The ancient lineage of Edmund Dudley, father of ‘John’, Duke of Northumberland is settled from his father, John Dudley of Atherington, Sussex, who became Sheriff of Sussex and Surrey in 1484/5. and had married an Elizabeth, the daughter of John Bramshot, Lord of the manors of Gatescombe, Calbourne and Whitewell in the Isle of Wight who died in 1468. Dudley, buried under a costly monument in Arundel church died in 1501. ‘That this John was father of Edmund Dudley and grandfather of John, the nototious Duke of Northumberland’ who was born in 1495 is clearly established by Sir Philip Sydney in his reply to Leycester’s ‘Commonwealth.’

 The Statesman John Sutton Dudley (b.1400/1~d.1487), of Dudley Castle in the County of Staffordshire, who was chosen to be the Standard Barer at the funeral of Henry Vth in 1422 was Northumberland’s Grandfather. Lord Lieutenant of Ireland between 1428~30. He participated in the wars with France and was called to Parliament begining from 1439/40 and was one of those for whose removal from the King’s Council, the Commons petitioned in 1451.

 Taken prisoner with King Henry on 23rd May 1455 at the first battle of St Albans, and on his side Dudley was wounded at Blore Heath on the 23rd September 1459. He survived and recovered to be made Constable of the Tower from 1470~83. His wife Elizabeth, who died in 1478, had previously been the widow of Edward, Lord Cherlton, the daughter of Sir John Berkeley of Beaverstone Edmund’s father, the Lord Dudley lived to the age of 87.

 Edmund claimed to be the grandson of John de Sutton v, (d.1406), and therefore direct paternal descendant of John de Sutton iv (d.1395/6) himself son of John de Sutton iii who died approximately in 1370, and was the son of John de Sutton ii (d1359) the son of John de Sutton, by Margaret, the sister and Co~heiress of John de Somery, Baron of Dudley, Staffordshire, which had been in his family since an ancestor had married, in the reign of King Henry II, being Hawsye, sister and Heiress of Gervase Paganell. Edmund’s claim has been extensively disputed but never disproved, suffice it to say that prior to his employment with the conquering King from 1485 he was but described as the son of an ‘inconspicuous freeholder’ of the manor of Atherington in Sussex, who was keen to extend his influence by contracting marriages for his children with those of the neighbouring land owners, an age old practice in itself for families of some standing. Edmund, the eldest son was accordingly sent to read law at Grey’s Inn, thereafter making his claim to have his origins rooted in the Baronial family of Sutton, the Lords Dudley.

 Those fearful of the later generations of these Dudley’s on account of their great power sought to discredit them by claiming that the family descended from ‘an itinerant carpenter’ from the town of Dudley in Worcestershire, which in itself lends great resourcefulness and ingenuity to the resultant descendants who came to number amongst the very King’s of the Realm.

 That family with whom the Dudley’s fortunes so irrationally swung was the Tudors, whose name being derived from ‘Tewdwr’ came originally from Anglesey, and, the renowned Welsh defender Owain Glendwr is regarded as an ancestor. Owain Tudor was the lover of the widow of Henry Vth and it was one of these sons, Edmund that was to marry Margaret Beauford, a descendant of John of Gaunt, the Duke of Lancaster. Henry Tudor was born of this marriage and Henry’s uncle being Jasper Tudor, the Earl of Pembroke, was the half~brother of Henry VI. It was inevitable then that when Henry returned from exile at the age of 28, the Duke of Lancaster and claimant to the English Throne, by the right of his mother, determined to remedy the cleft that had come to pass between the House’s of York and Lancaster he should land at Milford Haven and begin his march from Pembroke Castle.

 Henry VIIth was infact outlawed and barred from his own inheritance, and was under Attainder when he seized the English Throne in 1485. Henry’s coronation conveniently nullified the attainder, following this, Parliament made the declaration that any who had opposed the King at Bosworth were to be considered traitors.

 With support from such powerful men as Sir Rhys ap Thomas, Henry mustered the army which defeated King Richard III on Bosworth Field and thus it was a Welshman that was next to become a King of the Realm ushering in a period of contentment amongst the Welsh ‘Royalist’ population throughout the Tudor Era that continued to remain largely loyal during the Civil War that put an end to the autocracy manifest in Charles I. Although in fairness to the Welsh people it should by remembered that Wales in the 1520’s was, it is said, considered by the English still to be a remote and hostile place generally populated by a treacherous and foreign people considered to be unlike the English in every regard! The Welsh language was considered unintelligible, their customs barbarous and whatever order was discernible by the rule of their chieftains was seen as indistinguishable from violent chaos, as if England were somehow different! No real unity between the nations seems to have really occurred with Henry’s succession and many of the Welsh still no doubt hated the English, as some do today as unwelcome conquerors interfering in a way of life they made no efforts to understand. This aside, their remains some uncertainty as to the reasons Henry Tudor, after his defeat of the last ‘English King’ himself ultimately a descendant of the Duke of Normandy, should engage Edmund Dudley then a young Lawyer of twenty two, into the Royal Service.

 Edmund was said to have had three sons, one of ‘Northumberland’s’ brothers was naturally named Edmund. By right of his first wife, which was passed to her as the third and youngest daughter of Lord Tibertot, sister and heir to John, her brother, the Earl of Worcester. Her mother, Joice being the daughter of Edward Lord Cherleton. As a consequence of these facts and the circumstance of time it came to pass that through this alliance the quartering of Edmund of Woodstock, Earl of Kent, the youngest son of Edward Ist came, through the families of Holland, Cherleton and Tibertot to the Dudley family.

 Born circa 1459, Robert Dudley’s cousin Edmund was also found to be a couzin of Edward Tibertot, in approximately 1485/6. He was thereafter created ‘K.B’. on the 25th of November 1487, at the Coronation of Elizabeth, the Queen Consort. Edward Sutton Lord Dudley who died in 1532 is recorded as the son of this Edmund, having been born around 1559 by his fathers first marriage and therefore a grandson of Edmund Dudley, who was the father of Warwick, John the Duke of Northumberland.

 The Earl of Leicester’s son Robert Dudley’s four daughter’s by Alice Leigh, the second daughter of Sir Thomas of Stoneleigh, by Katherine, the daughter of Sir John Spencer seem to have been constant to one another, and the community, as may be seen from various accounts of property that came down to them, which they seem either to have kept in the family, or offered in charitable alms to the poor, despite the difficulties they must have faced by the tortuous history of their ancestry. Two such interesting accounts are preserved in the ‘Victoria history of the County of Warwick.’ Volume four of which, covering the district of the Hemlingford Hundred, makes reference to the Manor of Balsall, which had been during the reign of King Stephen, the site of a preceptory of the Order of the Knight’s Templar, with whom it remained until the suppression of the same in 1308. The Manor was made over to the revised order of Knight’s Hospitallers in 1322 and remained as such until that order was dissolved in 1544 and the Manor and park were granted to Queen Catherine Parr.

 Such a place as this, then, was already steeped in history when it next came into the possession of Edward Seymore, Duke of Somerset and was some years later acquired by John Dudley, Earl of Warwick in July 1553. Upon his lamentable attainder, it was granted in 1554 to his nephew Edward Sutton, Lord Dudley. A curious plot hatched by Queen Mary to re found the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem included the reversion of the Dudley Manor to that order in 1558! Elizabeth upon her succession saw that this scheme came to nothing and in 1572 conveyed the Manor to Lord Robert, Earl of Leicester, ‘to whom the Hospitalliers rights had been granted in 1565’.

 Leycester made over in his will this Manor to his brother Ambrose, Earl of Warwick for life, thence to follow to his son Robert. It thus came in due course to the Duchess Dudley’s four daughters. Anne then being the widow of the late Sir Robert Holborne acquired three shares, which were passed on her death to her only surviving sister Lady Katherine Leveson, who by her will in 1671 returned Balsall the role of an Hospital, founding almshouses for 20 poor women, widows or unmarried with a pension of £8/~ yearly and a gown for each with the letters ‘K.L’. in blue cloth thereon. The Hospital of the Lady Katherine Leveson was incorporated in 1704. The Church of St. Mary having been built by the Knights Templar around 1290 fell into decay after the suppression of that order and eventually became roofless. It was restored to use by Katherine Leveson and Anne Holborne in 1662 and served as a chapel for the adjacent said almshouses of 1677. It became a parish church in 1863.

 The second account from the ‘Victoria History of the County of Warwick’ is to be found in it’s volume (six) covering the Knightlow Hundred, and published by Mr. Salzman in 1951 wherein the history of the Manors of Long Itchington is covered from the year 1001 when King Ethelred the ‘unready’ gave 25 manors thereabouts to his thegn Clofig. In 1086 the Manor was in the possession of Cristina, the sister of Edgar Atheling, who had himself received it from William the Conqueror.

 In 1352 what then remained of the original property within the manors was stated to contain a ‘little park of 28 acres with deer’, a watermill and a windmill but in 1357 was assessed as considerably larger. Long Itchington came into the possession of Lord Robert Dudley about 1571~2, and here he provided a ‘glorious entertainment’ for the Queen Elizabeth on her progress to Kenilworth in 1575.

 Dudley intended to have bequeathed the Manor, after the death of his third wife Lettice to his only son Robert, but the countess lived until 1634 and persued a claim for possession of the said manor house with Sir Edward Blunt amongst others in 1612, as Robert, having failed to establish his legitimacy had left the Country. The manor however was passed to his cousin Robert Sidney, Viscount L’Isle who had retained it until his death in 1626.

 Leycesters four granddaughters by his son jointly claimed possession of the manor about this time, by right of Leycester’s original will, and after a long Chancery suit were successful. Lady Anne Holborne, Katherine Leveson and her husband, Sir Richard being vouchees in the recovery of the manor in 1656. With this successful and just outcome, yet without compensation for their trouble and original disinheritance, divided the manor into four equal parts, of which the Lady Anne took three, having purchased the Lady Alicia’s share for £1000/~ and also received the deceased Lady Frances share. It was the Lady Anne Holborne who financed the lawsuit.

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