But the young King died too soon; too soon for Northumberland, for he had not yet had the Royal Will ratified by his submissive Parliament; too soon for Sir Andrew, for he had not yet wed his lady. Edward’s death was concealed from the outer world for a day or two, while Northumberland and the Council prepared their plans. Then followed an anxious week for the country. But in Skipton Castle there was a special dread. New rulers had sometimes a way of getting rid of collateral connections.
Northumberland and the Council proclaimed the Lady Jane as Queen, and arranged that the Duke of Suffolk should go forth to deal with Mary. But the only Royal action the poor little Queen Jane was ever allowed to do of her own free will, was to insist that her father should stay with her in the Tower, a decision by which she helped to save his life in the first instance. So Northumberland perforce had to go himself, and all his family supported him. He got as far as Cambridge, his forces deserting as he went. The unexpected courage of Mary, the ready response it met, turned the tide of events. The Council he had left behind him in London, bound with an oath to Jane, proclaimed Mary. Northumberland tried to save himself also by proclaiming her in Cambridge. But he was too late. All the Dudley family were arrested, Sir Andrew among them, so he never reached his bride and his treasure waiting for him in Skipton Tower, but was hurried to the Tower of London, in by the Traitor’s Gate.
The Earl of Cumberland had been sitting on the fence. When he heard that Mary had been proclaimed in York, he dropped on the safe side, and to show his love and loyalty took the keys of her treasures from his fair daughter, the keys of the chamber from Dudley’s servants, with both the inventories, and took possession of the property in the name of Queen Mary!
No affronted Sovereign, backed by her people, could afford to pass by treason so determined. Northumberland and some of his chief supporters fell at once. The Baga de Secretis records, under the date of 19th August 1553, the attainder of Sir Ambrose Dudley, Henry Dudley, Esquire, Sir Andrew Dudley, Sir John and Sir Henry Gate, “for levying war against the Queen, and asserting the title of the Lady Jane on the 18th and 19th July, and for taking their way towards Framlingham Castle, to deprive the Queen of her Royal Dignity.” They were all condemned. But Mary was wonderfully merciful. She pardoned the Dudleys, she even released the Duke of Suffolk, father of her rival, because confinement did not agree with his health.
There was an investigation into the traitors’ goods. Oswald Wilkinson was sent to the Tower, on the charge of carrying his master’s goods to Skipton, and he was kept there till the inventories were sent for and gone into. Early in 1554 Sir Andrew Dudley “was created loyal subject, and enabled to take, receive, and enjoy all manner of gifts of land, goods, and household stuff henceforth to him given.” That was cold comfort to a man past his prime, now without place or influence or friends to give him aught. And he wanted his bride. He sent up humble petitions for relief. By-and-by, “the King and Queen, moved with pity, by their letters patent under the Great Seal, granted him all such goods and chattels as had belonged to him on the 22nd July, 1553,” which had afterwards belonged to the King and Queen, and gave him full power and authority “to prosecute all actions or suits or executions concerning the goods, money, debts, against all and every person deteyning them, and in peace quietly to have and enjoy them, as if Sir Andrew Dudley had never been attainted of treason.” But this concession came too late.
We must turn back to note what the Cliffords had been doing. Sir Andrew being in the Tower, the Earl of Cumberland came to London, and handed over his Collar of the Garter into the Queen’s own hands, and some other jewels to the Queen’s Commissioners, Lord Rich and Mr. Potts, and on 6th September 1553, it was agreed that the Earl should keep the rest of Sir Andrew’s goods, on paying £500 into the Exchequer. Mary was very cordial to the Earl, but warned him that he must not marry his daughter except to one approved of by herself. It would almost seem that she suggested Henry, Lord Strange, son and heir of the Earl of Derby. At least the smiles of royalty brightened this wedding. The Queen presented the bride with a brooch of thirteen diamonds, all the household linen, and all the robes which had belonged to Sir Andrew Dudley. It is probable the Lady Margaret Clifford wore at her marriage to Lord Strange on 7th February 1554-5, the very robes of gold and silver tinsel Sir Andrew had received from the Royal wardrobe for his own intended wedding in June 1553. The Queen made a great feast at Court on the occasion of the marriage. There were jousts, in which King Philip himself took part, and “after supper there was the Juego de Cañas,” a Spanish game, in which he led. The Queen was anxious, a presentiment of evil weighed her down, and she more than once sent to beg the King not to expose himself so much. Her suspicion of a lurking danger was well founded. There was already widespread discontent with the Spanish marriage, the religious severities had increased this, and on the 4th of February, only three days before this gay wedding, John Rogers, the first Marian martyr, had been burned at the stake amid the murmurs of the people. The State Papers tell us that a secret band of conspirators had appointed William Hunnis, Allday, Cornwall, and others to the number of twelve, to kill the King, and after him the Queen, that very night. But though these elements of danger mingled in the gay crowd nothing was done. “A cautious consideration of the risks run by themselves put the conspirators out of stomach for the enterprise.” So the Lady Margaret Clifford was safely married to the Catholic Lord Strange; and after the festivities were all over the Queen’s pity turned to her former fiancé, and he was made capable of holding property and demanding debts. The first thing he did was to send his former servant, Alexander Harrison, to York to meet Oswald Wilkinson, and go with him to Skipton Castle to demand back his (Sir Andrew’s) wedding provision. But the Earl refused unless they paid him £500. They had it not to pay. The Earl refused even to give them some necessary pieces of plate for Sir Andrew’s use, worth in all about £40, which they earnestly requested. Poor Sir Andrew never saw either his bride or his property again. He was in a sad plight. He had lost all Court influence through his brother’s death, he was not so young or so astute as his nephews. He became suspected of being concerned in the plot held together by John Throckmorton, the Ashtons, and Henry Dudley (not his nephew). He might have sympathized with it, but nothing was proved against him. After a year filled with trials and executions in connection with this conspiracy Sir Andrew Dudley fell ill. He thought he was going to die, and made his will on 21st July 1556, leaving many legacies to be paid out of debts due to him, and appointing as overseers his nephews, Ambrose, afterwards Earl of Warwick, Robert, afterwards Earl of Leicester, and Henry, not the conspirator. The broken man did not then die. A new path to promotion might have been found for him in the new reign, through his nephews. But he died in the first year of Elizabeth at Westminster. His will was proved on 22nd November 1559, by Sir Robert Dudley. Thence arose the suit in the Court of Requests, which has preserved so many details. Sir Robert could not settle the legacies without securing the debts, so he exhibited a Bill of Complaint against the Earl of Cumberland, the chief debtor. The complaint itself is lost, but it is easy to reconstruct it (excepting the date) from the other papers. In an undated answer the Earl denied that the Lord Robert Dudley had any right to demand goods lawfully forfeited, minimized the amount and value of the goods, but acknowledged having:
One purse of 29 pieces of gold and 11 pieces of new money; divers apparels, as shirtes, petycotes, trusses, doublets of taffaty and satin, hoses of velvet and saten, jerkyns, clokes, and gowns of velvet and satin with aglets of gold, jackets of cloth of gold, cote of silver, velvet, and satin, hankerchers, certain plate double gilt, parcel gilt, white plate, one cup of gold, and certain pewter and glass.
The Queen became possessed of all, kept the jewels, and bargained the other goods to him for £500, as may be seen by a privy seal. The Replication of Lord Robert Dudley (also undated) declared the answer insufficient. The Earl of Cumberland in the first instance was not an official of the Queen’s, and had no right to seize the goods. They were not in his keeping, but in the keeping of the Lady Margaret. He never paid that £500 to the Exchequer, and had no receipt for it. Dudley was able to prove the goods were worth £4,500. Sir Andrew had a patent granted him to sue for all debts.
In the rejoinder the Earl said he knew of Sir Andrew’s patent, but before it was granted the Queen had seized the goods, detained some, sent some to the Lady Strange, and sold the remainder to him for £500. It is true that he did not pay this directly. But the Lord Strange owed him £500, and paid it for him. A commission was appointed to hear witnesses at Westminster, and they heard Lord Robert Dudley’s on 10th December 1560. The most important was Oswald Wilkinson, who stated all the facts above, and added that they could not have altered the inventory without his knowing it. Thomas Greene, of Adlyngton, co. Cheshire, another old servant, spoke to sums of money Sir Andrew had possessed. Alexander Harrison, while supporting Wilkinson, added that he had received from Sir Henry Sidney through James Shelley £1,300 for Sir Andrew Dudley at Petty Callys in Westminster in the last year of Edward VI. The Earl kept all the goods and inventories and everything except the four horses he and his fellows rode on. William Garrat and William Clark, gentlemen, of Westminster, former servants, supported the depositions of their fellows, and Hugh Briscowe had seen the book of payments for all Sir Andrew’s property, and heard him confess it on his death-bed. He knew Sir Andrew had sent in a Supplication against the Earl to the late Queen in the Court of Requests. John Cogges had packed all the property and had heard it estimated at £5,000.
The Earl’s witnesses were not examined till 3rd February 1561-2, Christopher Monckton, William Danby, and others, who really supported Dudley’s witnesses. On the same day, the 3rd of February 1561-2, the noble witness the Lady Margaret Strange was called. She gave her age as twenty-four, and thus the D.N.B. would seem to be out by two years in the date of her birth. She supported the depositions of the Dudley servants clearly and fully, and signed her deposition in her beautiful clear, careful handwriting, “Margaret Strange.” From the Book of Decrees and Orders one can gather that some private arrangement was come to after all. Lord Robert Dudley was becoming ever more powerful with the Queen, and the Earl of Cumberland would doubtless have to climb down. And the Lady Margaret Strange, who was not very happy with her Lord, became, on his father’s death, the Countess of Derby, survived her husband, and, it is said, communed with soothsayers, who promised her that her son should be King. That son resisted the suggestion, and she saw him struck down by poison given, it was said, by disappointed Jesuits. Her second son became Earl, and kept himself safe and secluded from worldly ambitions, “writing only comedies for the common players”; and she, out of favour in Elizabeth’s suspicious Court,[94] because of her dreams of a Royal succession, ended her life in gloom in 1596. (See Camden’s “Annals,” p. 470.)