Jane Dudley, Duchess of Northumberland ( Guildford; 1508/1509 – 15 or 22 January 1555) was an English courtier. She was the wife of John Dudley, 1st Duke of Northumberland, and mother of Guildford Dudley and Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester. Having grown up with her future husband, who was her father's ward, she married at about age 16. They had 13 children.
Jane Dudley served as a lady-in-waiting at the court of Henry VIII and was a close friend of his final wife, Catherine Parr. Reformed in religious outlook, she was also a supporter of the Protestant martyr Anne Askew. Under the young Edward VI, John Dudley became one of the most powerful politicians, rising to be Earl of Warwick and later Duke of Northumberland. After the fall of Lord Protector Somerset in 1549, John Dudley joined forces with his wife to promote his rehabilitation and a reconciliation between their families, which was symbolised by a marriage between their children.
In the spring of 1553, the Duchess of Northumberland became the mother-in-law of Lady Jane Grey, whom the Duke of Northumberland unsuccessfully tried to establish on the English throne after the death of Edward VI. Mary I being victorious, the Duchess sought frantically to save her husband's life. Notwithstanding his and her son Guildford's executions, she was successful in achieving the release of the rest of her family by befriending the Spanish noblemen who came to England with Philip of Spain. She died soon afterwards, aged 46.
Family and marriage
Jane Guildford was born in Kent around 1508/1509, the only daughter of Sir Edward Guildford and Eleanor West, daughter of Thomas West, 8th Baron De La Warr. Her schooling occurred at home together with her brother Richard and her future husband, who was her father's ward from 1512. In 1525, at about 16, she married Sir John Dudley, who was 20 or 21 years old. The match had been arranged by their parents some years before.
Jane Dudley gave birth to 13 children, eight boys and five girls. In most cases it is impossible to establish their birthdates exactly. An exception is Robert, the future favourite of Elizabeth I; he was born in 1532 as the fifth son, and possibly after the eldest daughter Mary, who became the mother of the courtier-poet Philip Sidney.
The family life of John and Jane Dudley seems to have been happy and was free from any scandals; around 1535 a poem praised the "love and devotion" of their marriage.
Sir Edward Guildford died in 1534 before he could draw up his last will. Since his son Richard had predeceased him, Guildford's nephew, John Guildford, claimed the inheritance. The Dudleys maintained that Guildford's daughter Jane was the natural heir. They finally won the resulting court case with the assistance of Thomas Cromwell.
Court life
Jane Dudley served as a lady-in-waiting to Anne Boleyn, and later to Anne of Cleves. She was interested in the Reformed religion and, with her husband, moved in evangelical circles from the mid-1530s. In 1542 John Dudley was created Viscount Lisle. He was on friendly terms with William Parr, whose sister Catherine became Henry VIII's last queen in July 1543. As one of her closest friends, the Viscountess Lisle was among the four ladies leading her to the altar on the marriage day. Jane Dudley belonged also to the courtly sympathizers of Anne Askew, whom she contacted during her imprisonment in 1545–1546. The forthright Protestant was burnt at the stake as a heretic in July 1546 on the contrivance of the religiously conservative court party around Bishop Stephen Gardiner.
Renaissance humanism and science figured large in the Dudley children's education. In 1553 Jane Dudley herself commissioned two works from the mathematician and Hermeticist John Dee about heavenly configurations and the tides. Jane Dudley was close to her children; her eldest son, Henry, had died during the siege of Boulogne in 1544, aged 19. A postscript she wrote in 1552 under a letter by her husband to their then eldest son, John Dudley, 2nd Earl of Warwick, reads: . She also had health problems: In 1548 her husband was unwilling to leave her side, because she "had had her fit again more extreme that she had any time yet."