort of rule in his place yes so henry the eighth has planned that there will be a council because he He has looked back, as you say, at the previous examples.

9:07He's looked back at Richard III and the princes in the tower. He's looked back at the sort of disastrous French campaigns, you know, from the early 15th century. And so he's thought, OK, well, what we need is 16 men who were all in concert. And he has made sure that certain big personalities are not on that council, like Stephen Gardner, who's the Bishop of Winchester, or Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk. Yeah, I'm not surprised. Get him well away from it. In the tower at the time, accused of treason. And so these people are supposed to rule in concert. And that is not what happens because they meet within days of Henry's death.

9:46So he dies on the 28th of January, 1547. And within days, they have decided that Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset, newly appointed, will be the first among equals. He will be the Lord Protector. So they won't really be ruling by the council. and they say they're doing all this because of Henry VIII's will which is sort of lip service to the will doing exactly the opposite of what it says so zooming out England at the time Henry has spent a lot of money so indebted has stood at all sorts of religious problems that Protestants, the reforming Christians, Protestants think that the future kind of belongs to them Catholics think presumably there might be a chance now to heal this rift with Rome.

10:35So there's going to be excitement and opportunity for everyone out there at the passing of King Henry. Yes, everybody thinks that there's something to be corrected in terms of religion. So the Catholics think they need to go back to Rome. And those who can now declare themselves Protestant, because basically to be a Protestant under Henry was heresy, are able to push forward. And among them is John Dudley. I mean I think what his position on faith is is hard to determine but he's certainly in with a group of Protestants who then push forward with basically iconoclastic change I mean really smashing church They would have seen themselves completing what Henry started so break with Rome and now wipe out every vestige of Roman Catholicism Exactly And what does that mean?

11:22Smashing up churches? It means smashing up rude screens which are sort of beautiful wooden carved screens with the statues of the saints in them in churches. It means smashing up windows that are stained glass on them, statues of saints. All of this they think is idolatrous. It means removing any idea of the mass being a sacrifice, getting rid of the liturgy in Latin, which also makes redundant almost all church music overnight. It means completely changing the experience of church. There aren't altars anymore. There are tables. I mean, it's stripped down, stripped down. And this must have been absolutely extraordinary for people who lived through it because it was so alienating and changed their experience of church.

12:07And everyone went to church every Sunday, pretty much. And so this is their major community place and suddenly it's all different. So it has a massive impact and it produces rebellions in the country when these things are introduced. So turmoil. You've mentioned John Dudley a few times. Let's get on. Let's get into it with him. where does this man emerge from? We hear a lot in the Tudors, don't we, about these sort of men who aren't great aristocrats but are sort of raised up through their own merit, perhaps through the laziness of Henry VIII he needs people to do all the jobs for him. Is he coming from that kind of managerial class?

12:41I mean, more or less, yes. His father had been essentially an administrator for Henry VII and had done his dirty work and that included extracting money from nobility and from people of status. And that is what he is punished for when Henry VIII comes to the throne because Henry VII had become avaricious, quite miserly in the last years of his life. And Edmund Dudley, John's father, is one of those who's held up as having driven this policy. He sort of has to pay for Henry VII's sins. And Henry VIII demonstrates his own generosity by having Dudley killed, by saying, we're not going to be like that.

13:24let's get rid of him even though dudley was doing his dad's bidding exactly so it's like a reshuffle it's one of those ridiculous reshuffles in modern politics when a new person comes in is we're going to get rid of the transport secretary because i'm gonna it's gonna be super fresh around here it's like come on man yes yes the only tudor spin on it is when you get rid of the secretary you cut off their head yes yeah so so john dudley knows what's at stake here he does and so he grows up uh i think he's eight at the time his father died he grows up knowing that his family had being attainted for treason and that's reversed i mean they get back their position to an extent but he he grows up without a father because of that and he has to work for his status and so he we see him in wolsey dressing you in the 1520s for example yeah how do you get on so you're a smart young guy you've been educated your dad your family's seen to that do you is it is it your sword arm or is it your language skills your writing what's going to get you ahead what's going to get you advanced at the Tudor court for John Dudley it's definitely his sword arm because his writing is atrocious but he's a great uh man when it comes to battles um so he's he's quite dependable and he becomes increasingly important as a military commander over Henry VIII's reign so he's good when it goes when it comes to going to war um and also the other thing about him that becomes evident over time and this takes the next 20 years or so to demonstrate this but he's a good man when you want someone to do a dirty job.

14:54So he's the person you turn to when there's something difficult because he's a bit opportunistic. He's got no family to fall back on, no great name, so I suppose he's willing to do the work. He has the support of one of the great families at the Tudor Court, the Guildfords, and sort of is taken under their wing. But, I mean, you went to Dudley Castle for this series, didn't you? And so there's this kind of insight there about how he's operating from an early stage. Dudley Castle is an interesting place because it actually belonged to a distant cousin of his. It had gone down a different line. And then the cousin was running short of money and Dudley lent him money on no doubt terms that are very favourable to himself.

15:38And then foreclosed on the mortgage base. He just ejected his cousin from the castle. So there's a Dudley in Dudley Castle now. and I guess that's, so he's ruthless and quite effective and I guess if you're a king you want people, you've got a reasonably small pool of people that you can select from to do things for you and you want people that are going to get the job done. Yeah and there's an example of him doing the same sort of thing a few years later so in 1540, I mean Cromwell has major concerns that are different to this but he writes to Cromwell because a man called Sir Andrew Flummock, who is the keeper of Kenilworth Castle, has got the plague.

16:19And whilst the poor man is still apparently dying, Dudley writes to Cromwell and says, could I have that job? Embarrassing because Flummock doesn't die. He survives. But there's this sense that he's always going to be the person who's going to just grasp a little bit and reach a bit. But those are the sort of people that you need. absolutely ambitious and he's presumably quite clever as well because he allies himself with the person you've already mentioned seymour duke of somerset who is king edward the sixth uncle so he's a good guy at the start of this reign edward the sixth somerset's in a powerful position and dudley's trying to get close to him yes and that has sort of built up over the 1540s they've been their friends um and they're aligned and it's clear that their position on faith might be similar but that they get along and they can work together and William Padgett is perhaps the third of their number, this little trio who essentially take power.

17:23But though they're great friends, Edward Seymour and John Dudley, Dudley in the end does for Seymour. So a couple of years into Edward's reign, Seymour has proved unpopular because he has pushed forward with these religious ideas of course but also there's been things to do with enclosure and agriculture that are deeply unpopular and the upshot of this is that he sends Dudley to deal with some rebels in in Norfolk in Norwich and Dudley presides over the massacre of about 300 of them within two weeks so I always want people to remember that when they talk about Bloody Mary, like under Edward, within two weeks, as many people died as Protestants were killed during Mary's reign.

18:13So Dudley is doing this. But meanwhile, Seymour is becoming so unpopular that actually, in the end, Dudley realises it's, if he doesn't deal with Seymour, he himself is going to go down. And so he turns against his old friend. Wow. It's like the Soviet Politburo. So how does that happen? So he based, Dudley does a sort of coup against his old friend and the king's uncle. Yes. I mean, it looks likely that Seymour might have done the same to him. I mean, you can't trust your friends at the Tudor court. One of them is going to die. But yes, he says that, you know, Seymour has plotted to murder him.

18:53And the problem with this is, I mean, in the end, Seymour does die. But the problem with this is that along the way, Dudley's making lots of enemies. So just before Henry VIII died, he'd really made an enemy of Thomas Howard, who's the Duke of Norfolk. And, you know, we can actually hark back to a few years earlier when Catherine Howard, the Duke of Norfolk's niece, had been Henry VIII's queen. And Dudley is the person who takes the news to Henry that she's committed adultery. And he He takes a letter from Cranmer. He also takes explicit details about what she's done that he conveys by mouth to Henry VIII.

19:32Again, opportunistic, really dangerous thing to do because he might well have shot the messenger. But it's off the back of that that he becomes Viscount Lyle. And so he's upset the Howards. At the time of Seymour's downfall, he upsets the Earl of Arundor. So as he rises, he's stepping on other people and that will come back to bite him. And is that normal? You've studied the Tudor period so closely. Is that a normal way of getting ahead? Do you have to sort of trample the weak and hurdle the dead? Or is there a smarter way of operating where you can kind of build alliances and work your way up that way?

20:10I think he's unusually bad at keeping allies. I think it is relatively normal that you can make enemies along the way, but he just doesn't seem to care enough about maintaining friends or maintaining popularity. And I think if you look at some other examples, like Cramer, for example, is very good at bending like a reed in the wind. You know, he'll go whatever direction in terms of, I mean, he's a great man. I feel bad saying this, but he certainly does sort of allow himself to be swayed from side to side. Dudley is a bit more stubborn. He holds to different positions. He puts himself out there.

20:57He puts himself on the line a bit more. He makes enemies more. The thing I find, Susanna, when we talk about this I sometimes wonder what is in it for people in the studio Why is he so driven? Why not take your winnings and have a nice life? I mean, is it just that's what people do We're ambitious, we're always trying for the next thing Or is there a sense in which if you don't seek power other people will get that power and then you're likely to be in trouble I think it's probably the former I mean, why do you not sit at home? Well, I ask myself that all the time today because I get to spend time with you that's why I think it's just because it's exciting right the Tudor court is where everything's happening if you want to do anything in the 16th century you've got to go to court and that's where there's opportunity and excitement and you can make a mark and you can have a purpose and you can be principled but you can also just be you know outright ambitious but hopefully people think they're building something they're doing something good they've got all these narratives about what they're doing but they can only do it there All right, well, we're going to have more on the Tudor court and Dudley in it after this.

22:02Don't go away.

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22:48This message is brought to you by Apple Card. Ah, fall. That cozy season where we swap the swimwear for sweaters and sunnies for scarves. But before the Halloween decorations are put away or Thanksgiving table has been set, there's already holly jolly music playing in the grocery store reminding you that the year is coming to a close. Time to kick end of year into high gear. When you use Apple Card with Apple Pay, you earn 2 % daily cash back on all purchases, including food, decorations, gifts, and more. Get a head start on your end of year purchases. Apply for your Apple Card in the wallet app on your iPhone today and start using it right away with Apple Pay.

23:20Subject to credit approval, Apple Card is issued by Goldman Sachs Bank, USA, Salt Lake City Branch, terms and more at applecard.com.

23:50is here for. Grow is therapy that works, covered by insurance. Sessions average$21 with insurance, and some pay as little as$0, depending on their plan. There are no subscriptions, no long-term commitments. You just pay per session. Grow connects you with thousands of high-quality, licensed therapists across the U.S., offering both virtual and in-person sessions, nights and weekends. You can search by what matters, like insurance, specialty, identity, or availability. And you can book a therapy session in minutes and begin in as little as two days, not the national 48-day average. See if you could pay as little as$0 for therapy in seconds at growtherapy.com slash ACAST.

24:33That's growtherapy.com slash ACAST. growtherapy.com slash ACAST. Availability and coverage vary by state and insurance plan. This episode is sponsored by ZocDoc. Have you been putting off a doctor's appointment or need a dentist and don't know where to start? We've definitely been there and that's why we use ZocDoc. Actually, over the holidays, Michael had a dental emergency and seemingly every office was closed, but we hopped onto ZocDoc, found an in-network dentist, had great reviews, saw real-time appointments available, which was key. It was on New Year's Day and booked an appointment in just minutes.

25:13It took so much of the stress out of the already stressful situation. ZocDoc makes it easy to search and compare over 250 ,000 local in-network providers across more than 200 specialties. So you can find the right doctor or dentist and book instantly. Taking care of your health just got easier. Download the ZocDoc app today and book that appointment on your to-do list. That's Z-O-C-D-O-C. ZocDoc. So Susanna, Dudley is about to launch his coup. Presumably he has to have some allies. He can't just go toe-to-toe with Seymour. He's convinced enough people on this council to oust the boss, has he? He absolutely has.

25:56So he's allied himself with people who are Catholic or a conservative religion. I think they're pretty much Catholic by this point. And he's persuaded them that he will work with them and they can get rid of Seymour, who's unpopular. He sort of tracks back slightly. Having given out slight Protestant vibes with Seymour initially, he's now tracking back to the... But then, very soon afterwards, in the process of it, he then says, oh no, actually the Earl of Arundel was involved in the plot as well. So what he manages to do is he's managed to upset both sides. This is what I mean, he's not very good at keeping friends.

26:34He tacks. But he is successful initially. He does get rid of the Lord Protector, Somerset. He does get rid of Lord Protector Somerset and essentially becomes the primary man in Edward VI England. So he doesn't become Lord Protector himself, but he becomes sort of the head of the council, the first of the council. And does it, the king's a little bit older now. Does the king like him? Does it even matter? Is the king just getting trampled all over? Or do you think, does he spend time with the king doing crosswords and being like, I'm a nice guy? I mean, is that important? I think it is important that the king likes him because as the king is sort of entering his teenage years he's getting opinions for himself and so Dudley has to persuade Edward that he's worth having around.

27:20But crushing rebels in Norfolk is the kind of thing that a young king is going to love isn't it? I mean if he's quite dynamic in that respect you can see him impressing the king. Yes, and we get the impression that Edward VI is quite interested in that sort of military side of things from his journals and also quite interested in Protestantism. He's quite, I mean, he's a teenager. He sees things in black and white terms. So obviously the Catholics are bad and the Protestants are good. and it's, you know, so I think John Dudley plays to that instinct in him in what he does. Okay, but he outmanoeuvres the king's uncle, which is no small thing.

28:01Seymour, does Seymour go to the old block? He does, not immediately, but he does within a few years. Right, so he's dead. Then Dudley changes tack and turns on some of the people that helped him. Well, yes, he makes sure that the Earl of Arendore is imprisoned at the same time for saying that he also was involved in the plot to murder John Dudley. But Dudley holds his position through those years of Edward's reign and is doing fairly well. But then we get to Edward dying at the age of 15 and there is this question about how much John Dudley is involved in trying to determine what happens next.

28:43Because Edward, so we should say, so Dudley is very powerful. He's become the Duke of Northumberland, one of the great titles of England. And foreign ambassadors are saying he's effectively ruling England at this point. So he's got extraordinary reach. Just quickly, in your experience, more than most non-royals in this period, are there any other figures equivalent to Dudley in the Tudor century? Has he really built up a huge amount of power? Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset, was a parallel. Other than that, I suppose you have to look at people like Thomas Cromwell, William Cecil, Lord Burley, who are ministers to monarchs.

29:15But no, I mean, absolutely. I think that he and Edward Seymour, the two dukes during Edward's reign, have access to power. They're autorects, they're another king, because they are governing for a young and teenage boy. Now we should say that Dudley's fans believe that he was really very effective at this point. He does restore stability, some financial stability. I mean, what's your take on that? A fan of Dudley in this position? He is a very capable man. He gets the job done. And he gets the job done. That is exactly the thing that you can say about him. He may not make friends, but he brings the war with France to an end.

29:55That's been a drain on resources. He's very good at looking after affairs. And does he, in terms of the religious settlement that's always shifting in this century, is he quite important? Does he put his hand on the scale one way or another? Does he have to give England that Protestant identity that will go on to prove quite enduring? Yes, I mean, he actually takes it further than it had gone under Edward Seymour. There's a second book of Common Prayer produced by Thomas Cramer in Edward's reign. And the second book, which is 1551, strips away any vestiges of Catholic practice. And, you know, really very much narrows it down to a Protestant form of practice and belief.

30:38And this is the point at which, you know, the church music disappears, for example. and so we see Dudley absolutely pushing through with that agenda and it's an extreme it's an extreme form of Protestantism in fact it's more extreme than we'll end up with Elizabeth where she's reaching that sort of settlement where things look a bit Catholic you know the the priests are still wearing clerical robes but and they're still at an altar but what they're saying can be interpreted by Protestants or Catholics to to mean whatever they think happens during the mass etc that's much more that's more muted than what we get under edward so dudley is is really putting his temple things he's getting the job done edward gets sick this is the problem with monarchies isn't it when the when the when the principal starts to get ill is it a drawn-out illness does he die overnight what happens it's over a few months it's not overnight um he's not always sickly so sometimes it's said about him he seems to have been in pretty robust health until the year 1553.

31:40I mean, that's not entirely true, sorry. There was something in 1552. But when it comes back in 1553, what it is, we're not quite sure. Maybe it's a form of tuberculosis. He certainly gets sick in that year. And, you know, over the months from February, he's not getting better. And probably by May or June, they can start to see that he's not going to live. although people saying so get punished. There are examples of people being put on the pillory or their ears pinned up on Cheapside because they've said that the king is going to die and you can't have that. No. So it's being talked about, but people are not supposed to be talking about the fact that this young boy is going to die.

32:28And is Dudley hovering at the bedside table with lots of bits of paper to sign? Well, this is the question. So Edward famously draws up something called his device for the succession, which is at the inner temple. It's an amazing document. It's just two sides and it's quite a childish hand. And he explains in it what he wants to happen when he dies. So you think he wrote it in his own hand? Oh, it's definitely in his own hand. And it's amazing to go and see it. And it's just sort of thrilling. here we've got this 15 year old trying to plan out his future and trying to be like his daddy who had said who should follow him onto the throne in his last will and here he's like well I'm going to determine it and he rules out by admitting them his half sisters Mary and Elizabeth and rules in in the end Lady Jane Grey but that's not what he says at first at first he says that his cousin Lady Jane's heirs male should be the inheriting the throne in fact in the document I think it says the words heirs male 12 times he's completely convinced that the person to follow him onto the throne must be a boy which fair enough there hasn't been a successful queen regnant by that point and it's only when he is I mean this is an assumption one assumes it's when he's at the point of death and it's clear that Lady Jane who's recently married by the way Guildford Dudley, John Dudley's son, is not pregnant or doesn't have an heir male that he makes this change where he crosses out the S at the end of Lady Jane's and he adds in and her.

34:05So now Lady Jane Grey, Lady Jane Dudley is nominated as Queen by Edward and so the question is where's John Dudley in all this? Is he just over Edward's shoulder saying, I mean, what we could do while she doesn't have a son is, I mean, we could just nominate her for now and I'll look after it. And then, of course, once her son comes, he can be king. Who knows? So let's find out what happens when the six dies after this. Don't go away.

34:45said, there's already holly jolly music playing in the grocery store, reminding you that the year is coming to a close. Time to kick end of year into high gear. When you use Apple Card with Apple Pay, you earn 2 % daily cash back on all purchases, including food, decorations, gifts, and more. Get a head start on your end of year purchases. Apply for your Apple Card in the wallet app on your iPhone today and start using it right away with Apple Pay. Subject to credit approval, Apple Card is issued by Goldman Sachs Bank, USA, Salt Lake City Branch, terms and more at applecard.com. This episode is sponsored by ZocDoc.

35:15Have you been putting off a doctor's appointment or need a dentist and you don't know where to start? We've definitely been there and that's why we use ZocDoc. Actually, over the holidays, Michael had a dental emergency and seemingly every office was closed, but we hopped onto ZocDoc, found an in-network dentist, had great reviews, saw real-time appointments available, which was key. It was on New Year's Day and booked an appointment in just minutes. It took so much of the stress out of the already stressful situation. ZocDoc makes it easy to search and compare over 250 ,000 local in-network providers across more than 200 specialties.

35:56So you can find the right doctor or dentist and book instantly. Taking care of your health just got easier. Download the ZocDoc app today and book that appointment on your to-do list. That's Z-O-C-D-O-C. ZocDoc. Susie, Edward VI is breathing his last, the teenage king. John Dudley, the Duke of Northumberland, is at his bedside. They together, or Edward VI, has nominated his cousin, Lady Jane Grey, who's Protestant, to be the next sovereign. He's overlooked his two half-sisters, Mary and Elizabeth. Who is Lady Jane Grey and why does she get the nod? So Lady Jane Grey is descended from Henry VIII's sister, Mary.

36:45So she had married Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk. A naughty relationship. A naughty relationship because they marry sort of without permission after she had a vigorous relationship with the King of France and he died as a result three months later. and they marry very quickly without henry the eight's permission henry the eight's best friend charles brandon duke of suffolk their daughter is francis brandon she marries henry gray who basically is an idiot but they have three pretty brilliant daughters uh jane catherine and mary so jane is the oldest of those daughters so she's got good tudor blood in her veins she's a direct senator henry the seventh but she's anyway she's got less good claim than ever the six sisters but Never mind.

37:31OK, so Lady Jane Grey, she's his cousin. She's a Protestant. Great. Why did he prefer her, by the way, over his siblings? I think it's because Henry VIII made Mary and Elizabeth illegitimate. Right. So in an act of succession in 1536, they're made illegitimate. There's another act of succession in 1544 that puts them back into the line of succession, but does not make them legitimate. And I imagine that from that teenage boy's viewpoint, that is out of bounds. Yeah, and also I guess if you're not going to give it to your sister Mary because she's Catholic, it's a bit odd to skip a sister. So let's just give it to a cousin.

38:06You can't because the argument is about the legitimacy. Okay, good point. Yeah, okay, so that's neat, the cousin. Now Dudley, the most powerful man in the kingdom, has married his son, helpfully, to Lady Jane Grey. Yes, and he obviously hopes that Guildford will be king by proxy. So when there's a procession into the tower with Jane, Guildford is there walking in front of her. I mean, as if he is king. So King Edward VI dies. Very sad. What does Dudley do? So Dudley immediately moves to create Jane as queen. So in that period of time, before the news has got out, or so he thinks, he goes to see Jane with some others at Cyan House and tells her It's you It's you I've been to that room in Cyan House, extraordinary See he's brought her there to say you are Queen And they go there's a throne, sit on it, you're the Queen And Jane doesn't want it does she?

39:06Doesn't really want it, I mean she's a bit bewildered She doesn't know if it's right She's a very learned, serious, pious I mean quite extraordinarily brilliant young girl but she doesn't you know doesn't think it is right she is persuaded that it is right by law that maybe god has called her to this role she accepts the crown it's the dying king's wishes exactly and it's been passed by letters patent which was one of the ways it becomes legal that she's queen and so she's taken to the tower to await her coronation so she goes to the tower Is she accompanied by her husband, who just so happens to be the Duke of Northumberland's son?

39:46Yes, he's with her. In fact, as they process in, he's walking in front of her. So he is putting himself in the position of king. And there's some muttering about her being queen in London, the great supporters of Mary. Because she would be the first queen in the history of England. Matilda never got crowned. So it's from Alfred the Great to present, she's the first queen. So it's a big deal. It is a big deal. But actually, there's not much focus on her gender because the two candidates for the throne are both women. So the question is about legitimacy. And in London, there's murmurings about Mary really being the queen.

40:28But then Guildford walks ahead of Jane as if he is to become king. And Jane, you know, she's a smart cookie. and she quickly realises that is not what she wants because she realises that John Dudley can essentially rule through Guildford. So she doesn't name Guildford king. Oh really, that's good. So John Dudley is pulling the strings at this point. His son is married to the new queen. When people say, oh, do you think John Dudley wants to be king? Do you think he wants his son to be king? Do you think that was true? Or was he happy with just being sort of the power behind the throne for both him and his son?

41:03He was happy to wait for his grandchild to sit on the throne formally. I think he did want to exercise power through Guildford. I don't think he planned it exactly. I think even when Jane and Guildford were married, I don't know if he could necessarily see that far ahead on the chessboard and see that Edward would nominate Jane and his son would become king. Perhaps he did. I do think it's very much Edward's wish to nominate Jane. But Don Dudley, as we've seen, is a man who will make the most of every opportunity. And here's an opportunity. He wants to carry on exercising power. He's exercised it whilst Edward's king.

41:41Why can he not exercise it whilst Jane's queen? Yeah, intoxicating and exciting to think that your son or your grandson might actually become, might sit on the throne of the Plantagenets. And you've struggled in poverty growing up. I mean, that must be exciting. How exciting? I mean, Joanne Paul's written this book called The House of Dudley. and there's very much this hope that there's going to be the House of Dudley. Yes, of course. Yeah, it would have been the House of Dudley. OK, so they're in the Tower of London. What happens next? What happens next is that Mary has got a whiff of the news that her brother is dead.

42:15And rather than wait to be told officially, she flees to her lands in East Anglia. She goes to Kenninghall and from there to Framlingham. and she amasses troops who are going to defend her title as queen. And so she, you know, although Jane has been declared as queen on the 10th of July, 1553, within days, Mary's having herself declared as queen. So it's immediately like sort of a position of war. Now, it doesn't look like Mary can possibly win because John Dudley, one of the things you can say about him is he's a really good war leader. He's a great military commander. He amasses troops. He marches over to East Anglia.

43:04You'd think, well, it's going to come to battle and obviously John Dudley is going to win. I mean, it's interesting that he is sent, actually. I mean, it makes sense from a sort of military point of view, but it means he leaves the power base of London. Can't be in two places at once. Exactly. So that's, you know, always that problem. And I don't think he realises how powerful Mary is because he doesn't take the direct route to Framlingham. He marches up to Cambridge to declare that Jane's Queen or to gather more troops or whatever, and then down to Framlingham. But he has made enemies in the area because a few years earlier, he'd put down that rebellion.

43:45Oh, of course, in Norfolk, in East Anger, he'd kill all those people. He'd kill all those people, and people can remember that because it was only four years earlier. And so they hate him. They hate him. And they love Mary, who has done the opposite in that she has spent time cultivating relationships in East Anglia, developing a kind of what some historians call household affinity. So she's built up the support network there, which she can activate at the moment when Jane is proclaimed queen at the crucial time. So Dudley's army is approaching and yet there isn't a great battle. So what happens?

44:27Because there are defections. So there are ships that are part of the navy who can help protect Mary escaping to the continent. They mutiny, they defect to Mary. Meanwhile, other troops are defecting to Mary and the Privy Council sees the way that the wind is blowing and suddenly change their minds and declare that Mary's queen. Wow, and John Dudley's marching about with a bunch of hungry soldiers in the East Midlands. Yeah, and he's on his own now. And he quickly tries to swap sides and say, oh, no, no, I mean, I think Mary's queen too. But it's obvious that somebody has to be to blame. And so the really interesting thing is, although everyone on the council has backed Jane, Dudley's the one out there in the field with the troops going to attack Mary.

45:17he's the fall guy. So he's getting updates from London he's hearing Mary's strength is building units are mutining and he begins to feel like he is just totally isolated out there. Yes and he absolutely is and what's really interesting is that when it comes to his trial he says that he has puts up a very good defence he says how can I have been committing treason when what I was doing was at the council's behest. It was on their orders and with the Great Seal of England to do what they, opposite of what they had told me, would have been treason. I can't have been committing treason by doing it.

45:55And it has a strange echo of what had happened with his father. I was showing a wonderful letter during when we made our TV show together where he actually writes about that. He has a premonition, as I think anyone would in the Tudor court, but he had a premonition. He's like, I'm doing these things, whether it's putting down rebels in Norfolk, I'm doing things at the behest of the council of the government of the day. But I have a feeling if there's a change in wind direction, I'm going to be hung out to drive these as my father was. Yes. And I wondered, thinking about that, if there's something, something almost that he creates.

46:28Like he has known throughout his entire life that his father died for doing what he was ordered to do. His master's commandment. And then in the end, Dudley dies for doing what he's been told to do or what the council have said is right. It's almost like, you know, the thing you most fear is the thing you make happen. Precisely. Yeah. Because in a way, he tried to get to a position where he was his own master. But to do that, he ended up almost trying to play the Game of Thrones. I mean, he tried to topple kings. and crucially among the people who take him down in the end are the Duke of Norfolk, the Earl of Arundel, like all the friends that have turned to enemies along the way, the people that he has betrayed, that he has annoyed, the allies he failed to make, those are the ones who take him down.

47:24So does Mary even give him a chance to redeem himself or do you think the writing's on the wall? I mean, he's given a chance to change his faith and convert to Catholicism on the scaffold. Okay, that's fine. So he goes to the scaffold, he gets head chopped off. What about his son and his daughter-in-law, Lady Jane Grey and her husband? So they are both imprisoned in the Tower and might in the end have been okay. But poor Guildford and Jane. The following year in February 1554, there's a rebellion known as Wyatt's Rebellion against Mary. It's against her marriage to Philip of Spain. And Jane's silly father gets involved.

48:10And because of that, Guilford Dudley and Jane are executed. OK, well, that's the end of the House of Dudley. Although, is it? Well, you'd have thought. You'd have thought. I mean, certainly... They're the comeback kings. They are the comeback kings, the Dudleys, because, I mean, who is the closest companion to Elizabeth I? None other than one of John's sons, Robert Dudley. Three Dudleys have been killed by three Tudor monarchs and another Dudley ends up being best friends with a fourth. What's extraordinary about them is that though they're, you know, you've got John Dudley rising even though his father was a traitor.

48:48Robert Dudley rises even though his father was a traitor. it's this you know this the rise and fall of the dudleys it's intense it says a lot about the tudor court and while we're on the subject uh i'm sorry to put you on the spot here did dudley was were he and elizabeth in love and was it did they ever have sex relations i think they were in love i think they didn't have sex um i mean it depends on one's definition of sex but they but they certainly didn't have the sort of sex that produces babies because there wasn't any reliable contraception at the time so uh the chances of disaster were too great but i but in terms of the intimacy the emotional intimacy between them that seems to have been very much the case and we do have people like the spanish ambassador saying um he visits her in her chambers day and night you know so there's this there's this sense that they are very close and that is known by everybody the dudleys i mean what a family the ups and downs so let's come back to our man John Dudley Duke of Northumberland ultimately was he a wannabe dictator was he was he taking powers of the throne was he over mighty or was he just another Tudor courtier taking advantage of opportunities they came up doing frankly what anyone would have done in his position it's such a good question I mean he's certainly ambitious uh the Dudleys are ambitious people but whether he does that more than anyone else whether he's more ruthless than anyone else in that circumstance I don't know I think he's doesn't play it so well he's not read that book about how to win friends and influence people perhaps he doesn't do it you know as expertly as someone else might have done but I think that many people in his position who are hoping for power at the Tudor court would have done similar things what do you think well I think that's right I think that's totally right.

50:41The thing that strikes me is that once you have a child on the throne, whether it's Henry VI, whether it's Edward V, whether it is Edward VI, everyone around gets sucked into this power vacuum. You have to almost kill or be killed. There's so much opportunity to exercise more power than you might otherwise do when there's a stable, mature adult on the throne. And Dudley could have just been an important courtier, but once you're thrown into a position where there's a kind of anarchic vacuum of power, then he's playing for the highest stakes. He's hurled straight into the middle of that maelstrom.

51:15That's right, I think. That's exactly right. It's just too tempting, isn't it? And almost, I mean, I was taught nothing in history is inevitable, but it feels quite compelling. Susie, you're very compelling. Thank you very much for coming on. Thank you so much for joining me and Susie. Make sure you hit all the buttons, the follows and subscribes and likes and everything. Leave comments or do it all. Send it to your friends and you will get more podcasts delivered to you wherever you are at all times. See you next time on Dan Snow's History.

52:07With Apple Pay, you earn 2 % daily cash back on all purchases, including food, decorations, gifts, and more. Get a head start on your end-of-year purchases. Apply for your Apple Card in the Wallet app on your iPhone today and start using it right away with Apple Pay. Subject to credit approval, Apple Card is issued by Goldman Sachs Bank, USA, Salt Lake City branch, terms and more at applecard.com. Hello, I'm Chloe Hadjimathou. I'm a reporter at The Observer where I get to dig on all kinds of investigations. stories like the salt path that's taken me to Wales to uncover a literary scandal and my latest we call her Emma which led me to Syria to try and find out why a British woman married a dictator if you're like me and obsessed with narrative investigations then I have a suggestion for you at the observer we have a home for the best of our podcast series it's called tortoise investigates over 20 of our chart topping stories in one place so if you want to listen just search for Tortoise Investigates wherever you get your podcasts.

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