Note.—The London residence of the parents of Lady Jane Grey was, in her early days, the house in Whitehall overlooking the Thames and known as Dorset Place; but, after the death of the two sons of the Duke of Suffolk, the Lady Frances inherited Norwich House, Strand, which Henry VIII had confiscated from the Bishops of Norwich, and exchanged with his brother-in-law for Suffolk Place, Southwark, which he converted into a mint. Norwich House now became generally known as Suffolk House. Here the Greys lived in great state, possibly abandoning their other residence in Whitehall for the larger and more sumptuous residence. The Lady Frances, after the execution of her husband, sold Suffolk House to the Percys and it presently became known as Northumberland House, and, altered from a Tudor to a Jacobean mansion, it remained a prominent feature of London street architecture until early in the second half of the last century, when it was pulled down for the improvements at Charing Cross.

CHAPTER XII
JOHN DUDLEY, EARL OF WARWICK

Immediately after the execution of Thomas Seymour, John Dudley steps forward on the lurid stage of this history. If Seymour was a rascal, Dudley, son of a rascal, was even worse. Divested of his magnificent habiliments and picturesque surroundings, this man was a far meaner and more sordid ruffian than was ever my Lord of Sudeley—more devilish in his cunning and, if anything, more unscrupulous.

John Dudley was the son of that notorious Edmund Dudley who, under Henry VII, had remorselessly plundered the public coffers, and so earned the execution which fell to his lot in the first years of Henry VIII’s reign—on 28th August 1510, to be precise. In common justice, it is fair to say that this Dudley of evil repute was highly esteemed by his most illustrious contemporary, Sir Thomas More; and we may believe him to have been much calumniated, like many other men of his time. Dugdale says Edmund Dudley was the son of a carpenter,[158] and the assertion is somewhat supported by the fact that although he was born twenty years before the death of the Lord Dudley whom he asserted to be his grandfather, that gentleman would never acknowledge him. His real patronym was Sutton, but he assumed that of Dudley after his acquisition of the ancient castle of that name, and the expulsion of its rightful owner, who fled abroad. On the gates of the Castle, Edmund affixed his own arms, together with those of the ancient houses of Someries and Malpas, from which he claimed descent. He was at one time Sergeant-at-Law and at another Speaker of the House of Commons, and married Lady Elizabeth, daughter and heiress of Edward Grey, Viscount Lisle, a collateral of the great house of Grey, and the same young lady to whom Charles Brandon was contracted and who, as we have seen, refused to carry out her side of the engagement.

The John Dudley of these pages was born about 1502, the eldest of three brothers, who, after their father’s ignominious death, were placed under the guardianship of Sir Edward Guildford. The latter fought valiantly to obtain some part of the father’s ill-gotten property for his wards, and their possessions were further increased at the death of their mother, a considerable heiress. Being a handsome, dashing young fellow, the father’s bad reputation was soon forgotten, and his gay son John, as Viscount Lisle, was a prominent figure at Court in the last half of Henry VIII’s reign. In his early years he was a good deal in France with Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, the Lady Frances’s father, who knighted him at Vian, in Normandy. John Dudley’s wife, Jane Guildford, whom he married when he was a mere lad, contrived to absorb his affections so completely that his domestic life was remarkably respectable. She was a very beautiful woman, and part heiress of his former guardian, Edward Guildford, Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports. She bore him a numerous and handsome family, and her behaviour in clinging to her husband during his hour of danger, and making desperate efforts to save him, was rare at this strange period. With all her good qualities, however, she was cordially disliked by Lady Jane Grey, whom she treated with consistent harshness.

As Viscount Lisle,[159] John Dudley worked his way up legitimately enough until he was nominated Lord High-Admiral and Master of the Horse (1542) to Henry VIII. Although at heart a Catholic, he sided with the Seymours against the Howards, and thus—for ambition’s sake—came to be numbered among the chiefs of the Protestant party at Edward VI’s coronation, and was then created Earl of Warwick. His ambition was now well fired—he must become aut Cæsar, aut nullus, and this he could only achieve by ousting the two Seymours and taking their place. Like most of his contemporaries, he was essentially an opportunist—un arriviste, as the French would say. For some years he worked like a rat in the dark, waiting his opportunity: first he nibbled at Thomas Seymour’s good fame—what there was of it!—and then cunningly set brother against brother. Patiently, subtly, he gnawed on till he saw Thomas ascend the scaffold; then he promptly undermined Edward Seymour’s credit with King and people. His aim was to become Lord Protector himself, to reach at supreme power by fair means or foul.

JOHN DUDLEY, DUKE OF NORTHUMBERLAND