| Nationality | Dudley, Ambrose, earl of Warwick (c. 1530–1590), magnate, was the fourth son of John Dudley, duke of Northumberland (1504–1553), royal minister, and his wife, Jane Dudley (1508/9–1555) [see under Dudley, John, duke of Northumberland], noblewoman, daughter of Sir Edward Guildford of Halden and Hemsted, Kent, and his first wife, Eleanor. His brothers included John Dudley, earl of Warwick (1527?–1554) [see under Dudley, John, duke of Northumberland], Henry Dudley (1531?–1557) [see under Dudley, John, duke of Northumberland], Robert Dudley, earl of Leicester (1532/3–1588), and Guildford Dudley (c. 1535–1554), and his sisters included Mary Sidney, née Dudley (1530x35–1586). As is the case with most of his siblings, his year of birth is conjectural and little is known of the circumstances of his childhood. Thomas Wilson may have had some involvement in his education.
Early career, 1549–1559
Ambrose Dudley is first encountered serving with his father against the Norfolk rebels in 1549. Shortly afterwards he married his first wife, Anne (d. 1552), daughter and coheir of William Whorwood, of London, and his first wife, Cassandra. Ambrose's marriage may have been the occasion of his appointment as constable of Kenilworth Castle, Warwickshire, on 20 December 1549. His wife died of the sweating sickness on 26 May 1552, shortly after the birth of a daughter (possibly named Margaret), who died about the same time. By Edward VI's death in July 1553, Dudley had married an older woman, Elizabeth (1520–1563), daughter and heir of Gilbert Tailboys, first Baron Tailboys of Kyme (d. 1530) [see under Tailboys, William], and his wife, Elizabeth, and widow of Thomas Wimbish.
Ambrose Dudley followed his father to disaster in July 1553 and surrendered with him at Cambridge, but it was not until 13 November that he was arraigned, together with his brothers Henry and Guildford, and his sister-in-law, Lady Jane Dudley [see Grey, Lady Jane (1537-1554)], found guilty of treason, and subsequently attainted. The appeal to Philip of Spain that Ambrose's wife commissioned Roger Ascham to draft in November 1554 reveals that he alone of the Dudley brothers was still in the Tower of London then. The reason may be that the death of his brother Warwick in September left him the Dudley heir. Elizabeth Dudley's appeal seems to have worked, for in December Ambrose joined Robert in the tournaments arranged by Philip to cement Anglo-Spanish relations. The three surviving brothers now enjoyed considerable royal benevolence. In January 1555 they were pardoned, though they remained attainted. Their mother died at the same time, leaving her fee simple lands to Ambrose, which Mary I permitted him to inherit despite his attainder. Following a further appeal by Elizabeth Dudley in February she and Ambrose were granted her substantial inheritance on 17 July 1556, also despite the attainder. Henry's wife received similar favour on 5 July 1556, but Robert's wife had still to inherit. In November 1555 Ambrose (with Henry's agreement) sold the dowager duchess's estate to Robert for £800.
In spring 1555 Elizabeth Dudley suffered a hysterical pregnancy and their marriage proved subsequently childless. Together with Robert and Henry (who was killed there), Ambrose served in the expedition to St Quentin in 1557, largely out of obligation to Philip. In return, the attainders of the four remaining Dudley children were repealed in 1558, though in the process they also had to surrender any claim of right to their father's lands, titles, or offices. The cost of his service at St Quentin nearly broke Ambrose and his wife and, as their music tutor recorded, they were forced to reduce their household.
Restoration, 1559–1572
What, if any, connection Ambrose Dudley had with Princess Elizabeth is unknown, but like Robert and their sister Mary he was an immediate beneficiary of the new reign. In March 1559 he was granted the manor of Knebworth Beauchamp, Leicestershire, and, more importantly, the office of master of the ordnance, though he was cautious about taking it on because of the debts accrued by his predecessor, Sir Richard Southwell, and his patent did not pass until 12 April 1560. More difficult were the family titles and lands, given the surrender of the claim of right. On 25 December 1561 (after some hesitation) Elizabeth I created him Baron Lisle and then, the following day, earl of Warwick. Several months later (6 April 1562) he was granted the lordship of Warwick Castle and other estates in the county. At the same time he and his brother readopted the bear and ragged staff device.
In the autumn of 1562 Warwick was given command of the expeditionary force to Newhaven (Le Havre), possibly the major episode of his life. His commission was dated 1 October, but he was delayed by bad weather and did not arrive until the 29th. There seems no doubt that Robert wanted this post, but Elizabeth would not let him go and Warwick went to some extent as his surrogate. The operation was complicated from the start by the fact that the purpose of Warwick's force was unclear, and at the end of the year Elizabeth ordered him not to give active military support to the French protestants. In March 1563 the two French sides made peace and Elizabeth responded by ordering that Newhaven be held until Calais was returned. Warwick had warned throughout that 'I fear [you] are too much abused in the good opinion you have in the strength of this town' (BL, Harley MS 6990, fol. 55r). The landward fortifications were minimal and a major engineering effort would be necessary to make a long-term defence possible. Nevertheless he did the best he could and his surrender in July 1563 was an honourable one forced by an outbreak of plague that decimated the English garrison.
However much a disaster the expedition was in political terms, Warwick gained widespread commendation. The garrison was well-disciplined, its morale high, and it was free from the internal wranglings that crippled so many other Elizabethan military operations. He also maintained good relations with the French civil population. He received his reward in the form of election as a KG in April 1563 (he was installed by proxy on 23 May) and a second large grant of land on 23 June 1564. This was a combination of west midlands manors and the lordship of Ruthin, Denbighshire. On the other hand, his wife died early in 1563 and he returned with a nasty leg wound, from which he never fully recovered. His indifferent health rendered abortive proposals in subsequent years to appoint him either lord president of the north or lord deputy of Ireland.
On 11 November 1565 Warwick married his third and best-known wife, the sixteen-year-old Anne Russell (1548/9–1604) [see Dudley, Anne], noblewoman, eldest of three daughters of Francis Russell, second earl of Bedford (1526/7–1585), and his first wife, Margaret. It was one of the grandest of the Elizabethan court marriages. Yet whatever dynastic hopes were pinned on it, this marriage too was childless. Warwick's last active military appointment came in November 1569 when he was given command, together with Edward Fiennes de Clinton, ninth Baron Clinton, of the army raised in the south of England against the northern uprising. This appointment lasted only two months for the rising collapsed in November and, because of worries about his health, Warwick was given permission to return early. His brother Robert (now earl of Leicester) went to meet him at Kenilworth in January 1570 and found him well: 'all this hard whether [he] hath every day travelled on horse, your majesty's service hath made him forgett his payne', but 'assuredly he ys marvelous weary, though in my Judgement hit hath done his boddy much good' (TNA: PRO, SP 15/17, fols. 51r–51v). For this service Warwick received some of the forfeited estates in Yorkshire and Northumberland in 1571 and 1572. On 4 May 1571 he was granted the office of chief butler of England.
The Dudley partnership 1572–1588
During the last two decades of his life Warwick lived mainly at North Hall, the house he built at Northaw, Hertfordshire, when not at court or in London. He was sworn of the privy council on 5 September 1573 and was initially an active member, but after 1578 his attendance declined to half its previous level, which may reflect the steady deterioration of his health during the 1580s.
Owing to the disappearance of most of its records prior to the 1590s, Warwick's administration of the ordnance office is not easy to detail. The office underwent a dramatic expansion during the sixteenth century from its modest origins as a minor court department. It was now a highly centralized commissioning and storing agency for ordnance, munitions, and small arms. The handling of commodities with a potential market value made it, like the navy, an obvious target for charges of peculation. The daily running of the office was the responsibility of the lieutenant of the ordnance, who from 1567 to 1587 was Warwick's Newhaven colleague, Sir William Pelham, but Warwick's estate was charged with a debt of £2005 for 'munitions of war' released into his custody (CSP dom., 1591–4, 526). Precisely what those were is unclear, though Warwick appears to have interpreted liberally the master's perquisite of selling off old and worn-out equipment. A more controversial issue was his possible generosity to William of Orange, a major consumer of English ordnance. This was the subject of a formal complaint by Frederic Perrenot, seigneur de Champigny, Philip II's ambassador, in 1576. On 21 July 1585 Warwick's nephew Sir Philip Sidney (1554–1586) was appointed joint master with him, possibly in response to the earl's declining health, but Sidney's departure for Flushing several months later made his appointment irrelevant.
With the exception of a few fragments, Warwick's papers were destroyed after his widow's death. Their disappearance has made him difficult to delineate as an individual and has reinforced the impression that he was very much in his younger brother's shadow. The affection between the two was undoubted and they were almost inseparable. Warwick's only recorded visits to the midlands were with his brother (1566, 1571, 1580) or on progress (1572, 1575). They visited the spa at Buxton, Derbyshire, together in 1577 and Bath and Bristol in 1587. Leicester regularly referred to his brother as 'him I love as myself' (An unpublished letter, 284) and Warwick reciprocated, 'lett me have your best advyce what is best for me to doe for that I meane to take soche partt as you doe' (Bruce, 151). When encountered together, as in the accounts in the Black Book of Warwick or their correspondence with Thomas Wood, they are as one, Warwick informing Wood that 'there is no man knoweth his [Leicester's] doings better than I myself' (Letters of Thomas Wood, 93).
The brothers employed the same men as estate and legal officers in both the west midlands and Wales and their provincial affinity was essentially a joint one. Warwick supported Leicester in reviving the ‘great Berkeley law-suit’, and they shared the regained manors between them. Leicester held Warwick's proxy for the parliaments of 1566, 1571, and 1584. Warwick's wider interests mirrored his brother's. He invested in the Fenton voyage of 1582 and Leicester's Barbary Company of 1585. His literary patronage as reflected in the twenty-five works dedicated to him was not as extensive as his brother's, but included many of the same authors, about half of whom were puritan divines. The one investment in which he was possibly more adventurous was Martin Frobisher's north-west passage voyage of 1576.
Both men were no less closely involved in each other's personal affairs. If Leicester arranged Warwick's third marriage, in 1564–5, Warwick was godfather to Leicester's illegitimate son Robert Dudley (1574–1649) in 1574 and one of the witnesses to his marriage in 1578 to Lettice Dudley, dowager countess of Essex (1543–1634). For Warwick the consequences of their closeness were unfortunate. He held the senior peerage and the one that really mattered to both men; moreover there is some evidence that in the 1560s he was expected to predecease Leicester. Leicester's legitimate son, Robert Dudley, Baron Denbigh (d. 1584), would have been Warwick's heir as well. When Leicester made his first will (1582) he nominated Warwick overseer on the assumption that his young son would inherit both men's estates. By the time he made his final will in 1587, Denbigh was dead and Leicester left Warwick all his lands (except for those in the countess's jointure) for life. Leicester's unexpected death in 1588 probably hastened Warwick's own for with his brother's estate came his massive debts. The last year of his life was dominated by the settlement of Leicester's affairs, which included giving his widow £5000 towards the debts.
Final years, 1588–1590
Warwick made his own will on 28 January 1590, probably just before his leg, which had turned gangrenous, was amputated. He left certain fee simple lands including North Hall in a use to his wife, and the remainder to trustees for the repayment of his debts. The residual heirs to anything left over were his wife, then his sister Katherine Hastings, countess of Huntingdon (c.1538–1620), and ultimately his nephew, Sir Robert Sidney (1563–1626). It was later claimed that Elizabeth came to see him shortly before his death, but what transpired is unknown. Two days before he died he summoned Sir Edward Stafford to entrust him with the interests of Leicester's illegitimate son. Stafford found him in great pain 'in his bedd the Hickocke [spasms] havinge already taken him which lasted him unto his death' (CKS, MS U1475/L2/4, item 3, m. 79). Warwick died at Bedford House on the Strand on 21 February 1590. His funeral took place on 9 April and, like Leicester, he was buried in the Beauchamp chapel of St Mary's, Warwick. His elegant tomb was presumably erected by his widow, for he had specified only that his body 'be disposed in Christian Burial' at her discretion. The dowager countess died at Northaw on 9 February 1604 and was buried at Chenies, Buckinghamshire.
None of the reputed portraits of Warwick can be relied on as a likeness, but he certainly lacked his brother's polish, which was the subject of a joke by Elizabeth in 1563 that 'she wished to God the Earl of Warwick had the grace and good looks of Lord Robert in which case each [Elizabeth and Mary, queen of Scots] could have one' (Hume, 313). By the mid-seventeenth century Warwick's homeliness had become part of the legend of the good earl. He was 'a little crooked man but a man of exemplary piety, one of the great friends of religion and one of the ornaments of those times. He had great influence upon his brother the Earl of Leicester, which made him so much to patronise religion and the godly ministers' (BL, Harley MS 6071, fol. 61v). Warwick certainly possessed the fervent loyalty of his former Newhaven subordinates—Wood was already referring to him as the 'Good Earll of Warwick' in 1574 (Letters of Thomas Wood, 6)—but the reality behind the legend is less obvious. Warwick endowed no charities. He was not a spectacularly generous landlord—there were anti-enclosure riots at Northaw in the spring of 1579. Nor was the puritan survey of the ministry of Warwickshire in 1586 uniformly impressed by his appointments. It is possible that he was closer to such quasi-presbyterian ministers as John Field and John Knewstub than his brother was, but, given the closeness between them, Warwick's reputation may owe as much to Leicester's sexual and political notoriety as his own personal rectitude. |