Dudley, Henry (1526–1544)
Oldest of the Dudley sons, called Harry in By Royal Decree, he died in France after the campaign against Boulogne. Very little is known about him except that he was at court from an early age.
Dudley, John (1504–1553)
Viscount Lisle, then Earl of Warwick, then Duke of Northumberland, Dudley ruled England for King Edward VI after the Duke of Somerset’s fall from power. He attempted to place Lady Jane Grey on the throne when Edward VI died, and his failure led to his execution. He was not popular with the common people of England, but he was known to be a devoted family man.
Dudley, John (c. 1528–1554)
The second Dudley son, called Jack in By Royal Decree, he became Earl of Warwick when his father was elevated in the peerage to Duke of Northumberland. He was married to the Duke of Somerset’s eldest daughter in an attempt to make peace between their fathers. He was condemned to death as a traitor after the attempt to place Lady Jane Grey on the throne failed but he was not executed. He died of natural causes at his sister’s house at Penshurst, Kent, shortly after his release from the Tower.
Dudley, Mary (1531–1586)
The eldest of the Duke of Northumberland’s daughters, Mary married Sir Henry Sidney in 1551. She was with Lady Jane Grey in the Tower but was allowed to return home to Penshurst when Mary Tudor was declared queen. A few weeks after Mary’s brother John died at Penshurst, she gave birth to her first child, a boy who was named Philip after Queen Mary’s husband. He grew up to be Sir Philip Sidney, the courtier and poet. When Elizabeth Tudor became queen, Mary Sidney was one of her closest friends. She caught smallpox while nursing the queen in 1562, which destroyed her looks.
Edward VI (1537–1553)
Edward succeeded his father in 1547, but he never ruled England. The government was first in the hands of Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset and lord protector, and then of John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland. The idea of Lady Jane Grey as his successor, however, seems to have been Edward’s own. He was deeply committed to the Church of England and did not want his Catholic sister, Mary, to become queen.
Elizabeth (1533–1603)
Elizabeth was third in line to succeed to the throne by the terms of her father’s will, but there were many who felt the irregularity of her parents’ marriage disinherited her. She was not even considered in her brother’s device for the succession. Under Queen Mary, Elizabeth pretended to accept the Catholic religion but refused to marry the man King Philip picked out for her, his kinsman the Duke of Savoy. She contemplated fleeing England and taking refuge in France but was warned against that action by the French ambassador, who sent Bess Brooke to Hatfield with that message early in 1557, shortly before war between England and France broke out. Elizabeth succeeded her sister Mary the following year.
Fitzgerald, Elizabeth (1527–1589)
Dubbed “Fair Geraldine” because of a sonnet written about her when she was still a child, she married first Sir Anthony Browne, a much older man, and later Edward Fiennes de Clinton, Lord Clinton. As Lady Browne she is recorded as having been with Princess Elizabeth at Chelsea and later at Hatfield, but it is not clear if she was sent there to be part of the princess’s household, or to spy on her, or if she was merely visiting. As Lady Clinton, she was with the princess during a meeting with the Spanish Count of Feria shortly before Queen Mary’s death, but again it is not clear if she was part of Elizabeth’s household at that time or merely hosted the dinner at which they met. She was at court during Elizabeth’s reign and was considered one of the queen’s close friends.
Gardiner, Stephen (1490–1555)
As Bishop of Winchester, Gardiner opposed the evangelicals who advocated further changes in the church. He plotted against Queen Kathryn Parr, but his schemes failed when King Henry was reconciled with his wife. Under King Edward, Gardiner was imprisoned and his estates seized. Winchester House in Southwark was given to William Parr, Marquess of Northampton. Gardiner took the property back as soon as Mary Tudor became queen and restored him to his seat.
Grey, Lady Jane (1537–1554)
Lady Jane Grey was King Edward’s choice to succeed him. She was the great-granddaughter of King Henry VII. Accounts vary as to whether she was willing or not, just as they vary as to whether she had voluntarily married Lord Guildford Dudley a few months earlier. What is certain is that she was a scholar of some renown and that she was a devout Protestant. She was executed following Wyatt’s Rebellion.
Guildford, Jane (1509–1555)
Married to John Dudley, her father’s ward, Jane was the mother of Henry, John, Mary, Robert, Ambrose, another Henry, Guildford, Temperance, and Katherine Dudley, among others who died young. She was Viscountess Lisle, then Countess of Warwick, and finally Duchess of Northumberland and was at court as part of the queen’s household during the reign of Henry VIII. She was one of Kathryn Parr’s inner circle. Exactly what part she played in the plan to make Lady Jane Grey queen is not known. It is often said that Lady Jane’s husband, Guildford, was Lady Northumberland’s favorite son, but there is no hard evidence of this. She certainly found her new daughter-in-law infuriating, but that may have been as much Lady Jane’s fault as Lady Northumberland’s. After the arrest of her husband and sons for treason, the duchess haunted the court of Mary Tudor seeking pardons for them. She was granted the manor at Chelsea by the queen. Although her husband and son Guildford were executed, her remaining sons were eventually released, in large part due to their mother’s ceaseless efforts on their behalf.
Hallighwell, Jane (1480–1558)
As the dowager Lady Bray, Bess’s “Grandmother Jane” married a much younger man when she was in her sixties. She campaigned to win her son’s freedom after Lord Bray was arrested for treason in 1556. She died during the influenza epidemic of 1558.
Henry VIII (1491–1547)
By 1542, King Henry had gone to seed. He was fat, ill, and crotchety. In a scene that also appears in Secrets of the Tudor Court: Between Two Queens (in that version from the point of view of Nan Bassett), he gathered together a great number of eligible young ladies at a banquet in the hope of finding a sixth wife. Bess Brooke was one of those who caught his eye, but soon after that he met Kathryn Parr and married her instead. In 1546, rumor had him considering a divorce from Kathryn so he could take a seventh wife, Catherine Willoughby, widow of his old friend Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk.
Mary (1516–1558)
Upon the death of her brother in 1553, Mary became both king and queen of England and promptly restored Catholicism as the state religion. One of the first acts of her first Parliament was to rescind the bill permitting William Parr, Marquess of Northampton, to remarry while his first wife still lived. Mary invited that first wife, Anne Bourchier, to court.
Parr, Kathryn (1514–1548)
As Henry VIII’s sixth wife, she supported evangelicals—those who wanted even more reforms in the church. Henry was her third husband, but contrary to popular belief, the first two were not old men. One was a sickly boy, the second a gentleman in his prime who did not suffer ill health until about a year before his death. After the king died, Kathryn married Thomas Seymour, who had courted her before King Henry singled her out as a prospective bride. Kathryn had custody of Princess Elizabeth until she sent the princess away, some say out of jealousy, in mid-1548. After Kathryn died in childbirth and Thomas Seymour was executed, their baby daughter was placed in the care of Catherine Willoughby, dowager Duchess of Suffolk. Mary Seymour disappears from the historical record about two years later.