Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-j824f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-19T15:18:10.578Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Northumberland: The Myth of the Wicked Duke and The Historical John Dudley

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 July 2014

Barrett L. Beer
Get access

Extract

The name John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, evokes the image of the ambitious and selfish politician who was responsible for the death of Lady Jane Grey. The son of an executed traitor, and a traitor and apostate Protestant himself, Northumberland has been defamed by chroniclers and historians since his death in 1553. His reputation rests upon alleged character defects and a political career that putatively divided, weakened, and dishonored the country. Attributions of crime and misdeeds, regardless whether proved, have made him one of the most notorious villains of the early modern period.

Notwithstanding the inevitable disagreement over the particulars of Northumberland's life and work, the consensus is that he was the worst of a group of grasping, unprincipled new men who gained favor with Henry VIII and acquired status and wealth through the plunder of the church. Northumberland served the king as a soldier, courtier, and diplomat, and appealed to Henry's baser instincts, seeking only to advance himself socially and financially. It was only after the accession of Edward VI in 1547, so the traditional interpretation would have us believe, that circumstances permitted Northumberland to betray his true character and motives, and the full extent of his perversity. First, he allegedly supported a coup d'état that overthrew the will of the deceased king and installed the Duke of Somerset as Protector. Later, he intrigued to destroy the Protector's brother, Thomas, Lord Seymour, and then to depose Somerset. Following the overthrow of the Protector in 1549, Northumberland, aided by a small faction, instituted a regime of social repression, entered into a dishonorable alliance with France, and instigated the trial and execution of Somerset on entirely spurious charges. Throughout the reign of Edward VI, he encouraged the more radical Protestant reformers although he is said to have lacked sincere religious convictions.

Type
Research Article
Information
Albion , Volume 11 , Issue 1 , Spring 1979 , pp. 1 - 14
Copyright
Copyright © North American Conference on British Studies 1979

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Beer, Barrett L., Northumberland: The Political Career of John Dudley, Earl of Warwick and Duke of Northumberland (Kent, Ohio, 1973), pp. 159–162Google Scholar; Jordan, W.K. and Gleason, M. R., The Saying of John Late Duke of Northumberland upon the Scaffold (Cambridge, 1975)Google Scholar. Loach, J., “Pamphlets and Politics,” Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research, 48(1975): 31–44Google Scholar, has overlooked Mary's efforts to use Northumberland's trial and execution for propagandistic purposes.

2 Dickens, A. G., “Archbishop Holgate's Apology,” English Historical Review, 56 (1941): 450–459.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3 Read, Conyers, Mr. Secretary Cecil and Queen Elizabeth (London, 1962), pp. 93–101.Google Scholar

4 Ponet, John, A Short Treatise of Politicke Power (1556), sig. I, iii.Google Scholar

5 The Diary of Henry Machyn, ed. Nichols, J.C. (London, 1848), p. 35.Google Scholar

6 Chronicle of the Grey Friars of London, ed. Nichols, J.G. (London, 1852), p. 78.Google Scholar

7 de Guaras, Antonio, The Accession of Queen Mary, trans. Garnett, R. (London, 1892), pp. 80–88.Google Scholar

8 Stow, John, The Annales of England (London, 1592).Google Scholar

9 Goldberg, S. L., “Sir John Hayward, ‘Politic’ Historian,” Review of English Studies, n.s., 6 (1955): 233–244.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

10 Life and Reigne of King Edward the Sixth (London, 1636), pp. 417–421.Google Scholar

11 Burnet, Gilbert, History of the Reformation, 2 vols. (London, 1841), 1:315Google Scholar; Strype, John, Ecclesiastical Memorials, 3 vols. (Oxford, 1822), 3 (i):41.Google Scholar

12 Hume, David, History of England, 10 vols. (London, 1811), 5:38.Google Scholar

13 Macaulay, Thomas B., Essays and Lays of Ancient Rome (London, 1888), p. 59Google Scholar; Lingard, John, History of England, 10 vols. (London, 1849), 5: 376–377Google Scholar; Froude, James A., History of England, 12 vols. (London, 1898-1902), 5:247.Google Scholar

14 Pollard, A. F., England under Protector Somerset (London, 1900), p. 244.Google Scholar

15 Pollard, A. F., Thomas Cranmer (London, 1905), pp. 246, 288.Google Scholar

16 Sidney, Philip, Complete Works, ed. Feuillerat, A., 4 vols. (Cambridge, 1923), 3: 65–66.Google Scholar

17 British Library, Add. MSS. 34,893; Poole, B., Coventry, Its History and Antiquities (London, 1870), p. 124Google Scholar. G. R. Elton has noted that Gabriel Harvey regarded Northumberland and Thomas Cromwell as men of Roman disposition in Reform and Renewal (London, 1973), p. 11Google Scholar. It is, however, equally important to note that Harvey had close ties with the Earl of Leicester and SirSidney, Philip. Gabriel Harvey's Marginalia, ed. Smith, G. C. Moore (Stratford-upon-Avon, 1913), pp. 18, 122, 141.Google Scholar

18 Collins, Arthur, ed., Letters and Memorials of State, 2 vols. (London, 1746), 1: 28–29.Google Scholar

19 History of the Reformation, 1: 389–91.Google Scholar

20 Strype, John, Life of the Learned Sir John Cheke (Oxford, 1821), p. 92.Google Scholar

21 History of England, 5: 73.Google Scholar

22 James A. Froude was perhaps the first historian to study Northumberland's correspondence at the Public Record Office. “In his letters,” said Froude, “there is a tone of studied moderation, a seeming disinterestedness, a thoughtful anxiety for others.” History of England, 4: 448.Google Scholar

23 Havran, Martin J., Caroline Courtier (Columbia, S.C., 1973), p. xiii.Google Scholar

24 C. S. Knighton has recently recalendared the State Papers Domestic for the reign of Edward VI [SP 10], and the typescript is available at the Public Record Office, Chancery Lane.

25 The most important volumes are British Library, Add. MSS. 48,018, 48, 023, and 48,126. The catalogue of the Yelverton Manuscripts is Add. MSS. 48,195; see also Schofield, B., “The Yelverton Manuscripts,” British Museum Quarterly, 19 (1954): 3–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar. A.J.A. Malkiewicz discussed the importance and credibility of Add. MSS. 48,126, fos. 6-16 in “An Eyewitness Account of the Coup D'etat of October, 1549,” English Historical Review, 70(1955): 600–609Google Scholar. He suggested that the writer was a clerk formerly in the service of the Duke of Somerset and warned that while the account contained elements of truth, the stories were dramatized and mixed with the fictitious and the unprovable. Disregarding Malkiewicz's caution, Slavin, A. J., “The Fall of Lord Chancellor Wriothesley: A Study in the Politics of Conspiracy,” Albion, 7(1975): 284–286CrossRefGoogle Scholar, cites the manuscript as “unimpeachable” evidence. Hoak, D. E., The King's Council in the Reign of Edward VI (London, 1976), p. 37Google Scholar, used the same source to support the contention that Northumberland “packed” the Council.

26 The Letters of William, Lord Paget of Beaudesert, 1547-1563, Camden Miscellany XXV, ed. Beer, B. L. and Jack, S. M. (London, 1974).Google Scholar

27 Beer, Barrett L., “ ‘The Commoyson in Norfolk’: A Narrative of Popular Rebellion in Sixteenth-Century England,” Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 6(1976): 73–99.Google Scholar

28 Beer, Barrett L., “London and the Rebellions of 1548-1549,” Journal of British Studies, 12(1972): 15–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

29 Dickens, A. G., The English Reformation (London, 1964), pp. 194, 256Google Scholar, sees the King as both precocious, taking “a quasi-adult part in public events,” and as the “puppet” of Northumberland.

30 Dietz, F. C., English Government Finance, 1485-1558 (Urbana, Illinois, 1921), pp. 178–182.Google Scholar

31 Richardson, W. C., History of the Court of Augmentations, 1536-1554 (Baton Rouge, 1961), p. 160.Google Scholar

32 Hurstfield, J., The Queen's Wards (London, 1958), p. 190Google Scholar. See also Freedom, Corruption, and Government in Elizabethan England (Cambridge, 1973), pp. 137–162.Google Scholar

33 Jordan, W. K., Edward VI: The Young King (London, 1968)Google Scholar, and Edward VI: The Threshold of Power (London, 1970).Google Scholar

34 Bush, M. L., The Government Policy of Protector Somerset (Montreal, 1975), pp. vii, 149-50, 160–61.Google Scholar

35 Hoak, , King's Council, pp. 261, 266–67.Google Scholar

36 Heinze, R. W., The Proclamations of the Tudor Kings (London, 1976), p. 246.Google Scholar

37 The following examples indicate how historians can interpret motivation and behavior in a highly subjective manner. Bush, M. L., Government Policy, p. 112Google Scholar, has written that it was possible for Somerset “to hold advanced religious views and to amass enormous wealth without being justly accused of inconsistency.” Referring to Thomas Goodrich, Bishop of Ely and Lord Chancellor under Edward, , Spufford, Margaret, in Contrasting Communities, English Villagers in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (London, 1974), p. 241Google Scholar, said, “He was a man of genuine Protestant convictions despite his nominal reconversion under Mary at the end of his life.”

38 Tyder, P. F., England under the Reigns of Edward VI and Mary (London, 1839), II: 154–56.Google Scholar

39 The Chronicle of Queen Jane, ed. Nichols, J. G. (London, 1850), p. 8.Google Scholar

40 See note 25. Sir John Neale, referring to the Parliament of 1553, wrote, “Whatever the extent of [the government's] activities, and striking as official intervention undoubtedly was on this occasion, it would be absurd to speak of the government as either achieving or aiming at what has been called a ‘nomination parliament’” (The Elizabethan House of Commons [rev. ed.; Harmondsworth, Middlesex, 1963], p. 274).Google Scholar

41 Simon, Joan, Education and Society in Tudor England (London, 1967), p. 291.Google Scholar

42 Davies, C. S. L., “Slavery and Protector Somerset: The Vagrancy Act of 1547,” Economic History Review, 2nd ser. 19(1966): 533–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

43 Thirsk, Joan, ed., The Agrarian History of England and Wales, Volume IV 1500-1640 (London, 1967), p. 224.Google Scholar

44 Barlow, Frank, The Feudal Kingdom of England (London, 1955), p. 395.Google Scholar