 The House of Dudley, a new history of Tudor England, is her acclaimed first book and it's described by the times as, and I quote here, exciting and immersive and immensely entertaining history, capturing in full Tudor brilliance the cutthroat glamour of the English throne and the most audacious family to play its game. And chairing this event with Joe is Dr Vanda Vaporska. Vanda is the chief executive of the Society of Genealogists, the national charity that houses the largest archive and library on family history. She's previously led the Equality Trust. She's a visiting research fellow at the University of York and a fellow of the Royal Historical Society. She's a historian of the early modern period and her first book, Witchcraft in Early Modern Poland, 1500 to 1800, was shortlisted for the Catherine Briggs Folklore Award and recognised as, and I quote here, a substantial contribution to the study of Central and Eastern European witchcraft, which offers her readers a rich and engroting survey of Polish witchcraft. End quote. She regularly contributes to a range of historical events, podcasts and interviews, and she was the starin senior scholar at Hartford College Oxford and has lectured at a number of universities and is also a regular face at HIST Fest as well. So, Vanda, over to you. Thank you. Thank you. I absolutely love HIST Fest. I mean it's everything I would have wanted to have seen when I was much younger and to get involved with. So, it's an absolute honour and I just want to really pay tribute to Rebecca for starting it all off, continuing it and having that vision. So, she's the reason we're all here, which is fantastic. So, HIST Fest gets my vote every time. I basically just nag her and say, are you doing another one? Are you doing another one? Can we have some hogleings? So, fantastic. I'm really, really honoured to be here with Joanne and I will share a little snippet of what happened in the green room because I just have to. So, Joanne's name is Paul. My grandmother's name was Paul and when I told my mum I was doing this session, she said, oh, do you think you're related? Laugh jokingly. It turns out that her ancestors were in Plymouth. My great, my grandmother came from Plymouth and we're going to have a much longer conversation about this over email for the next couple of years probably. So, possibly related. You heard it first here at HIST Fest. But it just goes to prove how important family trees, genealogy, the things that we do in history just automatically looking at those relationships are. And that's why I'd like to start by asking you to really sort of untangle this web of dudleys, of greys, of Guildford's because we all know a little bit about one or two of them, but how they all interact together I think is really fascinating. So, just to sort of set that scene. Yeah, I can do my best. I mean, I was just saying, I should have put up some family trees or something, which of course, they found it very excited because I said the word family tree. But I think that's one of the things that we have to really appreciate going into the 16th century is how entangled all of these families are. And I think it's very, very difficult to fully understand and appreciate that without A, doing these family trees and realizing that actually they're all interconnected, but also spending time with the story. And so, that was one of the things I found in doing the House of Dudley is that these connections between the families were not only multi-layered, were not only, I mean, pivotal to the individuals, but really important to the families as well. And they created these networks. And I think we're really fully appreciating in the early modern period how important these networks were to people that really influenced the major events of Tudor history. So, to try a little bit, the Dudleys, of course, are the family that I'm particularly interested in in this book, but they intermarry with the grays at various points. You will probably have heard of at least one gray and that's Lady Jane Gray, of course. The Dudleys were related to her a few times over, and we'll probably talk a little bit about the Jane Gray episode as well. Hugely important family. And then you also mentioned the Guildfords. The Guildfords maybe have less sort of familiarity with people, but Mother Guildford was a figure who went over with Mary Tudor when she married into France and was a sort of mother figure to Mary Tudor. Another important Tudor family. And Jane Guildford becomes Jane Dudley, Duchess of Northumberland, who is one of really, I think, my favorite figures in this book and perhaps one of the most pivotal. And I think that's one of the things to just, I haven't disentangled them, but just to sort of finish up on that point is I think that's one of the things I learned as well in writing The House of Dudley was this relationship between women's natal families and the families that they marry into and the way in which sometimes it's the case that Jane really becomes a Dudley and she is fighting for the Dudleys and she really is part of The House of Dudley and saves The House of Dudley. I would suggest it at one of the crucial moments in their story and in this book. But others, somebody like Mary Sidney, for instance, who's born a Dudley, she stays a Dudley. And her son, Philip Sidney, goes on to declare that he is a Dudley and his father even, Henry Sidney, who just marries a Dudley, instructs him on how important it is that he knows his mother's family and he protects his mother's family. So it doesn't always become the case that, well you marry into a family and that's your family now. Someone like Mary Sidney, she stays a Dudley and her children are Dudleys as well. And it's really interesting that you talk about that recognition of the matrilineal line because very often we find in family trees that women are just not mentioned or you just get a first name and it's really, really difficult to then trace. So I suppose it's making that calculated decision of which is the family with the most power and what at that point is going to benefit you. Yeah, I think it's a lot, you know, always follow the power in tutor politics, which is really actually follow the proximity to the monarch. And that's probably exactly what's going on. But I think there's something we do too when we study history. For instance, we know her as Lady Jane Gray. By then she was Lady Jane Dudley and was associated with the Dudley family and is referred to in the text of the time in the records as Jane Dudley, as we'd expect her to be. But we think about her as Jane Gray and I think that does something to our understanding of the past when we start playing with those last names or of course removing them all together because we remove people from those networks, which as I said are so important to what's happening. So I'm going to take you back to the sort of, well, the start of the importance of the Dudley. So Edmund Dudley, someone that I had glancingly come across that is absolutely fascinating. I mean, he's really quite horrible, isn't he? Tell us a bit more about it. I'm making it completely subjective. Yeah, I know, that's fine. It's been so interesting because, you know, I spent five years writing this book and, you know, spent five years with these people essentially and sort of forms, tried not to form too many of my own opinions because you don't want to do that when you're writing a history book. But obviously you can't help it at the same time and have my own feelings towards each of them. And it's so interesting now letting it out there and I'm literally getting emails from people going, oh my god, I hate Edmund Dudley. What he does to Sonif is just horrible. And, you know, I'm getting these messages and it's just, I find it really, really fascinating people's sort of visceral emotional reactions to these people. So Edmund Dudley, probably people may have heard him as Epsomon Dudley, that sort of pairing of ministers under Henry VII. But again, people often don't associate him with the later Dudleys, which of course it's just three generations we're talking about across the Tudor period. He was the elder son of a younger son of a baron, so sort of upper middling in terms of Tudor society would have been very unimportant, if not for. He goes, studies the law, sort of niche subjects in the law, the king's prerogative, ancient laws of the king's prerogative should have never been important, except at exactly that time Henry VII has just lost his elder son, he's lost his wife, he's starting to become that Henry VII that we might think of that miser collecting his coin and a number of his close ministers have just died and one of them in particular seems to suggest I have just the man for you who knows all the laws who are going to fix this for you and make sure that you can shore up enough wealth to ensure that your son, little prince Henry, has a secure reign and so introduces Henry VII to Edmund Dudley and in within months he's meeting with the king regularly, he started an account book for the king and in the sort of three and a bit years that we have his account book for raises phenomenal amounts of coin for the crown. I think it's in the tens of millions in today's money. He just squeezes everyone he can for coin as you say in really unpleasant read ways. In terms of who he is as a character I mean again I'll leave it to others to judge I'm interested in what other people think. I read him as someone who's incredibly almost has this sort of black and white perspective on things. If the king wills it then that is it right? Questions stop at that point. If the king wills something to be so it must be so and so if the king wills that you have to give him 500 pounds I mean that's just it and it doesn't matter how fair that is it doesn't matter if that will bankrupt you it doesn't matter that you don't deserve it or any of those things it's just that's the king's will and he's very very interested in executing the king's will. At the same time he seems to have a very happy healthy family life and so it's interesting these sort of two parts are the public reputation and what I try to get into a bit in this book which is the private life and who they really are trying to square those things well I think that's that's that's the difficulty and the humanity of history really is is that it isn't good guys and bad guys it's very very complex individuals. It's interesting isn't it because that is you know that is the will of the law isn't it? Yeah it's not it's not my law it's not my fault the law is that this is what the law says. Yeah and he you know when he is he does end up spoilers um he ends up in the tower um he's he's uh he's he's going to be executed for for treason um and he's he panics and and he's getting these letters saying you know you took 20 pounds from me you took 500 pounds from me give it back um and he's very he he has this very emotional response of it wasn't me I really think it was unjust what happened to you but the king wanted it to happen and he he also starts to to panic he plans an escape from the tower which when I found that it's in it's in a copy of his will he puts it in there that yeah I I did want to escape he plans this escape from the tower and he's obviously very very panicked by his fate and and you can see that sort of black and white perspective on the world sort of breaking under the pressure of that moment it's it's so fascinating and I think what's interesting there when he's confronted by his own mortality he knows he's you know he's about to get about to meet his maker and have that final reckoning that he makes a list of all of those wrongs doesn't he which is just fascinating yeah he writes out all of the people who were hard done by under under his watch and in what way they were hard done by and how much how much they're owed because I think he's trying to settle settle accounts as it were both both in the sort of real sense and and because he knows he's about to meet his maker and and it's going to all come due um and I mean as a historian it's a fantastic record um but you you also have to look at an article like that and go what what was motivating that person you know essentially facing their death to to write out that list of people they had wronged and as you say I mean the moment you find something like that in an archive it's just thrilling isn't it it's it's thrilling and and chilling almost at at the same time um there's there's something too about and you know this was something I missed um in in in lockdown when I was finishing the book is there's something about interacting with those documents um when when they're not copies when when um they're they're they're originals and they're they're genuine um because there's something about pen hitting paper that is a moment in time that is that is sort of captured and lost all at once and to be able to interact with that moment in time and the only emotion and the context that that goes into it is yeah it is it is something um that is very difficult to describe but I think it's important that we're aware of of that feeling that it invokes and you know I try to express a bit of that in the writing of the house of Dudley and I think one of the things that struck me about the book was just the sort of incredible depth of detail about a whole range of different aspects of Tudor life so it was almost incidentally you you find out information about you know the wardrobe or the stables or all these sorts of things and it's done in a very sort of casual way it's not overburdening the learning in a sense you know you don't sort of get the sense that oh I must write a little bit about this so it really really flows which makes it so nice to read and and coming back to so you've talked about Edmund's demise of course his son was very aware of that and then went on to was very aware of the fact that Henry had ordered his father's death as with so many people in the Tudor period obviously you know most of them had to get over the fact Edmund was one of the first it has to has to be said he was one of the og traders yeah so you have to get over the fact that the king you're serving just happened to kill your father or your brother or your mother and whatever it's just one of those things wasn't it at that court so how did how did John how did John's rise occur and what were the pitfalls for him coming to the next generation so John was was very young um six or seven when his father was executed um and immediately becomes a ward of the crown um his mother remarries and this is the first woman to really save the house of Dudley his mother remarries the illegitimate uncle of the king Arthur Plantagenet so right in there around the circle of this brand new king which I think does very well for for young John he's placed in the household of the Guilfords so there's our first connection with the Guilfords and is raised as a ward which is essentially like an adopted son really um and the Guilfords oversee his education they're well connected um he is forgiven because he of course would carry his father's sin that stain of the attainder of treason follows the blood line until um he is restored in blood but he is restored um so he's able to inherit property he's able to hold position um he's able to rise in in the court um and he does so in the way that that most young courtiers rise in the court of Henry VIII a combination of the battlefield and the joust the tournament um he's he's chivalrous um he's uh quite good at martial arts um he manages to go to war in France and survive it he comes back he makes friends with Charles Brandon close friend of of the king um and through all of that um he's he's able to find a certain standing what I found interesting in writing this book is I sort of expected that I would have nothing to write about through a fair bit of Henry VIII's reign because I thought okay well you know we get to Edmund Dudley that's you know quite a good story he ends up on the block we can do a bit around young John all right sure and then you know the Dudley's don't get it up too much do they until you know Edward VI really haha not so he that they just kept popping up and it I just it was so fascinating especially under each of the queens there was always a connection with one of the queens um and it was either John or it was Jane he'd by that point married Jane Guilford the um the daughter of of um the Guilford who took him in um and and theirs is a wonderful story they they'd known each other as children and um they have 13 children of their own so I think they liked each other and so they're this real team in in the Tudor court so they do quite well under Anne Boleyn because by then um they're they're leaning towards the sort of evangelical religion and so so forms some connections under Anne Boleyn um she Jane becomes a lady under Jane Seymour and so is connected with Jane Seymour um they both hold offices uh under Anne of Cleves um the Howards hate the Dudley's just a thing to know um so they don't do so well under Catherine Howard but that's okay because that's over in about five minutes anyway um and he actually ends up carrying notes of her confession to the king um so does quite well out of that and then Jane Dudley is a very good friend of of Catherine Parr so through each of them they just keep rising and they keep they keep they keep surviving really um through this period of of course intense suspicion and bloodshed and treason and everything else and so by the time you get to the ends of the reign of of Henry VIII John Dudley the Dudley family is is is one of the most important families in the court and I I love the part when um John is taking that message of Catherine Howard's infidelity because that's a really dodgy moment because if you're taking news like that to Henry VIII ooh ooh you know which way it's going to go do you yeah you go one of two ways yeah absolutely it's I I remember coming across um that that letter which we we still have um and I remember having a look at it and it says in it um by this bearer John Dudley and I went sorry what um he was the one carrying it and um he may have actually it's it's a confession that um Thomas Cramner Archbishop of Canterbury sort of gets from a Catherine Howard who is essentially slowly going a little bit mad um as you would um and she's you know one minute praising the king one minute you know an absolute tears about her fate another minute in a panic and another minute coldly almost describing um the acts that have have put her in the position that she's in um and and John Dudley takes this letter to the king it's unclear he may have been in the room I didn't put him in the room for this book because I wasn't quite sure but um other historians have suggested he was in the room during this this interview between Cramner and Catherine Howard um and I think if anyone makes a film out of this put him in the room because it's just it's such a fascinating moment and yeah I you can you can imagine he would be quite terrified um that you know Henry would kill the messenger as as it were um and actually instead what he ends up doing um is being assigned to take the Lady Mary out of the court um which is one of the first instances we have of the relationship between John Dudley and Lady Mary Lady Mary the first um and it's quite a close relationship which of course ends quite badly um but it's just it's so fascinating all of these early interactions that then provide this really deep context for the events that we know wow that was quite brave wasn't it of him it was a gamble he's got to take these chances in the Tudor court it was a gamble and and John does take the chances um which I think is is both why he rises and perhaps why he falls so tell us a little bit about Jane then you said she was your favorite I yeah she is my favorite oh you shouldn't have favorites any budding historians out there no I mean come on Tracy Borman and Elizabeth is my favorite yeah on this very stage yeah you shouldn't you shouldn't have favorites but we all do um yeah Jane Guilford Dudley is fascinating we don't know enough about her I I I really tried um this is the problem of course with women in the 16th century unless they have a crown on their head it is very very difficult to find a lot of details about them um but she's she's raised um in the Guilford family alongside John um seems to have had a fairly good education um you know writes very well in her letters um and is really good at court politics really really good at court politics she knows how to make connections like I said um she's very well connected with Anne Berlin with Jane Seymour with Anna Cleaves and then with Catherine Parr she's one of the few people in the very private wedding ceremony between Catherine Parr and Henry VIII um she is there front and center um and then when um Henry falls um she sorry when Henry falls when John falls when her husband falls after the death of Henry VIII um she is the one who rescues the family um and she is there from from day one she's writing off to see Queen Mary to beg for her husband and her children's lives um she's writing letters to women in the new privy chamber um sick as she is and she writes that she is sick um waking up in the middle of the night and and being ill um probably because her husband and all of her children are imprisoned and and likely to die um even despite all this she is she is fighting she is working she is working those connections um when Philip II comes in as King Consort she's making connections with the Spaniards and and her last will and testament just before she dies is using those connections to save her children's lives um and their their um reprieve their their um pardon is is dated to the date of her death as an acknowledgement that she's the one who saves her children's lives and she's just phenomenal I think she's fantastic um her father's symbol was um the fire brand and and I think she carries that um she she is a fire brand and she's amazing I love her yeah I have that for Eleanor of Aquatown definitely definitely also Eleanor of Aquatown so if we come on to Lady Jane Grey yeah um because I am so aware there are so many of these duddlies to get through and so little time yeah sorry and I um but my son came home with a history assignment because obviously you know our kids learn about the Tudors every five seconds and it had the list of kings and queens and I immediately went oh where's Lady Jane Grey and he said oh she's not there so we had a bit of a conversation about that yeah but what I mean nine days is still nine days why do you think she was missed out yeah I have this all of the time I have I have two things about Lady Jane Grey is one she's Lady Jane Dudley um and and the other is is that she gets missed out and her husband Guilford Dudley um one of the sons of John and Jane Dudley always gets missed out there was a um a volume a collection that was being put together about um consorts in in England and and and Britain sort of through history and they were signing people to to to write for that and I said oh I'll write the one on Guilford Dudley and they went home we're not doing one on Guilford Dudley um yeah so it's it's difficult I mean I think it's she she she could be counted because she is declared by the Privy Council to be queen um she never calls a parliament because there isn't enough time so so maybe that um she doesn't have a coronation but I mean that's pretty symbolic anyway um certainly Edward VI had been declared king before his coronation it it it was sort of a stamp of approval not the actual act that made him king um so yeah I I think I think you know we could we can call her Queen of England and and we can call Guilford King Concert of England or Prince Concert of England depending on how that conversation went um and I think that they should be included as as Dudley Dudley Kings and Queens of England there's a campaign there isn't there and I will wage it but was she I mean how much was she the the popular the popular belief really is she was very much manipulated we don't hear really about her we hear about all of the machinations around us so do you think we've been doing her an injustice all this time yes I do so this is this is this is another one of my rants my campaign let it out let it out is um I think our characterization of Jane Grey Dudley um does do her an injustice I like to think of a a Jane with a lot more agency and I don't put this in the book because I've got no historical record to back this up but I think she could have been a political mastermind because she does very very well up to a point and then as soon as she's in the tower she writes this fantastic account we think it's hers but let's say it's either her or one of her supporters writes this fantastic account of how none of it is her fault um and she was entirely manipulated as soon as they told her she was going to be queen of england she she she weeps and and you know and she hates her in laws and and they force her to do all of this and maybe that's what happened maybe that's what happened or maybe she was a little bit more involved um and maybe she knew exactly what she was doing and maybe she didn't mind um I don't know I think this victim hood associated with with Jane Grey might be correct but the only historical record we have to back that up is written by her in the tower when she is facing execution um so yeah I I think I think we could go either way with it and I would love I would love a presentation of Jane Grey Dudley that that gives her a little bit more hoodsba a little bit more of her own fire um and a little bit less of of of her just being a pawn to to other people's plans and it's interesting isn't it because you know you come across this in other trials I've come across this in witchcraft trials where people are making those depositions which are it wasn't me I was forced into it which obviously you would your life was at stake yeah it's hardly surprising I mean Edmund Dudley doesn't right um he says um you know it was it wasn't me it was the king and maybe that was true and Jane Dudley says lady Jane Grey Dudley says it wasn't me it was it was the evil Dudley's and I think we've been happy to accept that because we like to present the Dudley's as the badly's and and Jane Grey is this I think it's very Victorian right this this this this young poor you know hard done by it's you know victim um and I she was a victim in all sorts of ways and you know I'm not saying we shouldn't feel sad for this young person um but uh she may have had her own thoughts at least about what was going on so it's been really tempting um and I've resisted the temptation to go straight for Robert because let's face it we're all just a little bit in love with Robert Dudley aren't we it's there a picture but take us sort of back a step how is Robert related to through that Dudley family and then you know what are the implications because one of the things that really struck me was this potential or relationship with him and Mary Queen of Scots because that's not something that I think is really people have really looked at so so let's let's get into Robert yeah let's let's let's talk about Robert um so Robert is a younger son of of John and Jane Dudley um and a slightly elder brother of Gilford um who marries Jane Grey and therefore the grandson of of Edmund Dudley um when he's born he's the fourth fourth fourth fifth um there's a lot of Dudley's sons um so he's a much younger son therefore would have been very unimportant um by a series of of his elder brothers die um and Ambrose's his elder brother is just a bit just a bit boring um and so so Robert really by the time Elizabeth comes to the throne is the one um who's really carrying the family into the court I'm going to regret saying that thing about Ambrose because people are going to tweet at me um I'll say some fun things about Ambrose in a second he's okay he's a Puritan though so you know um bit boring um and oh now I'm now I'm going to get stuff for Puritan anyway um my time Elizabeth comes to the throne Robert is really carrying the family at least in terms of its courtly reputation um and of course a huge part of that is um this relationship with Elizabeth and um we don't know how far that relationship went people ask me quite a bit did they didn't they I don't know because you were there right yeah I don't know I I unfortunately did not uncover the document which confirms whether or not they did or did not um but certainly they they were emotionally involved and the court was sure that um they probably were and probably would marry um and of course as you say then jumping ahead a little bit and we'll probably say something about 1560 and Amy Robesart in a second but jumping ahead a little bit um by the mid 1560s certainly by by 1564 when he becomes Earl of Leicester there is this question actually that instead of marrying the Queen of England he might marry the Queen of Scots um and he's being put forward as Elizabeth's candidate uh to um marry marry Queen of Scots um and it is a really interesting moment um because and it's been characterized all sorts of different ways that um Elizabeth is sending a spy into Scotland because she knows he's he's secretly hers um that that Mary Queen of Scots is getting her cast off which I think is is is is also a fun way of of looking at it um but one of the things I've found actually very recently um after finishing this book is how much and here he comes back up again in a more interesting way how much Ambrose is involved in this as well um because as Robert is being presented as a candidate and some of we know this sometimes it's it's in the latest Mary Queen of Scots film for instance what people don't cover is that Ambrose is also being suggested his elder brother is also being suggested as um a husband for Mary Queen of Scots um and both queens are aware of this and there's this sort of joking between the two of them that they'll each marry a Dudley brother but which one um and Mary Queen of Scots is very keen that she not get stuck with Ambrose and um so there's there's all this talk in the court that one of them will have one and the other will have the other um and um this is great conversation between Mary Queen of Scots and her the English ambassador um where she says well you know I would take Ambrose if he was as good looking as Robert um but he isn't and I mean I'm paraphrasing but she essentially says he's a bit boring um I'd like the other one please um but but Elizabeth won't give him up and so you know but there is this moment where it seems like um a Dudley will will marry um both the Queen of England and the Queen of Scots um and have you'll have two two more Dudley King consorts um in a sense sort of uniting um England and Scotland it's it's a fascinating moment this is your opportunity to say a good thing about Ambrose just to stop sure okay yes so so poor Ambrose so I Ambrose isn't in the book much um but after that just one thing just one thing yeah but after that I I ended up writing an encyclopedia entry about Ambrose and um he's he's he's okay he he's he's he's a good military leader there we go I'm just trying to just trying to save you from the Ambrose trolls I know there's some Ambrose stands out there who are very upset right now he's not very nice to his wife I can't I'm sorry you just can't do it I can't I don't think he's great no so a lot of obviously the controversy around Robert's around the will they won't they you know type situation but obviously then he marries so he is already married so he marries as a young man he marries just sort of on the eve of his 18th birthday he marries the daughter of a of a kentish kentish no Norfolk sorry Norfolk gentlemen named Amy Robesart and they seem to be very much in love that's at least what William Cecil will say later is is that it's a carnal marriage which you know um and they're young people but once Elizabeth comes to the throne of course he's spending a lot of time with Elizabeth there's all this talk that he's going to marry Elizabeth and that he will do away with his wife and then she's found dead at the bottom of a flight of stairs and of course it's a mystery as to what exactly I don't have the answer for that either um so uh she she ends up uh dead which actually damages his the likelihood that he's going to marry Elizabeth um because he possibly killed his first wife so not a great candidate um and for a long time he he doesn't marry perhaps hoping hoping that he will eventually marry Elizabeth um and again a fantastic um letter I mean I didn't find it others others have found it um before me but um coming across it um was was really striking it's a letter he sends um to his his mistress um Lady Sheffield who is essentially begging him to finally marry her um and uh he says no um he says um I I there's nothing in this life I would like more than to continue my family um being now the last of my house because Ambrose being Ambrose doesn't have any children useless um and and he's he's not had any children um and so you know he says I'd love to be able to carry on the family lines and there's nothing I'd like more except to retain the favour of the queen and so it's very very clear that he makes a choice at that point um to prioritise um Elizabeth's favour and and staying in good with Elizabeth over carrying on um the house of Dudley but then I think something changes um and I think it's a combination of um it being clear of it um he's he's probably not going to marry the queen um and and that becoming more more apparent to him um and also his his mistress has a child uh has a son um and I think at that point he he he wouldn't have otherwise known that he could have children um and I think that changes something for him and so he secretly marries and he secretly marries um the queen's cousin um she's not a great choice um if you're trying to keep the queen's favour he secretly marries her um and when the queen finds out um she is livid he is eventually forgiven um poor Letice Knowles Dudley is never forgiven um and unfortunately although they do have a son um he dies young and so he despite all of that all of that sacrifice and all of that risk to marry it doesn't actually pay off in in continuing the family which is which is quite tragic so it's the sort of gentle the gentle decline in the sense yeah it's it's it's I think it's interesting when I I came towards the end of of the book um and and and it's it's about the house of Dudley of course but they are intertwined with the house of of Tudor and I love the cover um that my publishers had designed these these sort of intertwining flowers I think expresses a lot about the way in which the house of Dudley and the house of Tudor almost grow together and sometimes compete for resources um but but are are intimately intertwined um and they really both end almost at the same time and and largely for for the same reason which is a lack of heirs and and so it isn't uh you know a dramatic cutting off of the family um Robert Dudley partly I think because he learned from his mother manages to die in his bed not on the scaffold and of course the house of Tudor also has a sort of peaceful end and and transition into the house of Stuart but they they both they both close really with the sense of of lack of fulfilment but I mean we still talk about them both and so they've obviously they've they've survived in another way and I think one of one of the interesting things about this time is the the absolute almost proliferation of queens this is a time at which there are so many queens so many women with power whether it's a power behind the throne Mary of Gees or whether it's it's queens in their own regnant right so this then means that what we what we're able to see is how men traverse the political sort of field in a sense and how they deal with women and so what what really stands out for you in terms of in terms of that sort of political dance yeah there's there's a couple of really interesting things there um one of the things that really strikes me and this is less about how how well it's sort of how men deal with it but that women other women in the court become incredibly important and central so for instance when Mary I comes to the throne and Jane Dudley Duchess of Northumberland is trying to save her husband and her family she writes letters to women who she knows who can then make appeals to women who are very close to the queen and so men sort of don't enter into it at all it's it's it's a network of women talking to women to appeal to a woman and so those those connections become incredibly crucial and we can see that under Elizabeth too that Mary Sidney takes on a very central role and and again I was able to find these ambassadors reports where they're talking about obviously trying to get you know their sort of their suitor in to Mary the Queen um and they're sitting down and having meetings with Mary Sidney she's she's the crucial player in all of this because she knows because she's in the bed chamber because she's a private contact with the queen again this proximity um in in a personal monarchy is so important um and Mary Sidney has that Robert Dudley doesn't or he might but not officially um and so these women become very important and and so men have to work through women to a certain extent um his sister Mary becomes his ally in in this dance of rumour that he has swirling around the queen at this point um and and I think another thing that that becomes very important um to to men in in a female dominated court um is the um the sort of the poetry and and and the dance and and the performance of courtly love of course um which makes it very difficult as a historian to work out who actually was in love right um and who was a favorite um in that sort of um you know they thought she thought he was pretty kind of way and who was a favorite in that she really was attached to this person kind of way um and and and that sort of emotional language um becomes as a historian very difficult to sort of interpret um but was so so important to them I think at the time and of course you know you have to think about the wives you know while their husbands are off writing wonderful poetry declaring undying love to the queen I mean I wouldn't be too happy yeah I mean yes again poor poor Amy poor poor Amy Robesart um I mean I'd love to you know also give a take on you know she's got her own agency and maybe she's a political mastermind that I think I think it is actually just poor Amy um she she is you know in the country obviously aware of these rumours um has to sort of put up with them and then of course meets a very however it happens meets a very unfortunate end um so uh yeah Robert not nice to his wife either they're not great people but please read the book I will second that it is absolutely excellent excellent read so it is interesting to see that how that how that power is exercised by women for the throne and how you know how the families have to interact with that and interact with each other so those alliances have to shift almost with each queen and each at each stage don't they yeah it's I was I was trying to avoid in writing this book too much structure based on um the monarchy and and you know starting and ending parts and chapters um at the death of of every monarch that's what happened anyway because it is such a fundamental shift um and the sort of um crux or climax moments of the book always came at at the change of of regime um and either the Dudley's hold on for dear life and do their best out of the scramble or that's the moment um where they end up on on the block um because as you say that that change is is so it shakes up so fundamentally um the order of power because again this personal monarchy this proximity who has um not just the ear of of the monarch but various other body parts as well um becomes becomes incredibly incredibly important um to the way in which power becomes distributed um under under that regime um so so so yes when when you have the shift um from adult male monarch to a child for instance as you do with um Edward VI um those those people who most influence him um his his uncle Edward Seymour and then his very dear friend John Dudley are the ones who who have the most power um and when you shift from um a male monarch to a female monarch all of the attention and concern falls in in two places one on those women who are closest to her um the her ladies um and who she's going to marry um and and those are the centers of power really and people do everything they can to congregate around them and one of the things I remembered was um it was quite fascinating for me that I think it was Scotland there hadn't been an adult monarch for something like 370 years or something like that something like that six months was a was a bit of a record was six days six days six days yeah yeah and and I think this is one of the things too that um you know with those massive shifts of of um a power distribution that happened with the change is also in a way the um the the fragility I suppose of of what that's all balanced on um you know a six day old child again a fantastic moment where Dudley is in the right place at the right time um John Dudley is in Olnwick and is is really the connection with Scotland at the moment that James the Fifth dies um and Mary Queen of Scots becomes queen at six days old he's the one that finds that out that sends his spies into Scotland to find out exactly what's going on and he can't figure it out at first it's it's unclear they they think there's a child um maybe it's a boy not sure maybe it's a girl maybe it's very very sick and isn't going to live anyway um at one point he calls her Elizabeth um but he can't figure out exactly what's going on um but he is the one who finds out who um tells Henry VIII exactly what's happening um and is is able to relay to the English court um that the king of Scotland has died and that the new monarch of Scotland is a six day old baby girl um but so much rides on on on the monarch's preferences um they're they're whims especially when they're children um reading some of the things that Edward VI has to say it's often very chilling um I have a view of of Edward VI I'm going to get in trouble for this too where he's a bit joffry um where he's yeah thank you um where he sees a little yeah um uh but you know his his you know whatever is going on in in this young boy's mind um not only determines who lives and who dies but the whole direction of of the realm um it's it's it's fascinating how it all teeters on so very little I think anyone who has children would absolutely shudder at the thought of them holding any type of power I know I certainly would that's fantastic thank you we're gonna um proving actually that you don't have to be totally objective to be historic sorry it's far more fun when you're not when you have an opinion on the people that you spend years and years studying so much trouble okay we're gonna turn now to questions are there questions in the audience because there are a lot coming in online but anyone from the audience first we have a roving mic yes we have a lake down here and don't forget if you do have questions online please do send them through I suppose it's just about um Lady Jane Grey Dudley thank you it's working I was I guess in terms of like your kind of battle to try and get her recognized as a queen I spent would part of the problem be that her being recognized was sort of inconvenient to the tutor kind of that unbroken line and that kind of monarchy like as you know that like the strength of the monarchy relies on it being stable and like smoothly transition and that's sort of a blip yeah I think that's that's a huge part of it I mean in a way of course she is a tutor that's why she's able to to make a claim she is is a granddaughter of Mary tutor and Charles Brandon and so has that tutor blood but yeah it is considered by Mary the first as a usurpation and therefore I think is disruptive to this idea of a sort of secure solid tutor dynasty which is made up of course and I think one of the things that it's the first thing I assign my students who take my course on England in the 16th century is a fantastic article and I'm going to forget the name of the historian who wrote it I'm really sorry to this person but it's it's called it's called what's in the name and it's about this idea of the tutor dynasty because they didn't use the the term tutor they didn't use that name and one of the things that it does to think about it as this concrete sort of almost unassailable great dynasty is it it's it's very retrospective it's it's very presentist because when you really get in there you realize that it is teetering as I said on almost nothing and there are all sorts of attempted rebellions and usurpations there's an actual usurpation it's never as secure as it seems to us now and so I try to avoid the the name tutor actually through most of the book to sort of reflect that and I think we do need to disrupt a little bit that idea of of security and constancy throughout the 16th century thank you thank you so we have a question from Lynn Marie the Dudley family seem to have been pivotal at the heart of Tudor Government what characteristics and talents do you think they had which enabled them to be valuable to these monocs oh what a fascinating question thank you was it Lynn Marie yes thank you Lynn Marie what a fascinating question I think one of them is is just the the good or bad fortune to be at the right place at the right time you know someone like Edmund Dudley is is sort of plucked out he has got the know-how but that know-how I think would have been purely sort of niche academic nothing wrong with niche academic know-how by the way but would have been pretty niche academic had it not been exactly what Henry VII needed at that time and I think he is a very sort of early example of a sort of failure actually that he he he is thrust forward but I think lacks sort of the resources to stay and one of those resources is is making those connections and making those friendships he he does not try to make friends at all and that's really his downfall I think John does a better job of doing that he is likable he makes very very good friends and I think Jane is is the perfect ally in doing so he's he's he's strong he's he's fairly charismatic he has has military ability and that is very important at the time um and and that stands him in in Goodstead for a while of course it is Robert who really succeeds in all of this and again I think he learned a lot from his mother I think his sister is a great ally in this what he does is he not only makes friends but he is a bit more ruthless with his enemies John Dudley I think I say something in the book about him having a tendency to alienate his friends and forgive his enemies and that really comes back to sort of bite him Robert has no problem with throwing people under the bus the carriage whatever it might be he he's he's absolutely happy to do that and he is an absolute um the the pamphlet that sort of deriding him calls him a master of shadows which I actually think he wouldn't that part of it he wouldn't be too angry about um it's so hard to know Robert it's so hard to know what's going on in the Elizabethan period around him because he's so so good at being this this this master of rumour um and I think that is a lot of of how he succeeds and I wonder if he had learned from those generations I think from his family's experience absolutely I think I think John learns from from Edmund and I think Robert learns from John but I think again more importantly they're learning from Elizabeth Jane and Mary more questions from the audience don't be shy yes gentlemen over there hello thank you very much for your fascinating account of this family I especially liked your statement about the realness of the documents and missing that in lockdown which is great to be able to go back and see these real things and to connect that with the theme that has emerged of picking favorites even though we know we really shouldn't um who has your favorite handwriting and who's your least favorite oh that's yeah you've you've you've read manuscripts before my friend yeah um that's a that's a that's a fascinating question in a way actually um my favorite handwriting is um the handwriting of those those people who in the Tudor period would have had very bad handwriting because bad handwriting in the Tudor period looks a lot like our handwriting um which probably says something um and so um Edward VI for instance his sort of child's handwriting you can go um I think I think it's hosted by the British Library actually um there's a digitized version of his um device for the succession where he he hands the the crown to Jane Gray you can see his annotations in it I always assign it to my students because they can read it because it's a children's um it's in the child's hand which which is very easy for us uh to read um so so go have a look at at that um uh Edward Seymour um has has a decent enough hand to read um and again apparently um he he had notoriously bad handwriting but we can read it so so I quite like that it can go the other way as well though I was really struggling I I I spent a long time trying to read the letters of um Ambrose Dudley Ambrose Dudley's second wife um Elizabeth Talboys um she uh writes these absolutely desperate letters to um Robert um begging him to send Ambrose home because he's essentially abandoned her at this point and um I had to spend I had to get some um help with those letters um they were very very difficult um to to read and I think that's a combination of um perhaps her not having the same sort of um education and secretary hand um that uh some of uh the other people I was reading would have had and maybe her emotional state um and uh those letters I found difficult to read not only because um you know the paleography was very difficult and transcription was hard um but because they were they were so emotional and so sad as well and I think that's something that we always need to recognise that when we're looking at those historical resources there is an emotional cost and price that we pay because we know what's happening we're often as historians looking at accounts that have been obtained under torture or other methods and it is it is an emotional thing to do it is yeah and I think you know we were joking about you know being subjective when we ought to be objective and I actually um think um that it is the case that we as historians have to recognise our own subjectivities um and you know recognising that actually maybe we are being a bit favoritist just towards someone um and you know I I I joke about it now and recognize it now but you know was aware of that at the time that I was writing and researching and therefore was able to sort of account for it and and and mitigate it a bit um but I think also along with that sometimes our objectivity isn't so objective um and and so I think recognising our our our subjectivity and and our emotional connection and our emotional response is part of the job of the historian yeah thank you and this follows on from the mention of the device for the succession great so bandit queen who I remember from last his first so obviously a regular regular listener um says how much of the device for for the succession was pressured by john dudley and how much was edwards agency uh bandit queen you got to ask that question that one that one comes usually third after did they or didn't they kill baby robesart it's it's usually third was was it john dudley um so um I think that that I mean we won't know is is the quick historians question or quick historians answer to that um I think that um we have to recognise um that uh edward was approaching um I think he's approaching 16 at that point he was a 15 so knew his own mind and he was a person a young man who did know his own mind and you can't read his letters for instance to his um half sister mary or his his journal um without recognising um that he he he formed opinions um sometimes very zealous ones and um it is his writing in in the device there's no question there um and it it it would have been um it would have made sense to him to certainly skip over mary who was a catholic um and also to look for a male air and that when you really study the device that is what becomes very apparent is he is searching the line of succession for a male air because originally in the device it is going to lady jane's air's mail and then he changes it because he realizes he can't wait along he's not going to last that long um and so he changes it to lady jane and her air's mail but it's air's mail that he is really looking for neither mary nor elizabeth are are married at this point jane could already be pregnant um and so i think it's that more than anything else that that is driving edward towards jane whether john is also going hey hey my daughter in law you know she's a good one um is is is hard to say but i i don't think the device is inconsistent with um what we could expect edward to be thinking and looking for at that time that's my sort of non answer any more questions from the audience yes hi are there any descendants of the dudley family still around yes yes in fact they've been involved in the book and have they reacted to it at all yes actually great question um i i was arranging my book launch um last week and um invited um the great dr elizabeth gouldring was a fantastic book on uh robert dudley as uh on art patrons beautiful book i highly recommend it um and i was emailing um with her about this um and she said can i bring phillip sydni i thought i i so i the only response i could come up with was i mean i think one should come yeah um and um she she brought um this this um uh he works um works in an english department actually um phillip sydni um and he is a descendant of um i i believe his father is vicount li a deliol now still um and um they've generously invited me to pen pens terst um which i will probably go and ask them about their archives um but yeah absolutely and then i had an email from a i think it was thomas gray um who sent me a family tree um that he is he is connected um to the dudley family um so yeah through the sydnis and the grays um you still you still see some some dudleys kicking around um and yeah so if there are any more out there feel free to to get in touch and send me your family trees um because i i do find it really fascinating i see the importance yeah i know i brought it i can't just saying that genealogies where it's at everybody um so a question from g young who said you've touched on this partly but what do you think is a biggest misconception people have about the dudley family or particular individuals within it whoo how much time do we have well or the biggest one the biggest one um i think uh the biggest one um is probably um that they because certainly they were ambitious and you know i don't think ambition uh was a bad trait in the tutor period in fact i think you know it was a necessary one but um that they were sort of ambitious and nothing else that that they had this this pure ruthlessness um to them that they were sort of coldly calculating all of the time one of the things that i really found in in reading the letters and all the documents um was um this this this love that they had for each other um there's some fantastic moments when when um jane for instance is writing a letter to her son john um and sort of expressing her love or um the way that um philip is reminded of of his family in a beautiful way um or the friendships that they they cultivate these long lasting friendships some of them not so long and lasting but um they last a while at least um and i i think there is this warmth to them that gets lost um when they're characterized just as the villains of the peace um and and i think you know i my my other book is is on thomas more and i don't know why i keep getting drawn to these these people that are either presented as as as pure goodies or baddies but i i really think we lose something we lose the humanity of history if we're if we're casting people as as heroes or villains all the time because most people aren't like that most people are complicated and it's it's hard it's it's hard as historians a not to just fall into that because we have we have favourites um or you know people we dismiss sorry um uh it's it's hard not to do that as historians and i think it's it's it's it's also hard to try to grapple with the complexity it's easier just to go oh well you know the Duke of Northumberland he was the worst um but uh people people are more complex than that um they are now and they were then and i think if we don't really take the time to grapple with that um we are just telling stories and i think that's really it's vital because history is being used in so many ways in so many contested ways and to just sort of put people into categories and say they were this and they were that without looking and recognizing that complexity of people in a situation is is absolutely not doing due justice to history yeah so the more we can use our empathy and we can understand the complexity of people's situations and their personalities then the better service we are doing to history absolutely yeah um and and to ourselves because history has such a pivotal role to play um in in our world um we we we need it and we need good nuanced complicated history yeah any more questions from the audience no we have one yes yes sorry i've been doing my genealogy and i've got a couple of darnleys in there hey there's a deadly in the house i just wonder how many darnleys featuring other family trees because there was quite a few of them at one point yeah so there is a whole other house of dudley essentially um uh so um as i said edmund dudley is the um elder son of a younger son of a baron that's baron obviously had elder sons um and they they they crop up a fair bit in in the book as well um i the barons dudley um often also referred to as the sudden dudleys um dudley begins it's as many of you will know it's a place and it begins as baron dudley and then becomes sort of a surname from from there um i do recommend visiting dudley castle if you haven't been you have to go through a zoo to get there um but it's worth it um and so um and and the barons dudley tended to have possession of dudley castle except for a brief period when john my john dudley has it um so there are some some dudleys that are sort of peripherally related um and throughout the tutor period they sort of they sort of compete actually especially for possession of of dudley castle so it'll be interesting to find out which dudley line um your family follows the sudden's yeah so the the sudden's are related to this house of dudley as well um but it's it's through that that that um elder son and then younger son yeah great and i think that's a wonderful place to finish with a personal personal relationship to the dudleys so thank you joanne that was absolutely fascinating covered so much ground i'm sure you'll want to join me in thanking joanne for her wonderful presentation