Dan Snow's History Hit - John Dudley: Tudor England's Wicked Duke

Episode Date: October 8, 2026

Henry VIII is dead and England has replaced him with a boy king. But the one really pulling the strings of power behind the young and inexperienced Edward VI is one of Tudor England’s most formidable power players: John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland.Remembered by his enemies as the ‘Wicked Duke’, Dudley was ruthless and ambitious - but also a skilled statesman who helped rescue England from war, financial crisis and political instability. Then, in 1553, he risked everything by attempting to place Lady Jane Grey on the throne.In this episode Dan is joined by Professor Suzannah Lipscomb to explore Dudley’s extraordinary rise and bloody fall - and ask: was he a villain, an opportunist, or Tudor England’s unlikely saviour?You can check out Dan and Suzannah's latest documentary series How the Tudors Lost Their Heads on National Geographic.Produced by Mariana Des Forges and edited by Hannah FeodorovWe need your help! Let us know what you want from Dan Snow's History Hit by filling in our anonymous survey here: https://forms.gle/PvgayWLkWGjYT4St6Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe.You can also email the podcast directly at [e-mail] Snow's History Hit is a History Hit podcast.History Hit is part of Little Dot Studios, a Certified B Corp™. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Sign up to join us in historic locations around the world and explore the past. Just visit history hit.com slash subscribe. Henry VIII is dead. Who now will rule England? His son, his heir, the boy king, Edward V. 6th, sits on the throne technically. But like old child monarchs,

there are going to be shadowy figures whispering into their ears, pulling the strings behind the scenes, the true power players. And in this iteration of the Tudor court, it was John Dudley. In some ways, he's the archetypal Tudor villain, the kind that you imagine learned. looking in the shadows and a dark velvet cloak.

His moniker in history is the wicked duke. He dominated politics during the reign of the boy king Edward VI, between 1549 and 1553. Dudley was cunning, calculated, ruthless, a brilliant political operator with a Protestant fervor. He would risk all to get what he wanted. He was a dangerous man. That isn't to say he wasn't exactly what Tudor England needed at that time. He took the reins in a period of serious crisis. England was unstable, religiously divided, financially strained.

He did put an end to expensive wars. He pulled England back from the brink of total economic collapse. He improved administration. He reorganised the Navy. He stabilised the country. To his supporters, he was decisive and practical, driven by survival. But he went too far. They always do.

He led a coup attempt effectively to put Lady Jane Grey on the throne of England, and that led him eventually to the executioner's block. To chart the meteoric rise and disastrous fall of one of Tudor England's most influential figures, I'm joined by the brilliant Professor Susanna Lipscomb, expert in all things Tudors. She and I recently made a documentary series called How the Tudors Lost Their Heads, which is out Now on National Geographic, in it we reveal some of the era's most famous figures in a new light by investigating the real reasons their lives ended by execution. So was John Dudley, Chudor England's savior or greatest villain?

This is Dan Snow's history here. Susanna, thanks for coming on. It's good to see you, Dan. It's very good to see you too. And what to talk about what a dramatic place to start. The death of old King Henry. He's ruled for as long as anyone can remember. That must have been an extraordinary moment.

It certainly was. I mean, actually what's so strange about it is that Henry VIII has become such a dominant presence. Everything has been dictated by his whims for decades. And yet, at the moment of his death, the thing I find extraordinary is that very quickly, everyone's scrambling to work out what's going to happen next and what position they're going to have.

And fear of this great tyrant is almost immediately forgotten. His wishes are almost immediately put aside. Really? They find some backbone. Or they start looking after their own interests once the great man is breathing his last. When there's a transition in this period from one king to another,

one monarch to another, is that a time of opportunity for the men around the king? Do they seek to maintain what they've got, advance? What goes on then? Yes, it's absolutely a time of opportunity. And the death of Henry and the 8th is perhaps particularly the case

because in his last warland testament, he says that any grants or gifts which have been unfulfilled should be granted. And one of John Dudley's friends, William Padgett, happily has a document. This document from Dudley's friend William Padgett, which is endorsed by Henry 8, says things like their friend, Edward Seymour, should become the Duke of Somerset, and that various other people should be a noble or, you know, reached up in terms of the peerage. And so there's this sense that this is a moment to capitalize on that kind of fudging of what Henry actually meant when he said that these things should be, that are unfulfilled should be paid out. It's like when one of our relative dies, your mum always wanted me to have that teapot. She just specifically said that. That's so interesting. So there's olddoms and dukedom's going to flying around.

Exactly. If you just substitute teapot for like a peerage, yes. But is it also time of danger? Because you've got these big egos, these powerful magnets. And you've got now a child on the throne. And we have not had great examples in the. last 150 years of English history of what happens when a child gets on the throne. Exactly. Every time there's been something that went wrong, pretty much whether you've got a regent or protector or a council. And there's a few days where there's everything to play for because generally speaking, they don't announce the death of the monarch until they've got their plan in place. So after Henry the 8th dies, they keep taking food to his rooms. They keep,

you know, the trumpeters keep trumpeting outside at the certain hours. And it's all to cover over the fact that he's dead. And the same thing happens when Edward dies because they're trying to make sure that Mary doesn't find out. And they're all jockeying for position behind these closed doors. I mean, there's no one's in charge. Yeah, and there's no honour. You know, they're all just absolutely scrambling.

That's crazy. And his son is nine. They're happy that his son will sit on the throne. But of course, the key thing is who will sort of rule in his place. Yes. So Henry VIII has planned that there will be a. council because he has looked back as you say at the previous examples he's looked back at Richard the third and the princes in the tower and he's looked back at the sort of disastrous

french campaigns and you know from the early 15th century and so he's thought okay well what we need is 16 men who were ruling concert and he has made sure that certain big personalities are not on that council like Stephen Gardner who's the bishop of winchester or Thomas Howard Duke of Norfolk. Yeah, I'm not surprised. Get him well away from it. In the tower at the time, accused of treason. And so these people are supposed to rule in concert,

and that is not what happens, because they meet within days of Henry's death, so he dies on the 28th January, 1547, and within days they have decided that Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset, newly appointed, will be the first among equals. He will be the Lord Protector. So they won't really be ruling by the council

and they say they're doing all this because of Henry VIII's will which is sort of written like lip service to the world doing exactly the opposite of what it says And just let so zooming out England at the time Henry has Henry has spent a lot of money so indebted

has stud at all sorts of religious problems that Protestants the reforming Christians Protestants think that the future kind of belongs to them. Catholics think presumably there might be a chance now to heal this riff with Rome. So everyone's, there's going to be excitement and opportunity for everyone out there at this, the passing of King Henry. Yes. Everybody thinks that there's, that there's something to be corrected in terms of religion. So Catholics think they need to go back to Rome and those who can now declare themselves Protestant because basically to be a Protestant under Henry was heresy

are able to push forward. And among them is John Dudley. I mean, I think, and what his position on faith is is hard to determine. But he's certainly in with a group of Protestants who then push forward with basically iconoclastic change. I mean, really smashing church. They would have seen themselves completing what Henry started. So break with Rome and now wipe out every vestige of Roman Catholicism. Exactly.

Okay. And what's that mean? Smashing up churches. It means smashing up rude screens, which are the sort of beautiful wooden carved screens with the statues of the saints in them in churches. it means smashing up windows that have got stained glass on them, statues of saints, all of this they think is idolatrous.

It means removing any idea of the mass being a sacrifice, getting read of the liturgy in Latin, which also makes redundant almost all church music overnight. It means completely changing the experience of church. There aren't altars anymore. There are tables. I mean, it's stripped down, stripped down. and this must have been absolutely extraordinary for people who live through it

because it was so alienating and changed their experience of church and everyone went to church every Sunday pretty much and so this is their major community place and suddenly it's all different so it has a massive impact and it produces rebellions in the country when these things are introduced so turmoil you've mentioned john donnelly a few times let's get on let's get into it with him where does this where does this man emerge from is we hear a lot in the tutors don't we about these sort of many want great aristocrats but are sort of raised up through their own merit perhaps with the laziness

of Henry the 8th these people do all the jobs for him what is he coming from that kind of managerial class I mean more or less yes his father had been essentially an administrator for Henry the 7th and had done his dirty work and that included extracting money from nobility and from people of status and And that is what he is punished for when Henry VIII comes to the throne because Henry the 7th had become avaricious, quite miserly in the last years of his life. And Edmund Dudley, John's father, is one of those who's held up as having driven this policy. He sort of has to pay for Henry the 7th sins, and Henry VIII demonstrates his own generosity by having Dudley killed,

by saying, we're not going to be like that, let's get rid of him. even though Dudley was doing his dad's bidding. Exactly. So it's like a reshuffle, one of those ridiculous reshuffles in modern politics. When a new person comes and goes, we're going to get rid of the transport secretary because I'm going to be super fresh around here. It's like, come on, man. Yes, yes.

The only tutor spin on it is when you get rid of the secretary, you cut off their heads. Yes, yeah. So John Dudley knows what's at stake here. He does. And so he grows up, I think he's eight at the time his father dies. He grows up knowing that his family had been a tainted for treason. that's reversed. I mean, they get back their position to an extent, but he goes up without a father because of that. And he has to work for his status. And so we see him in Woolsey, Dresden you in the 1520s, for example. Yeah, how do you get on? So you're a smart young guy. You've been educated. Your dad, your family's seen to that. Do you, is it your sword arm or is it your language skills, your writing? What's going to get you ahead? What's going to get you advanced at the Trude of Court? For John Dudley, it's definitely his sword arm because his writing is atrocious.

But he's a great man when it comes to battles. So he's quite dependable and he becomes increasingly important as a military commander over Henry Gates reign. So he's good when it comes to going to war. And also the other thing about him that becomes evident over time, and this takes the next 20 years or so to demonstrate this. but he's a good man when you want someone to do a dirty job. So he's the person you turn to when there's something difficult because he's a bit opportunistic. Well, he's got no sort of he's got no family to fall back on, no great name.

So I suppose he's he's willing to do the work. He has the support of one of the great families at the Tudor Court, the Guildfords and sort of has taken under their wing. But, I mean, you went to Dudley Castle for this series, didn't you? And so there's this, the kind of interesting. insight there about how he's operating from an early stage. Dudley Castle is an interesting place because they actually belonged to a distant cousin of his. It'd gone down a different line.

And then the cousin was running short of money and Dudley lent him money on no doubt terms that are very favourable to himself. And then foreclosed on the mortgage base. He just got ejected his cousin from the castle. So there's a Dudley in Dudley Castle now. And I guess that's, so he's a, he's ruthless. and quite effective. And I guess if you're a king, you want people, you've got a reasonably small pool of people

that you can select from to do things for you and you want people that are going to get the job done. Yeah, and there's an example of him doing the same sort of thing a few years later. So in 1540, I mean, Cromwell has major concerns that are different to this, but he writes to Cromwell because a man called Sir Andrew Flumack, who is the keeper of Kenilworth Castle,

has got the plague and whilst the poor man is still apparently dying Dudley writes to Cromwell and says could I have that job? Embarrassing because Flummoff doesn't die he survives but there's this sense that he's always going to be the person who's going to just grasp a little bit and reach a bit but those are the sort of people that you need absolutely ambitious and he's presumably quite clever as well because he alies himself with the person you've already mentioned Seymour, Duke of Somerset who is King Edward the Sixth uncle.

So he's a good guy at the start of this reign, Edw of the Sixth, Somersets in a powerful position, and Dudley's trying to get close to him. Yes, and that has sort of built up over the 1540s, their friends, and they're aligned. And it's clear that their position on faith might be similar, but that they get along and they can work together. And William Padgett is perhaps the third.

of their number, this is a little trio who essentially take power. But though they're great friends, Edward Seymour and John Dudley, Dudley in the end does for Seymour. So a couple of years into Edward's reign, Seymour has proved unpopular because he has pushed forward with these religious ideas, of course, but also there's been things to do with enclosure and agriculture that are deeply unpopular. And the upshot of this is that he sends Dudley to deal with some rebels in Norfolk, in Norwich.

And Dudley presides over the massacre of about 300 of them within two weeks. So I always want people to remember that. When they talk about Bloody Mary, like under Edward, within two weeks, as many people died as Protestants were killed during Mary's reign. So Dudley is doing this. But meanwhile, Seymour is becoming so. unpopular that actually in the end Dudley realizes it's it's it's if he's going if he doesn't deal with Seymour he himself is going to go down and so he

turns against his old friend wow it's like the Soviet Politburo and how so how does that so he basically does a sort of coup against his his old friend and the king's uncle yes I mean it looks likely that Seymour might have done the same to him okay I mean you can't trust your friends at the Tudor court one of them is going to die. But yes, he says that, you know, Seymour has plotted to murder him. And the problem with this is, I mean, in the end, Seymour does die. But the problem with this is that along the way, Dudley's making lots of enemies. So just before Henry VIII died, he'd really made an enemy of Thomas Howard, who's the Duke of Norfolk. And, you know, we can actually hark back to a few

years earlier when Catherine Howard, the Duke of Norfolk's niece had been Henry the 8th's queen and Dudley is the person who takes the news to Henry that she's committed adultery and he takes the letter from Krammer he also takes explicit details about what she's done that he conveys by mouth to Henry the 8th again opportunistic really dangerous thing to do because he might well have shot the messenger but it's on the off the back of that that he becomes Viscount Lyle. And so he's upset the Howards. At the time of Seymour's downfall,

he upsets the Earl of Arundor. So as he rises, he's stepping on other people, and that will come back to bite him. And is that normal, you've studied the Tudor period so closely. Is that a normal way of getting ahead? Do you have to sort of tremple the weak and hurdle the dead? Or is there a smarter way of operating

where you can kind of build alliances and work your way up that way? I think he's unusually bad at keeping allies. I think, I mean, I think it is relatively normal that you can make enemies along the way. But he just doesn't seem to care enough about maintaining friends or maintaining popularity. And I think if you look at some other examples, like Kramer, for example, is very good at bending like a reed in the world. wind you know he'll he'll he'll he'll go whatever direction in terms of i mean he's a great man i feel bad saying this but he but he certainly does sort of allow himself to be swayed from side to side

dudley is a bit more stubborn he holds to different positions he puts himself out there he puts himself on the line a bit more he makes enemies more the thing i find susanna when we talk about this i sometimes under what is in it for people in in the chute what why is he so driven why not take your winnings and have a nice life? I mean, is it just, that's what people do. We're ambitious. We're always trying for the next thing. Or is there a sense in which if you don't seek power, other people will get that power

and then you're likely to be in trouble? I think it's probably the former. I mean, why do you not sit at home? Well, ask myself that all the time. Today, because I get to spend time with you, that's why. I think it's just because it's exciting, right? The Tudor Chord is where everything is happening. If you want to do anything in the 16th century, you've got to go to court.

And that's where there's opportunity and excitement and you can make a mark and you can have a purpose and you can be principled. But you can also just be outright ambitious. But hopefully people think they're building something and are doing something good. They've got all these narratives about what they're doing. But they can only do it there. All right. Well, we're going to have more on the Tudor Court and Dudley in it after this. Don't go away.

So, Susanna, Dudley is about to launch his kids. presumably he has to have some allies. You can't just go toe to toe to with Seymour. He's convinced enough people on this council to oust the boss, has he? He absolutely has. So he's allied himself with people who are Catholic or conservative religion. I think they're pretty much Catholic by this point. And he's persuaded them that he will work with them

and they can get rid of Seymour who's unpopular. So he sort of tracks back slightly. Having given out slight Protestant vibes with Seymour initially, he's now tracking back to that. But then, very soon afterwards, he then, in the process of it, he then says, oh no, actually the Earl of Arundel was involved in the plot as well. So what he manages to do is he's managed to upset both sides.

This is what I mean, he's not very good at keeping friends. He tacks. But he is successful initially. He does get rid of the Lord Protector Somerset. He does get rid of Lord Protector Somerset. And essentially becomes the primary man in Edward V. England. So he doesn't become Lord Protector himself but he becomes sort of the head of the council, the first of the council. And does it, the king's a little bit older now? Does the king like him?

Does it even matter? Is the king just getting trampled all over? Or do you think, does he spend time with the king doing crosswords and be like, I'm nice guy? I mean, is that is that important? I think it is important that the king likes him because as the king is sort of entering his teenage years, he's getting opinions for himself. And so Dudley has, to persuade Edward that he's worth having around. But crushing rebels in Norfolk's the kind of thing that a young king is going to love, isn't it? I mean, if he's quite dynamic in that respect, you can see him impressing the king. Yes, and we get the impression that Edward the 6th is quite interested in that sort of military side of things from his journals,

and also quite interested in Protestantism. He's quite, I mean, he's a teenager. He sees things in black and white terms. So obviously the Catholics are bad and the Protestants are good. So I think John Dudley plays to that instinct in him in what he does. Okay, but he outmaneuvers the king's uncle, which is no small thing. Seymour does Seymour go to the old block? He does, not immediately, but he does within a few years.

So he's dead. Then Dudley changes tack and turns on some of the people that helped him. Well, he, yes, he makes sure that the Earl of Arundor is imprisoned. at the same time for saying that he also was involved in the plot to murder John Dudley. But Dudley holds his position through those years of Edward's reign and is doing fairly well. But then we get to Edward dying at the age of 15. And there is this question about how much John Dudley is involved in trying to determine what happens next.

Because Edward, so we should say, so Dudley is very powerful, he's become the Duke of Northumberland, one of the great titles of England. Foreign ambassadors are saying he's effectively ruling England at this point. So he's got extraordinary reach. Just quickly, in your experience, more than most non-royals in this period, are there any other figures equivalent to Dudley in the Tudor century? Is he really built up a huge amount of power? Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset was a parallel.

Other than that, I suppose you have to look at people like Thomas Cromwell, William Cecil, Lord Burley, who are ministers to monarchs. but no I mean absolutely I think that he and Edward Seymour the two dukes during Edward's reign have access to power that you know they're alter-recks they're another king because they are governing for a young and teenage boy now we should say that Dudley's fans believe that he was really very effective at this point he does restore stability some financial stability

I mean what's your take on that fan of Dudley in this position He is a very capable man and he gets the job done. That is exactly the thing that you can say about him. He may not make friends, but he brings the war with France to an end that's been a drain on resources. He's very good at looking after affairs. And does he, in terms of the religious settlement, it's always sort of shifting in this century,

is he quite important, does he put his hand on the scale one way or another? Does he able to give England that sort of Protestant identity that will go on to prove quite enduring? Yes, I mean, he actually takes it further than it had gone under Edward Seymour. There's a second book of Common Prayer produced by Thomas Kramer in Edward's reign. And the second book, which is 1551, strips away any vestiges of Catholic practice. You know, really very much narrows it down to a Protestant form of practice and belief. and this is the point at which the church music disappears

for example and so we see Dudley absolutely pushing through with that agenda and it's an extreme it's an extreme form of Protestantism in fact it's more extreme than we'll end up with Elizabeth where she's reaching that sort of settlement

where things look a bit Catholic you know the priests are still wearing clerical robes but and they're still at an altar but what they're saying can be interpreted by Protestants or Catholics to mean whatever they think happens during the mass, etc. That's much more, that's more muted than what we get under Edward. So Dudley is really putting his temple of things. He's getting the job done.

Edward gets sick. This is the problem with monarchies, isn't it? When the principle starts to get ill, is it a drawn-out illness? Does he die overnight? What happens? It's over a few months. It's not overnight. He's not always sickly, so as sometimes it's said about him.

to have been in pretty robust health until the year 1553. I mean, that's not entirely true, sorry, there's something in 1552, but when it comes back in 1553, what it is, we're not quite sure, maybe it's a form of tuberculosis. He certainly gets sick in that year. And, you know, over the months from February, he's not getting better. And probably by May or June, they can start to see. that he's not going to live.

Although people saying so get punished. There are examples of people being put on the pillory or their ears pinned up on cheap side because they've said that the king is going to die and you can't have that. So it's being talked about but people are not supposed to be talking about the fact that this young boy is going to die.

And is Dudley hovering at the bedside table with lots of bits of paper to sign? Well, this is the question. So Edward famously draws up something called his device for the succession, which is at the inner temple. It's an amazing document. It's just two sides, and it's quite a childish hand, and he explains in it what he wants to happen when he dies.

So you think he wrote it in his own hand? Oh, it's definitely in his own hand. And it's amazing to go and see it. And it's just sort of thrilling. Here we've got this 15-year-old trying to plan out his future and trying to be like his daddy who had said who should follow him onto the throne in his last will.

And here he's like, well, I'm going to determine it. And he rules out by admitting them his half-sisters, Mary and Elizabeth, and rules in, in the end, Lady Jane Grey. But that's not what he says at first. At first he says that his cousin, Lady Jane's heir's male should be inheriting the throne. In fact, in the document, I think it says the words

airs male 12 times. completely convinced that the person to follow him onto the throne must be a boy, which, fair enough, there hasn't been a successful queen regnant by that point. And it's only when he is, I mean, this is an assumption, one assumes it's when he's at the point of death, and it's clear that Lady Jane, who's recently married, by the way, Guilford Dudley, John Dudley's son, is not pregnant or doesn't have an air male, that he makes this change where he crosses out the S at the end of Lady Jane's and he adds in and her. So now Lady Jane Grey, Lady Jane Dudley, is nominated as Queen by Edward.

And so the question is, where's John Dudley in all this? Is he just over Edward's shoulder saying, I mean, what we could do while she doesn't have a son is, I mean, we could just nominate her for now and I'll look after it and then of course once her son comes, he can be king. Who knows? So let's find out what happens when the Sixth dies after this. Don't go away. Susie, Edward the Sixth is breathing his last, the teenage king. John Dudley, the Duke of Northumberland, is at his bedside. They together, or Edward the Sixth, has nominated his cousin, Lady Jane Grey,

who's Protestant, to be the next sovereign. He's overlooked his two half-sisters, Mary and Elizabeth. Why, who is Lady Jane Grey and why does she get the nod? So Lady Jane Grey is descended from Henry VIII's sister, Mary. So she had married Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk. That naughty relationship. No naughty relationship because they marry sort of without permission after she had a vigorous relationship with the King of France

and he died as a result. And three months later. And they marry very quickly without Henry VIII's permission, Henry VIII's best friend to Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk. Their daughter is Francis, Brandon. She marries Henry Gray, who basically is an idiot. But they have three pretty brilliant daughters, Jane, Catherine and Mary. So Jane is the oldest of those daughters.

So she's got good chute of blood in her veins. She's a direct senator of Henry the 7th. But she's got less good claim than ever the six sisters. But never mind. Okay, so Lady Jane Gray, she's his cousin. She's a Protestant. Great. Why did he prefer her, by the way, over his siblings?

I think it's because Henry VIII made Mary and Elizabeth illegitimate. So in an act of succession in 1536, they're made illegitimate. There's another act of succession in 1544 that puts them back into the line of succession, but does not make them legitimate. And I imagine that from that teenage boy's viewpoint, that is out of bounds. Yeah. And also, I guess if you're not going to leave it to your sister Mary because she's Catholic, it's bit odd to skip a sister.

So let's just give it to a cousin. You can't, you can't because the argument is about the legitimacy. Okay, good point, yeah. Okay, so that's neat, the cousin. Now, Dudley, the most powerful man the kingdom, has married his son, helpfully, to Lady Jane Grey. Yes, and he obviously hopes that Guilford will be king by proxy. So when there's a procession into the tower with Jane,

Guilford is there walking in front of her. I mean, as if he is king. So King Ebert the 6th dies. Very sad. What does Dudley do? So Dudley immediately moves to create Jane as queen. So in that period of time, before the news has got out, or so he thinks, he goes to see Jane with some others at Saan House and tells her... It's you.

It's you. I've been to that room in Saian House. Extraordinary. So he's brought her there to say, you are a queen. And they go, there's a throne, sit on it, you're the queen. And Jane doesn't want it, does she? It doesn't really want it. I mean, she's a bit bewildered. She doesn't know if it's right.

She's a very learned, serious, pious, I mean, quite extraordinarily brilliant young girl. But she doesn't think it is right. She has persuaded that it is right by law that maybe God has called her to this role. She accepts the crown. And it's the dying king's wishes. Exactly. And it's been passed by letters patent, which, It was one of the ways it becomes legal that she's queen.

And so she's taken to the tower to await her coronation. So she goes to the tower. Is she accompanied by her husband who just so happens to be the Duke of Northumberland's son? Yes, he's with her. In fact, as they process in, he's walking in front of her. So he is putting himself in the position of king. And there's some muttering about her being queen in London, the great supporters of Mary. Because she would be the first queen.

in the history of England. The Queen regnant, Matilda never got, never got crowned. So it's from Alfred the Great to present, she's the first queen. So it's a big deal. It is a big deal, but actually there's not much focus on her gender because the two candidates for the throne are both women. So the question is about legitimacy, and in London there's murmurings about Mary really being the queen.

But then Guilford walks ahead of Jane as if he is to become king. and Jane, yeah, she's a smart cookie and she quickly realizes that is not what she wants because she realizes that John Dudley can essentially rule through Guilford so she doesn't name Guilford King. Oh really? That's good.

So John Dudley is pulling the strings at this point. His son is married to the new queen. When people say, do you think John Dudley wanted to be king? Do you think he wanted his son to be king? Do you think that was true? Or was he happy with just being sort of the power behind the throne

for both him and his son? He was happy to wait for his grandchild to sit on the throne formally. I think he did want to exercise power through Guilford. I don't think he planned it exactly. I think even when Jane and Guilford were married, I don't know if he could necessarily see that far ahead on the chessboard and see that Edward would nominate Jane and his son would become king. Perhaps he did.

I do think it's very much Edward's wish to nominate Jane. But Don Dudley, as we've seen as a man who will, will make the most of every opportunity. And here's an opportunity. He wants to carry on exercising power. He's exercised it whilst Edward's king. Why can he not exercise it whilst Jane's Queen? Yeah, intoxicating and exciting.

Your son or your grandson might actually become, might sit on the throne of the Plantagenet. And you've struggled in poverty growing up. I mean, that must be exciting. How exciting. I mean, Geran Paul has written this book called The House of Dudley, and there's very much this hope that there's going to be the House of Dudley after that. Of course, yeah, it would have been the House Dudley.

Okay, so they're in the Tower of London. What happens next? What happens next is that Mary has got a whiff of the news that her brother is dead. And rather than wait to be told officially, she flees to her lands in East Anglia. She goes to Kenninghall and from there to Framlingham. And she amasses troops who are going to defend her title as queen. And so she, you know, although Jane has been declared as Queen on the 10th of July 1553, within days, Mary's having herself declared as Queen.

So it's immediately like sort of a position of war. Now, it doesn't look like Mary can possibly win because John Dudley, one of the things you can say about him is he's a really good war leader. He's a great military commander. He emasses troops. he marches over to East Anglia you'd think well it's going to come to battle and obviously John Dudley is going to win

I mean it's interesting that he he has sent actually I mean it makes sense from a sort of military point of view but it means he leaves the power base of London can't be in two places at once exactly so that's always that there's always that problem

and I don't think he realizes how powerful Mary is because he doesn't take the direct route for Amlingham he marches up to Cambridge to declare that Jane's Queen or to gather more troops or whatever and then down to Framlingham. But he has made enemies in the area because a few years earlier he'd put down that rebellion. Oh, of course, in Norfolk in East Anger.

He'd killed those people. He'd killed all those people and people can remember that because it was only four years earlier. And so they hate him. They hate him and they love Mary who has done the opposite in that she has spent time cultivating relationships in East Anglia

developing a kind of what some historians are called household affinities so she's built up the support network there which she can activate at the moment when Jane is proclaimed queen at the crucial time

so Dudley's army is approaching and yet there isn't a great battle so what happens because there are defections so there are ships that are part of the Navy who can help protect Mary escaping to the continent. They mutiny, they defect to Mary. Meanwhile, other troops are defecting to Mary, and the Privy Council sees the way that

the wind is blowing and suddenly change their minds and declare that Mary's Queen. Wow, and John Dudley's marching about with a bunch of hungry soldiers in the East Midlands. Yeah, and he's on his own now. and he quickly tries to swap sight and say oh no no i mean i i think mary's queen too but it's obvious that somebody has to be to blame and so the really interesting thing is although everyone on the council has backed jane dudley's the one out there in the field with the troops going to attack mary he's the full guy so he's getting updates from london he's getting he's hearing mary's strength is building units are mutining

and he begins to feel like he is just totally isolated out there yes and he absolutely is and what's really interesting is that when it comes to his trial he says that he has puts up a very good defence he says how can I have been committing treason

when what I was doing was at the council's behest it was on their orders and with the great seal of England to do what they opposite of what they had told me would have been treason I can't have been committing treason by doing it and it has a strange echo of what had happened with his father. I was showing a wonderful letter during when we met our TV show together where he actually writes about that. He has a premonition as I think anyone would in the Tudor court but he had a premonition

is like I'm doing these things whether it's putting down rebels in Norfolk I'm doing things at the behest of the council of the government of the day but I have a feeling if there's a change in wind direction I'm going to be hung out to drive these as my father was. Yes and I I wondered thinking about that if there's something something almost that he creates like he has known throughout his entire life that his father died for doing

what he was ordered to do his master's commandment and then in the end Dudley dies for doing what he's been told to do or what the council have said is right it's almost like you know the thing you most fear

is the thing you make happen yeah precisely yeah because in a way, he tried to get to a position where he was his own master, but to do that, he ended up almost trying, he played the Game of Thrones. I mean, he tried to topple kings.

And crucially among the people who take him down in the end are, the Duke of Norfolk, the Earl of Arundor, like all the friends that have turned to enemies along the way, the people that he has betrayed, that he has annoyed, the allies he failed to make,

those are the ones. who take him down. So does Mary even give him a chance to redeem himself, or do you think the writing's on the wall? I mean, he's given a chance to change his faith and convert to Catholicism on the scaffold. Okay, that's fine. So he goes to the scaffold, he gets head chopped off.

What about his son and his daughter-in-law, Lady Jane Gray and her husband? So they are both imprisoned in the tower and might in the end have been okay, but poor Guilford and Jane the following year in February 1554 there's a rebellion known as White's rebellion against Mary it's against her marriage to Philip of Spain

and Jane's silly father gets involved and because of that Guilford Dudley and Jane are executed okay well that's the end of the house of Dudley although is it Well, you'd have thought, you'd have thought. I mean, certainly... They're the comeback kings. They are the comeback kings, the Dudleys, because, I mean, who is the closest companion to Elizabeth the first? None other than one of John's sons, Robert Dudley.

Three Dudley's have been killed by three Tudor monarchs, and another Dudley ends up being best friends with a fourth. What's extraordinary about them is that though they're, you know, you've got John Dudley rising, even though his father was a tree. traitor. Robert Dudley rises even though his father was a traitor. It's this, you know, the rise and fall of the Dudley is, it says a lot about the Tudor court. And while we're on the subject, I'm sorry to put it on the spot here, did Dudley, was, were he and Elizabeth in love? And was it, did they ever have sex relations? I think they were in love. I think they didn't have sex. I mean, it depends on one's definition of sex, but they, but they certainly didn't have the sort of sex that produces babies because there wasn't any reliable contraception at the time.

So the chances of disaster were too great. But in terms of the intimacy, the emotional intimacy between them, that seems to have been very much the case. And we do have people like the Spanish ambassador saying, he visits her in her chambers day and night. So there's this sense that they are very close, and that is known by everybody. Dudleys. I mean, what a family. The ups and down. So let's come back to our man, John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland. Ultimately, was he a wannabe dictator? Was he taking powers of the throne? Was he overmighty? Or was he just another Tudor-Cortier taking advantage of opportunities that they came up, doing frankly what anyone would have done in his position? It's such a good question. I mean, he's certainly ambitious. The Dudleys are ambitious people. But whether he does that more than anyone else, whether he's more ruthless than anyone else in that circumstance. I don't know. I think he doesn't play it so well. He's not read that book about how to win friends

and influence people. Perhaps he doesn't do it, you know, as expertly as someone else might have done. But I think that many people in his position who are hoping for power at the Tudor Court would have done similar things. What do you think? Well, I think that's right. I think that's totally right. The thing strikes me is that once you have a child on the throne, whether it's Henry the 6th, whether it's Edward V, whether it is Edward the 6th, everyone around gets sucked into this power vacuum. You have to almost kill or be killed. There's so much opportunity to exercise more power than you might otherwise do when there's

a stable, mature adult on the throne. And Dudley could have just been an important courtier, but once you're thrown into a position where there's a kind of anarchic vacuum of power, then he's playing for the highest stakes. He's hurled straight into the middle of that maelstrom. That's right, I think. That's exactly right. It's just too tempting, isn't it?

And almost, I mean, I was taught nothing in history is inevitable, but it feels quite compelling. Susie, you're very compelling. Thank you very much for coming on. Thank you so much for joining me and Susie. Make sure you hit all the buttons. The follows and subscribes and likes and everything. Leave comments or do it all.

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