Ambrose Dudley, 3rd Earl of Warwick, KG (c. 1530 Ambrose Dudley and his brothers were trained by, among others, the mathematician John Dee and the rhetorician Thomas Wilson. In August 1549, Dudley went to Norfolk with his father and his younger brother Robert to fight against the rebel peasant army of Robert Kett. Back in London, Dudley was knighted and married Anne Whorwood, daughter of William Whorwood, deceased Attorney-General. In 1552, they had a daughter who died soon. Anne also died in 1552, of the sweating sickness. Dudley soon married for the second time: Elizabeth, Lady Tailboys (or Talboys, 1520–1563

After the death of King Edward VI on 6 July 1553, John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, who had led the young king's government for the last three and a half years, tried to install his daughter-in-law Lady Jane Grey on the English throne; she was the King's Protestant cousin to whom Edward had willed the Crown, bypassing his half-sisters Mary and Elizabeth. When Mary Tudor asserted her right to the throne, an expedition against her base in East Anglia became inevitable. Northumberland marched on 14 July, accompanied by his eldest sons, John and Ambrose. Five days later the Privy Council changed sides; on hearing this on 20 July, Northumberland, who had been staying at Cambridge, gave up and was arrested with his party the next day.

Ambrose Dudley was imprisoned in the Tower of London with his father and his four brothers. All were attainted and condemned to death, but only the Duke and Guildford Dudley, the second youngest brother, were executed. After the natural death of John, the eldest brother, in October 1554, Ambrose Dudley was the family's heir; he remained longest in the Tower, being released late in 1554 after a plea by his wife, Lady Tailboys. On the whole, the brothers' release was brought about by their mother and their brother-in-law Henry Sidney, who successfully lobbied the Spanish nobles around Queen Mary I's new husband and co-ruler, Philip of Spain. Out of prison, in December 1554 or January 1555, Ambrose and Robert Dudley took part in one of several tournaments held by Philip to celebrate Anglo-Spanish friendship.

Also in January 1555, Dudley's mother died, leaving him her lands, which Queen Mary allowed him to inherit despite his attainder. later in 1555 they were even ordered out of London and the next year, in the wake of a conspiracy by their second cousin Sir Henry Dudley, the French ambassador Antoine de Noailles reported that the government was seeking to apprehend "the children of the Duke of Northumberland", who were said to be on the run. By January 1557, the brothers were raising personal contingents in order to fight for Philip, now also King of Spain. Ambrose, Robert, and Henry Dudley joined the Spanish forces in France and took part in the Battle of St Quentin, where Henry Dudley was killed. For these services, the two surviving brothers were restored in blood by Act of Parliament in 1558. The cost of the campaign almost bankrupted Ambrose Dudley and his wife, however, so that they had to reduce their household significantly. When their attainder had been lifted in 1558, the Dudley brothers had renounced any rights to their father's possessions or titles. Warwick Castle—which the Queen visited on her 1572 summer progress—became his seat, while the neighbouring Kenilworth Castle became that of Robert Dudley. Like their father, Ambrose and Robert Dudley adopted the bear and ragged staff, the heraldic device of the medieval Earls of Warwick. Ambrose Dudley was chosen to lead the expedition, in place of Robert Dudley, whom Elizabeth would not let go despite his strong desire to do so. Le Havre's fortifications would have needed major expansion and repair to withstand a prolonged siege. Still, Dudley tried his best until the town's walls were crumbling under French bombardment. The Queen permitted him to surrender honourably in July 1563 on account of the plague that was decimating his troops. Ambrose Dudley himself had been shot in the leg when parleying with the French and returned to England seriously ill. He wrote to his brother that he was happy "rather to end my life upon the breach than in any sickness... Farewell my dear and loving brother, a thousand times." Robert Dudley went to welcome him at Portsmouth despite the plague and much to Elizabeth's annoyance.

Politically, the expedition had been a disaster, yet Warwick gained recognition for his leadership since morale had been high and the civilian population had been treated with unusual respect.

In November 1569, the Northern Rebellion broke out with the aim to install Mary, Queen of Scots (who was in English captivity) on the English throne. The Earl of Warwick was one of the commanders appointed to march against the revolt, which was disintegrating rapidly, though.—seems willingly to have supplied him with what he wanted. The Spanish ambassador officially protested against this practice in 1576, since the weapons would have been used against Spanish rule in the Netherlands. The day sentence was pronounced on her, Warwick did not attend.

One of Warwick's last appointments, in January 1588, was Keeper of the Queen's parks at Grafton Regis with the lawns, chases, and walks.

Private nobleman

thumb|Funeral effigy of Ambrose Dudley in the Beauchamp Chapel of [[Collegiate Church of St Mary, Warwick]]

Ambrose Dudley became one of the leading patrons of moderate Puritanism, the principal concern of which was the furtherance of preaching. Discouraged by the official Church, this was largely dependent on private initiatives by influential noblemen. In 1567, the two Dudley earls, together with local gentry, founded a consortium which provided for "the preachers of the Gospel in the county of Warwick." Ambrose Dudley also helped the preacher John Field when he got into trouble over a subversive book he had published in 1565; and when he was imprisoned in 1572, Leicester and Warwick worked his transfer into comfortable confinement in a London alderman's house before he was released altogether by his patrons' means. Like his brother, Ambrose Dudley invested in exploration and privateering voyages; in Martin Frobisher's 1576 search for the Northwest Passage, he was the principal patron, although he contributed only the relatively modest sum of £50.

The two Dudley brothers were on the closest personal terms and Ambrose said of Robert: "there is no man [that] knoweth his doings better than I myself", while Robert's recurrent phrase about Ambrose was: "him I love as myself". loved to joke that he was neither as graceful nor as handsome as his brother—and stouter as well. Lacking a grand London residence of his own, Warwick had his suite of rooms in the palatial Leicester House: "the Lord of Warwick's bedchamber, the Lord of Warwick's closet, the Lord of Warwick's dining parlour". In the administration of their lands, the brothers shared their estate managers and lawyers, while their local affinities consisted of the same gentry families. Privately, they were "almost inseparable", passing time together whenever possible.

After his first marriage, Ambrose Dudley remained childless. His second wife, Elizabeth Tailboys, suffered a phantom pregnancy in 1555. Through their paternal grandmother the Dudley brothers descended from the famous 15th century earls, John Talbot, 1st Earl of Shrewsbury, and Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick. The Beauchamp descent especially—which was represented by the earldom of Warwick—filled them with pride. Ambrose's childlessness deeply concerned the widowed Robert Dudley, who for many years dared not to remarry for fear of the Queen's displeasure, and eventually died without direct heirs himself in September 1588. Most of Leicester's estate—and debts—passed on to Warwick and encumbered his remaining lifetime. He also took care of his deceased brother's illegitimate teenage son Robert, who was his godson and whom Leicester had willed to inherit after Warwick's death. At the end of January 1590, he finally had his gangrenous leg amputated; as a consequence, he died at Bedford House in the Strand, London, on 21 February. Two days before, the diplomat Sir Edward Stafford visited him and described his spasms and pain "which lasted him unto his death". Ambrose Dudley's widow commissioned his monument,

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|1= 1. Ambrose Dudley

|2= 2. John Dudley, 1st Duke of Northumberland

|3= 3. Jane Guildford

|4= 4. Edmund Dudley

|5= 5. Elizabeth Grey, 6th Baroness Lisle

|6= 6. Sir Edward Guildford

|7= 7. Eleanor West

|8= 8. Sir John Dudley of Atherington

|9= 9. Elizabeth Bramshott

|10=10. Edward Grey, 1st Viscount Lisle

|11=11. Elizabeth Talbot, 3rd Baroness Lisle

|12=12. Sir Richard Guildford

|13=13. Anne Pympe

|14=14. Thomas West, 8th Baron De La Warr

|15=15. Elizabeth Mortimer

See also

  • Attainder of Duke of Northumberland and others Act 1553

Notes

References

  • Adams, Simon (1995): Household Accounts and Disbursement Books of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, 1558–1561, 1584–1586 Cambridge University Press
  • Adams, Simon (2002): Leicester and the Court: Essays in Elizabethan Politics Manchester University Press
  • Adams, Simon (2008a): "Dudley, Ambrose, earl of Warwick (c.1530–1590)" Oxford Dictionary of National Biography online edn. Jan 2008 (subscription required) Retrieved 2010-04-06
  • Adams, Simon (2008b): "Dudley, Anne, countess of Warwick (1548/9–1604)" Oxford Dictionary of National Biography online edn. Jan 2008 (subscription required) Retrieved 2010-06-11
  • Adams, Simon (2008c): "Dudley, Robert, earl of Leicester (1532/3–1588)" Oxford Dictionary of National Biography online edn. May 2008 (subscription required) Retrieved 2010-04-03
  • Bruce, John (1844): Correspondence of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leycester, during his Government of the Low Countries, in the Years 1585 and 1586 Camden Society
  • Chamberlin, Frederick (1939): Elizabeth and Leycester Dodd, Mead & Co.
  • French, Peter (2002): John Dee: The World of an Elizabethan Magus Routledge
  • Hammer, P.E.J. (2003): Elizabeth's Wars: War, Government and Society in Tudor England, 1544–1604 Palgrave Macmillan
  • Ives, Eric (2009): Lady Jane Grey: A Tudor Mystery Wiley-Blackwell
  • Jenkins, Elizabeth (2002): Elizabeth and Leicester The Phoenix Press
  • Loades, David (1996): John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland 1504–1553 Clarendon Press
  • Loades, David (2008): "Dudley, John, duke of Northumberland (1504–1553)" in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography online edn. Oct 2008 (subscription required) Retrieved 2010-04-04
  • Owen, D.G. (ed.) (1980): Manuscripts of The Marquess of Bath Volume V: Talbot, Dudley and Devereux Papers 1533–1659 HMSO
  • Stone, Lawrence (1967): The Crisis of the Aristocracy, 1558–1641: Abridged Edition Oxford University Press
  • Warwick, Frances Countess of (1903): Warwick Castle and its Earls Vol. I Hutchinson & Co.
  • Wilson, Derek (1981): Sweet Robin: A Biography of Robert Dudley Earl of Leicester 1533–1588 Hamish Hamilton

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