Her Highness, the Traitor - By Susan Higginbotham Page 0,153

have appeared in this novel have traditionally been treated harshly in historical fiction, as well as in history. The reader may wonder why I have chosen to treat them differently.

For centuries, John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, was viewed as one of history’s villains, whose insatiable ambition led him to destroy the innocent Somerset and to manipulate the hapless Edward VI. In the past few decades, however, historians have taken a much more balanced view of this man. As Susan Brigden and other historians have pointed out, there is evidence that Somerset was involved in some sort of plot against Northumberland in 1551, even if its actual details were exaggerated by the government. Far from ruthlessly engineering the downfall of Somerset, Northumberland arranged for the marriage of their children and restored the duke to his position on the council, although his attempt at reconciliation failed.

It continues to be debated whether the plan to alter the succession originated with Edward VI himself or with Northumberland, but it is beyond question the young king held rigidly Protestant views and made it clear to Mary he disapproved of her Catholic practices, berating her in person on occasion. Certainly once his “devise” was revealed, Edward VI himself demanded his councilors put it into effect. Thomas Cranmer would later tell Mary it was not Northumberland, but other members of the council and Edward, who pressured him into supporting Jane as queen. He wrote that the king himself required him to sign the document supporting the king’s will. Furthermore, while the devise certainly benefited the Dudley family, it should be noted that Northumberland’s first choice of a bride for Guildford Dudley had not been Jane Grey, but Margaret Clifford, who was much further from the throne than her cousin Jane. William Cecil indicated that the idea of a match between Guildford and Jane originated with the Marchioness of Northampton.

As Edward VI sickened, rumors swirled that Northumberland, hated by many because of his role in executing the popular Somerset and because of his suppression of Kett’s rebellion, was poisoning him. (Even Frances alleged that Northumberland had poisoned her husband, and Jane claimed to have been “envenomed” in the Duchess of Northumberland’s house.) The charges against Northumberland at his trial did not include regicide, and modern historians give the rumors of poison little credence, although it may be that a wise woman was called upon when conventional physicians failed to cure the king. An associated story, which still is repeated today, even had it that the duke switched Edward VI’s body with that of a youth murdered for that purpose. This story is most improbable. The merchant John Burcher, the only contemporary source to record this particular rumor, was residing in Strasburgh at the time and did not name his informant. Edward VI was buried on August 8, long after Northumberland had been imprisoned in the Tower. Had there been doubts the body was the king’s, it would have been simple for Mary’s government to ascertain the truth.

Northumberland’s private life does not support the notion of him as a scheming, coldhearted man. Jane, his wife, loved him deeply, as her letter to Lady Paget pleading for his life, and her will, make heartbreakingly apparent. In a revealing letter, the duke, ailing and depressed, wrote, “Surely, but for a few children, which God has sent me, which also helps to pluck me on my knees, I have no great cause to desire to tarry much longer here.” He was indulgent to his son John when he ran into debt, telling him to inform him of his bills so they could be paid. Facing execution, he begged for the lives of his children, and though his motives for his last-minute conversion to Catholicism will likely never be known, it has been speculated that he did so in hopes of saving his sons from his fate.

As for the Dudley son most affected by the king’s devise, little is known about Guildford Dudley’s personality. Jane Grey’s letter to Mary suggests he might have been a bit of a mother’s boy, but her account is hardly impartial and was written at a time when Jane had no reason to think kindly of her husband or his family. There is certainly no historical basis for depicting Guildford as dissolute, cruel, or cowardly, as he is characterized by many novelists. The gracious note he wrote to Jane’s father after Henry Grey’s ill-judged participation in Wyatt’s rebellion surely says something about Guildford’s character, as does the quiet