DUDLEY, John (by 1526-80), of Stoke Newington, Mdx.

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1509-1558, ed. S.T. Bindoff, 1982
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Constituency

Dates

Mar. 1553

Family and Education

b. by 1526, 2nd s. of Thomas Dudley of Yanwath, Westmld. by Grace, da. and coh. of Sir Lancelot Threlkeld of Threlkeld, Cumb. and Yanwath; bro. of Thomas. m. by 1574, Elizabeth, da. of William Gardiner of Grove House, Chalfont St. Giles, Bucks., 1da.1

Offices Held

Servant of John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland and Sir Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, jt. (with Charles Foxe) clerk of the signet to council in the marches of Wales July 1565-d.; gov. mines royal 1568, Highgate g.s., Mdx. at d. 2

Biography

A Member of the second Edwardian Parliament bearing the name John Dudley could hardly fail to be a kinsman of the Duke of Northumberland, under whose aegis that Parliament was called and its composition to some extent determined. Apart from his son, who received a summons to the Lords in virtue of his earldom of Warwick, Northumberland’s nearest kinsman and namesake was his second cousin of Yanwath near Penrith. This John Dudley may have already attached himself to Northumberland, who as warden-general of the marches visited Carlisle in July 1552. To his kinship with the duke he could add important regional connexions, notably through his Clifford grandmother.3

Dudley first appears as a servant of his relative by marriage Thomas Wharton I, 1st Baron Wharton (himself originally a Clifford protégé), who in March 1547 sent him to the Protector Somerset for orders and later in the year asked for a captaincy for him; this he evidently received and in October 1549 he was serving as a captain at Whittingham, Northumberland. Wharton supported the Duke of Northumberland against Somerset, and as deputy warden of the marches and governor of Carlisle he was probably instrumental in the election of Dudley and his fellow-Member Edward Aglionby II. Dudley sat in the House with Northumberland’s younger son Robert, whose service he was to enter, although how soon after the catastrophe of 1553 is not known; he sued out his own pardon, as late of Yanwath, on 8 Mar. 1554, and he is said to have shown great kindness to Princess Elizabeth during her sister’s reign. It was through Robert Dudley’s influence that he was to be returned for Helston to the Parliament of 1563. He died on 29 Dec. 1580.4

Ref Volumes: 1509-1558

Author: Alan Davidson

Notes

  • 1. Date of birth estimated from first reference. Mdx. Peds. (Harl. Soc. lxv), 147; Vis. Cumb. (Harl. Soc. vii), 36; W. Jackson, Pprs. and Peds. (Cumb. and Westmld. Antiq. and Arch. Soc.), ii. 137-51; Wm. Salt Arch. Soc. ix(2), 77-86; x(2), 3-7; C142/195/93; PCC 36 Loftes.
  • 2. PCC 15 Darcy; CPR, 1563-6, p. 319; 1566-9, p. 211; P. H. Williams, Council in the Marches of Wales, 332.
  • 3. M. A. R. Graves, ‘The Tudor House of Lords 1547-58’ (Otago Univ. PhD thesis, 1974), ii. 302; E. Sandford, Antiqs. and Fams. in Cumb. (Cumb. and Westmld. Antiq. and Arch. Soc. tract ser. iv), 31.
  • 4. CSP Dom. 1601-3 Add. 1547-65, pp. 321, 334, 349; HMC Rutland, i. 46; CPR, 1553-4, p. 176; Lipscomb, Bucks. iii. 226.