John Dudley, 1st Duke of Northumberland

John Dudley, 1st Duke of Northumberland

John Dudley, 1st Duke of Northumberland (* 1504 , † August 22, 1553 in London ) was an English nobleman who lived from 1549 to 1553 on behalf of the minor King Edward VI. de facto England ruled. After his death in 1553 he tried to establish his daughter-in-law Lady Jane Gray as queen, but this failed and led to his execution.

Ascent

John Dudley was the eldest son of Edmund Dudley, who served as financial advisor to King Henry VII . Henry VIII had his father's hated tax and finance expert arrested and executed shortly after his accession to the throne (1510).

John Dudley became the ward of Sir Edward Guildford, in whose household he grew up, and whose daughter and heiress Jane Guildford he married. Guildford was an important man at court, which also gave John Dudley career opportunities. He proved himself as a commander on the Scottish border and as a vice admiral at sea. Henry VIII appointed Dudley Lord High Admiral (Commander in Chief of the Navy) in 1542 . He also received the title of Viscount Lisle , which his maternal grandfather had already worn. In the war against France (1544) Dudley succeeded in winning some naval battles in the Canal and thereby achieving a high reputation with the king.

Henry VIII, who was already seriously ill at this time, appointed John Dudley to a sixteen-member Regency Council on December 30, 1546, which was to rule jointly for his nine-year-old son Edward . On January 28, 1547, Henry VIII died. Edward Seymour , the Crown Prince's uncle, kept his death a secret until it was clarified whether he would head the Privy Council as Lord Protector . On February 4, 1547 Edward Seymour was raised to the Duke of Somerset . John Dudley became a chamberlain and Earl of Warwick . From the office of Lord High Admiral Dudley had to resign in favor of Thomas Seymour , the younger brother of the Lord Protector. As Lord Lieutenant of the Protector, Dudley supported Edward Seymour in his Scottish campaigns.

In September 1547, Dudley proved himself in the Battle of Pinkie Cleugh , a victory of the English over the Scots. In the summer of 1549, as a result of council policy and religious problems, several riots broke out in England. In Norfolk , the tanner Robert Ket rebelled . Ket temporarily led 16,000 armed men and ruled the area around Norfolk. The Ket rebels hoped in vain that the "good Duke of Somerset" would support the poor against the local nobles. After a previous commanding officer, the Marquess of Northampton , failed, Somerset sent John Dudley with troops to Norfolk. The peasant army was destroyed in the Battle of Dussindale.

De facto regent

King Edward VI

After just a few months, the first voices rose against the unrestricted rule of Protector Somerset and he did not have a good relationship with the young king. Numerous councilors, including Archbishop Thomas Cranmer , stood openly against Somerset and behind Dudley, who was leading a kind of palace revolution. As a precaution, Somerset brought the king to Windsor on October 6, 1549 and on October 13, 1549 Dudley's troops surrounded Windsor Castle . Somerset and his ambitious wife were imprisoned in the Tower.

John Dudley declared himself Lord President of the Council . He renounced the title of "Lord Protector", but secured all key positions in the government. Unobtrusively, he held all power in his hands. Finally, on February 10, 1550, the Duke of Somerset was reassigned to the Privy Council. The reconciliation was sealed with the marriage of Dudley's eldest son to a Somerset daughter on June 4, 1550.

As regent, Dudley ended the costly wars against France (Peace of Boulogne, 1550 - Boulogne went to France) and Scotland (Peace of Angers, 1551). At the same time he arranged an engagement between Edward VI. and Elisabeth von Valois , daughter of the French king Henry II.

John Dudley supported radical Protestantism and pushed the expropriation of the Catholic Church. Protestant bishops were only introduced to their offices after substantial material concessions.

On October 11, 1551, John Dudley was raised by the King to Duke of Northumberland . A few days later Dudley had Edward Seymour arrested and on October 24, 1551 the trial of the former Lord Protector for high treason began. Seymour was sentenced to death and beheaded on January 22, 1552 on Tower Hill ; the young king recorded the execution of his uncle briefly and impersonally in his diary. Dudley increasingly involved Edward in the decisions of the Privy Council and developed a close personal relationship with the adolescent.

The change of line to the throne

In the spring of 1553, King Edward VI , who was probably suffering from consumption , worked out . a paper ("My Devise of the Succession"), which, with the exclusion of its officially illegitimate half-sisters Maria and Elisabeth, provided for the succession to the throne only for male descendants, who did not exist. The king later changed his manuscript to the effect that the line of succession should go directly to Lady Jane Gray , a great niece of Henry VIII. In view of his approaching death, Eduard wanted to prevent a Catholic heir to the throne. Jane Gray married Dudley's second youngest son, Guildford Dudley , on May 21, 1553 . Whether the marriage was agreed before or after the succession change is controversial. Likewise, to what extent the succession change was due to Dudley's influence; it probably came from the young king. Dudley began to panic as he confessed to the French ambassador: "What would you do in my case?" Less than three weeks before his death, Edward VI. through the use of Dudley's intimidating personality to exclude Mary and Elizabeth from the line of succession.

Fall and execution

Engraving with the name Jane Gray in the Beauchamp Tower of the Tower of London . Attributed to John Dudley.

Dudley asked Princess Elisabeth to say goodbye to the dying king. This feared their removal and did not comply with the request. Edward VI died on July 6, 1553. Dudley hid the king's death and sent troops to arrest Maria Tudor, who had also refused to rush to her half-brother's deathbed. Dudley had hesitated too long, however, and Maria had been warned and was able to get to Norfolk to the Catholic Howards for safety in time. On July 9, 1553, Lady Jane Gray was proclaimed queen.

Mary gathered her following and was proclaimed Queen on July 10, 1553 in Norfolk. Dudley moved an army to Norfolk on Jane's personal orders. But the army disbanded. Many soldiers deserted and ran over to Maria. The people were unwilling to question Mary's legitimacy. The Regency Council used Dudley's absence to overthrow him. On July 18, 1553, Dudley was arrested in Cambridge ; shortly before that he himself had proclaimed Queen Mary there.

The Privy Council in London submitted to Maria. Jane's father, the Duke of Suffolk , tore down his daughter's national coat of arms and left her to her fate. When Dudley was brought into the Tower, there were spontaneous protests from the angry Londoners, who pelted him with stones and rubbish. During this time, the pamphlet The Epistle of Poor Pratte was also circulating : "The great devil Dudley rules (I should have said Duke)." After his trial, in which his previous council colleagues were judging him, he returned after a discussion with Bishop Stephen Gardiner returned to the Catholic faith. After public repentance and a witty address on the scaffold, he was beheaded on August 22, 1553 in front of a huge crowd on Tower Hill.

John Dudley had numerous children. His daughter Mary Dudley was the mother of Mary , Philip and Robert Sidney . His son Guildford Dudley was executed on February 12, 1554 at the age of seventeen. On the same day, sixteen-year-old Jane Gray was beheaded. Dudley's other sons were also sentenced to death but released after eighteen months in prison. Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester (1532–1588) was later Elizabeth I's long-time favorite .

Economic policy

John Dudley embodied the type of property speculator that was very common among the nobility and who enriched himself with expropriated church property .

Anna von Kleve wrote to her brother in 1550: “God knows what will happen next! And everything is getting so expensive in this country that I have no idea how to keep my household in order. ”In 1551 economists recognized that prices could only stabilize if the coins, which had deteriorated since 1544, were out of circulation drawn and replaced by coins newly minted with an appropriate silver content. Dudley announced the planned coin upgrade four months in advance. As a result of manipulations, prices rose sharply in the summer of 1551. For a short time, Dudley took advantage of the deterioration of the coins, as this deterioration of the coins stimulated the cloth trade between London and Antwerp . However, after the new coins were issued, Dudley resolutely initiated the stabilization of the English currency. Because of these measures, Elizabeth I was able to rule with a solid currency.

John Dudley promoted seafaring . In 1552 he founded a company that equipped an expedition led by Richard Chancellor . Chancellor was to discover the northeastern sea route to America. He reached the White Sea and anchored at Kholmogory (today's Arkhangelsk ). Chancellor came to Moscow and there created the conditions for Anglo-Russian trade. The Muscovy Company (Muscovite Society) was formed in 1555 from the company founded by Dudley .

John Dudley tried to stop the fleet from deteriorating. He didn't succeed. Only the construction of a shipyard near Chatham on the banks of the Medway is thanks to his initiative.

literature

• Stephen Alford: Kingship and Politics in the Reign of Edward VI . Cambridge University Press, 2002, ISBN 978-0-521-03971-0 .
• Barrett L. Beer: Northumberland: The Political Career of John Dudley, Earl of Warwick and Duke of Northumberland. The Kent State University Press, Ohio 1973, ISBN 0-87338-140-8 .
• Bärbel Brodt: Eduard VI. and Karl Heinz Metz Maria the Catholic. In: English kings and queens. From Heinrich VII. To Elisabeth II. Beck, Munich 1998, ISBN 3-406-43391-X .
• Geoffrey R. Elton : England under the Tudors. Callwey, Munich 1983, ISBN 3-7667-0683-7 .
• Dale Hoak: Edward VI (1537-1553). In: Henry Colin Gray Matthew, Brian Harrison (Eds.): Oxford Dictionary of National Biography , from the earliest times to the year 2000 (ODNB). Oxford University Press, Oxford 2004, ISBN 0-19-861411-X , ( oxforddnb.com license required ), as of January 2008 (not viewed).
• David Loades: John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland 1504–1553. Clarendon Press, Oxford 1996, ISBN 0-19-820193-1 .
• Marita A. Panzer: England's Queens - From the Tudors to the Windsors. Piper, Munich April 2003, ISBN 3-492-23682-0 .
• Ilan Rachum: Lexicon of the Renaissance. Edition Atlantis, licensed edition for Atlantis Verlag Zurich, ISBN 3-7611-0725-0 .
• Dudley, John, Duke of Northumberland . In: John Venn , John Archibald Venn (eds.): Alumni Cantabrigienses . A Biographical List of All Known Students, Graduates and Holders of Office at the University of Cambridge, from the Earliest Times to 1900. Part 1: From the earliest times to 1751 , volume 2 : Dabbs-Juxton . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1922, pp. 71 ( venn.lib.cam.ac.uk Textarchiv - Internet Archive ).

Notes and evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} David Loades: Dudley, John, duke of Northumberland (1504–1553). In: Henry Colin Gray Matthew, Brian Harrison (Eds.): Oxford Dictionary of National Biography , from the earliest times to the year 2000 (ODNB). Oxford University Press, Oxford 2004, ISBN 0-19-861411-X , ( oxforddnb.com license required ), as of October 2008, accessed April 4, 2010.
2. ↑ Dudley appeased the vengeful landlords with the words: "Is there no place for pardon? What shall we then do? Shall we hold the plow ourselves, play the carters and labor the ground with our own hands?": Hester Chapman, Lady Jane Gray , Jonathan Cape 1962 p. 63.
3. ↑ "He is absolute master here," commented the imperial ambassador: Carolly Erickson: Bloody Mary: The Life of Mary Tudor BCA 1995 pp. 251-252
4. ^ Hester Chapman: Lady Jane Gray Jonathan Cape 1962 p. 93
5. ^ Hester Chapman: Lady Jane Gray , Jonathan Cape 1962 pp. 94-95
6. ↑ Derek Wilson: Sweet Robin: A Biography of Robert Dudley Earl of Leicester 1533-1588 Hamish Hamilton 1981 pp. 55-56
7. ^ Hester Chapman: Lady Jane Gray Jonathan Cape 1962 p. 148
8. ^ Hester Chapman: Lady Jane Gray Jonathan Cape 1962 pp. 150–151
9. ^ "The great devil Dudley ruleth, Duke I should have said".
10. ^ Hester Chapman: Lady Jane Gray Jonathan Cape 1962 pp. 165–166
11. ^ Hester Chapman: Lady Jane Gray Jonathan Cape 1962 pp. 168–171

predecessor	Office	successor
New title created	Earl of Warwick 1547-1553	John Dudley
Edward Seymour	Earl Marshal 1549-1553	Thomas Howard
New title created	Duke of Northumberland 1551-1553	Title expired