Lord Guildford Dudley - Family and Marriage

Family and Marriage

Guildford Dudley was the second youngest surviving son of John Dudley, 1st Duke of Northumberland and his wife Jane, daughter of Sir Edward Guildford. The Dudley lineage goes back to a family called Sutton. In the early 14th century they became the lords of Dudley Castle, from whom Guildford descended through his paternal grandfather. This was Edmund Dudley, a councillor to Henry VII, who was executed after his royal master's death. Through his father's mother, Elizabeth Grey, Viscountess Lisle, Guildford descended from the Hundred Years War heroes, Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, and John Talbot, 1st Earl of Shrewsbury.

The Dudley children—there were thirteen born in all—grew up in a Protestant household and enjoyed a humanist education. Under the young King Edward VI, Guildford's father became Lord President of the Privy Council and de facto ruled England from 1550–1553. The cronicler Richard Grafton, who knew him, described Guildford as "a comely, virtuous and goodly gentleman". In 1552 Northumberland unsuccessfully tried to marry Guildford to Margaret Clifford, a cousin of Jane Grey. Instead, in the spring of 1553, Guildford was engaged to the sixteen-year-old Jane Grey herself. Jane Grey figured higher in the line of succession than Margaret Clifford. At Whitsun, on 21 May and the next days, three weddings were celebrated at Durham Place, the Duke of Northumberland's town mansion. Guildford married Jane, his sister Katherine was matched with Henry Hastings, the Earl of Huntingdon's heir, and another Catherine, Jane's sister, married Lord Herbert, the heir of the Earl of Pembroke. It was a magnificent festival, with jousts, games, and masques. For the latter, two different companies had been booked, one male, one female. The Venetian and French ambassadors were guests, and there were "large numbers of the common people ... and of the most principal of the realm". Guildford and some others suffered an attack of food poisoning, because of "a mistake made by a cook, who plucked one leaf for another."