Jane Dudley, Duchess of Northumberland

Jane Guildford was born in Kent around 1508/1509, In 1525, at about 16, she married Sir John Dudley, who was 20 or 21 years old. The match had been arranged by their parents some years before. In most cases it is impossible to establish their birthdates exactly. An exception is Robert, the future favourite of Elizabeth I; he was born in 1532 as the fifth son, and possibly after the eldest daughter Mary, who became the mother of the courtier-poet Philip Sidney. The family life of John and Jane Dudley seems to have been happy and was free from any scandals; around 1535 a poem praised the "love and devotion" of their marriage. Sir Edward Guildford died in 1534 before he could draw up his last will. Since his son Richard had predeceased him, Guildford's nephew, John Guildford, claimed the inheritance. The Dudleys maintained that Guildford's daughter Jane was the natural heir. They finally won the resulting court case with the assistance of Thomas Cromwell. ==Court life==

Jane Dudley served as a lady-in-waiting to Anne Boleyn, and later to Anne of Cleves. She was interested in the Reformed religion and, with her husband, moved in evangelical circles from the mid-1530s. In 1542 John Dudley was created Viscount Lisle. As one of her closest friends, the Viscountess Lisle was among the four ladies leading her to the altar on the marriage day. Jane Dudley belonged also to the courtly sympathizers of Anne Askew, whom she contacted during her imprisonment in 1545–1546. The forthright Protestant was burnt at the stake as a heretic in July 1546 on the contrivance of the religiously conservative court party around Bishop Stephen Gardiner. , Jane Dudley's husband, 1540s Renaissance humanism and science figured large in the Dudley children's education. In 1553 Jane Dudley herself commissioned two works from the mathematician and Hermeticist John Dee about heavenly configurations and the tides. Jane Dudley was close to her children; Under Edward VI John Dudley, Viscount Lisle was raised in 1547 to the title of Earl of Warwick, while Edward Seymour, Earl of Hertford became Duke of Somerset and Lord Protector. In October 1549 the Protector lost his power in a trial of strength with the Privy Council, from which John Dudley, Earl of Warwick emerged as Lord President of the Council and leader of the government. Somerset, who had been imprisoned in the Tower of London, was soon allowed to rejoin the Council. Before his release, the Duchess of Somerset and the Countess of Warwick had arranged daily banquets to reconcile their husbands. A marriage between their respective eldest son and daughter, Anne Seymour and John Dudley, was equally promoted by the two ladies. In June 1550 a grand wedding was staged at the palace of Sheen, attended by the twelve-year-old King Edward. Jane Dudley continued as a great lady at court during the ascendancy of her husband, who became Duke of Northumberland in October 1551. She was influential with him; the financier Thomas Gresham and the diplomat Richard Morrison sought her patronage, who had stood godmother to one of her daughters in 1545. ==Mother-in-law to a queen==

King Edward fell ill in early 1553. He drew up a document, "My Devise for the Succession", whose final version of June 1553 was to settle the Crown on his Protestant cousin Lady Jane Grey, overturning the claims of his half-sisters Mary and Elizabeth. Jane Grey was the daughter of Frances Grey, Duchess of Suffolk, a niece of Henry VIII by his younger sister Mary. On 25 May 1553 three matrimonial alliances were celebrated at Durham Place, the Dudleys' London town mansion. Two of their younger children were concerned: Guildford, aged about 17, married Lady Jane Grey, while Katherine, who was between eight and ten years old, was promised to the Earl of Huntingdon's heir, Henry Hastings. A few months later these matches came to be seen as proof of a conspiracy by the Duke of Northumberland to bring his family to the throne. At the time the marriages took place, however, their dynastical implications were not considered significant by even the most suspicious of observers, the Imperial ambassador Jehan de Scheyfye. Modern historians have considered them either as part of a plot, or as "routine actions of dynastic politics", in the words of David Loades. The initiative for the matches had probably come from the Marchioness of Northampton. After Edward's death on 6 July 1553 Northumberland undertook the enforcement of the King's will. Lady Jane Grey accepted the Crown only after remonstrances by her parents and parents-in-law. On 10 July the Duchess of Northumberland accompanied her son and daughter-in-law on their ceremonial entry into the Tower of London, where they were to reside for the rest of the short reign. According to Jane's own exculpatory letter to Queen Mary a few months later, Guildford now wanted to be made king. The young people agreed on having him declared king by Act of Parliament; but then Jane changed her mind and declared she would only make him a duke. "I will not be a duke, I will be King", Guildford replied and went to fetch his mother. Furious, the Duchess took the side of her son, before she told him to leave the Tower and go home. Jane, however, insisted that he remain at court. ==Downfall and struggle for her family==

To claim her right, Mary Tudor began assembling her supporters in East Anglia and demanded to be recognised as queen by the Privy Council in London. When her letter arrived on 10 July 1553 during dinner, the Duchess of Suffolk, Jane's mother, and the Duchess of Northumberland broke into tears. Mary was gathering strength, and, on 14 July, the Duke marched to Cambridge with troops to capture her. As it came, he passed a tranquil week until he heard on 20 July that the Council in London had declared for Mary. On the orders of the Privy Council Northumberland himself now proclaimed Queen Mary at the market-place and awaited his arrest. His wife was still in the Tower, but was soon released. She tried to intercede personally for her imprisoned husband and five sons with Mary, who was staying outside London. However, before reaching the court, the Duchess was turned away on the Queen's orders, Her plea, if not unheard, went unanswered, and the Duke of Northumberland was executed on 22 August 1553 on Tower Hill after having recanted his Protestant faith. Following Wyatt's rebellion, Guildford Dudley was beheaded on 12 February 1554 shortly before his wife. During 1554, the Duchess and her son-in-law, Henry Sidney, worked hard pleading with the Spanish nobles around England's new king consort, Philip of Spain. Lord Paget may also have proved helpful, and Henry Sidney even traveled to Spain in their cause. In the autumn of 1554 the Dudley brothers were released from the Tower, although the eldest, John, died immediately afterwards at Sidney's house in Penshurst, Kent. At the same location, Philip Sidney was born on 30 November 1554. His godmother was his grandmother Jane Dudley, while his godfather was Philip of Spain. Amid the confiscation of the Dudley family's possessions in July 1553, Mary had allowed Jane Dudley to retain her wardrobe and plate, carpets, and other household stuffs, as well as the use of the Duke's house in Chelsea, London, where she died on either 15 or 22 January 1555, and was buried on 1 February at Chelsea Old Church. In her will, she tried to provide for her sons financially and thanked the Queen, as well as the many Spanish nobles whom she had lobbied. The Duchess of Alba was to receive her green parrot; to Don Diego de Acevedo she gave "the new bed of green velvet with all the furniture to it; beseeching him even as he hath in my lifetime showed himself like a father and a brother to my sons, so shall [I] require him no less to do now their mother is gone". She also remembered "my lord, my dear husband", and stipulated: "in no wise let me be opened after I am dead. ... I have not lived to be very bold before women, much more I should be loth to come into the hands of any living man, be he Physician or Surgeon." She avoided being specific on religion, but stressed that "who ever doth trust to this transitory world, as I did, may happen to have an overthrow, as I had; therefore to the worms will I go as I have before written." ==Notes==