John Dudley, 1st Duke of Northumberland - Career Under Henry VIII

Career Under Henry VIII

John Dudley was the eldest of three sons of Edmund Dudley, a councillor of King Henry VII, and his second wife Elizabeth Grey, daughter of Edward Grey, 4th Viscount Lisle. His father was attainted and executed for high treason in 1510, having been arrested immediately after Henry VIII's accession because the new King needed scapegoats for his predecessor's unpopular financial policies. In 1512 the seven-year-old John became the ward of Sir Edward Guildford and was taken into his household. At the same time Edmund Dudley's attainder was lifted and John Dudley was restored "in name and blood". The King was hoping for the good services "which the said John Dudley is likely to do". At about age 15 John Dudley probably went with his guardian to the Pale of Calais to serve there for the next years. He took part in Cardinal Wolsey's diplomatic voyages of 1521 and 1527, and was knighted by Charles Brandon, 1st Duke of Suffolk during his first major military experience, the 1523 invasion of France. In 1524 Dudley became a Knight of the Body, a special mark of the King's favour, and from 1534 he was responsible for the King's body armour as Master of the Tower Armoury. Being "the most skilful of his generation, both on foot and on horseback", he excelled in wrestling, archery, and the tournaments of the royal court, as a French report stated as late as 1546.

In 1525 Dudley married Guildford's daughter Jane, who was four years his junior and his former class-mate. The Dudleys belonged to the new evangelical circles of the early 1530s, and their 13 children were educated in Renaissance humanism and science. Sir Edward Guildford died in 1534 without a written will. His only son having predeceased him, Guildford's nephew, John Guildford, asserted that his uncle had intended him to inherit. Dudley and his wife contested this claim. The parties went to court and Dudley, who had secured Thomas Cromwell's patronage, won the case. In 1532 he lent his cousin, John Sutton, 3rd Baron Dudley, over ₤7,000 on the security of the baronial estate. Lord Dudley was unable to pay off any of his creditors, so when the mortgage was foreclosed in the late 1530s Sir John Dudley came into possession of Dudley Castle.

Dudley was present at Henry VIII's meeting with Francis I of France at Calais in 1532. Another member of the entourage was Anne Boleyn, who was soon to be queen. Dudley took part in the christenings of Princess Elizabeth and Prince Edward and, in connection with the announcement of the Prince's birth to the Emperor, travelled to Spain via France in October 1537. He sat in the Reformation parliament in 1534–1536, and led one of the contingents sent against the Pilgrimage of Grace in late 1536. In January 1537 Dudley was made Vice-Admiral and began to apply himself enthusiastically to naval matters. He was briefly Master of the Horse to Anne of Cleves, and in 1542 was granted his grandfather's title of Viscount Lisle—after the death of his stepfather Arthur Plantagenet and "by the right of his mother". Being now a peer, Dudley became Lord Admiral and a Knight of the Garter in 1543; he was also admitted to the Privy Council. In the aftermath of the Battle of Solway Moss in 1542 he served as Warden of the Scottish Marches, and in the 1544 campaign the English force under Edward Seymour, Earl of Hertford was supported by a fleet which Dudley commanded. Dudley joined the land force that destroyed Edinburgh, after he had blown the main gate apart with a culverin. In late 1544 he was appointed Governor of Boulogne, the siege of which had cost the life of his eldest son, Henry. His tasks were to rebuild the fortifications to King Henry's design and to fend off French attacks by sea and land.

As Lord Admiral, Dudley was responsible for creating the Council for Marine Causes, which for the first time co-ordinated the various tasks of maintaining the navy functioning and thus made English naval administration the most efficient in Europe. At sea, Dudley's fighting orders were at the forefront of tactical thinking: Squadrons of ships, ordered by size and firepower, were to manoeuvre in formation, using co-ordinated gunfire. These were all new developments in the English navy. In 1545 he directed the fleet's operations before, during, and after the Battle of the Solent and entertained King Henry on the flagship Henri Grace a Dieu. A tragic loss was the sinking of the Mary Rose with 500 men aboard. In 1546 John Dudley went to France for peace negotiations. When he suspected the Admiral of France, Claude d'Annebault, of manoeuvres which might have led to a renewal of hostilities, he suddenly put to sea in a show of English strength, before returning to the negotiating table. He then travelled to Fontainebleau, where the English delegates were entertained by the Dauphin Henri and King Francis. In the Peace of Camp, the French king acknowledged Henry VIII's title as "Supreme Head of the Church of England and Ireland", a success for both England and her Lord Admiral.

John Dudley, popularly fêted and highly regarded by King Henry as a general, became a royal intimate who played cards with the ailing monarch. Next to Edward Seymour, Prince Edward's maternal uncle, Dudley was one of the leaders of the Reformed party at court, and both their wives were among the friends of Anne Askew, the Protestant martyr destroyed by Bishop Stephen Gardiner in July 1546. Dudley and the Queen's brother, William Parr, tried to convince Anne Askew to conform to the Catholic doctrines of the Henrician church, yet she replied "it was great shame for them to counsel contrary to their knowledge". In September Dudley struck Gardiner in the face during a full meeting of the Council. This was a grave offence, and he was lucky to escape with a month's leave from court in disgrace. In the last weeks of the reign Seymour and Dudley played their parts in Henry's strike against the conservative House of Howard, thus clearing the path for a Protestant minority rule. They were seen as the likely leaders of the impending regency—"there are no other nobles of a fit age and ability for the task", Eustache Chapuys, the former Imperial ambassador, commented from his retirement.