Ambrose Dudley, 3rd Earl of Warwick
Ambrose Dudley.
Ambrose was imprisoned with his brothers in the the Beauchamp Tower at the Tower of London following the attempt by his father to place Lady Jane Grey on the throne. After nine months in the Tower with his brothers he was released by Queen Mary I on the 18th of October 1554 and duly pardoned (22 Jan 1555).
Two years later in the first month of 1557, when a conflict between France and Spain flared up Dudley called upon his influence to raise an army for Felipe. He did this in exchange for the return of his families estates, which had been withdrawn when Northumberland was executed.
Ambrose, Henry and Robert Dudley joined the forces of Felipe II and went to fight in France and took part in the battle of St. Quentin, where Henry was killed.
For these services Dudley together with his brother Robert and sisters was restored in blood by an Act of Parliament on the 7th of March, 1558.
With the death of the French King Francis II in 1560 the Franco~Scottish Queen Mary found herself a widow aged 18. The French Throne was assumed by the late King’s mother Catherine de Medici, these ‘bittersweet events’ in Europe confounded English Court politics and led to the return of Mary to Scotland, with all its attendant problems for Elizabeth. Whilst in France, Medici was struggling to avert civil war, with the Protestant Huguenots restricted to a limited freedom of worship they were ready to resort to arms to defer total Catholic rule. After lengthy prevarication Elizabeth eventually conceded to pressure from her Court to send some six thousand English troops to assist the struggling Huguenots. Lord Robert’s brother Ambrose, the Earl of Warwick was chosen to lead the expedition. 1563 General outbreak of plague in Europe. Kills 21,000 in London.
Ambrose Dudley’s determination that he would retain the town of ‘Newhaven’ against the aggression of the forces of the Duke of Guise, the instigator of the Catholic tyranny, and Uncle of Mary, the Queen of Scot’s, was hampered from the outset by misadventures ranging from the simple lack of troops, and finance, to a plague that afflicted his armies. When Warwick’s fresh troops were eventually deployed they were prevented from landing in France through sheer bad weather, adverse winds preventing them from entering the Port. Even then, once ashore they too fell to the plague covering France, that was then claiming about sixty of his men each day! Elizabeth finally conceded defeat, not so much as on account of the Catholic aggressor but for the facts of general circumstances and allowed Warwick leave to withdraw. The consequence being that the troops imported the plague into London, where a further 21,000 victims fell ill and died. Needless to say this affair was a total disaster for Elizabeth and fashioned her future reluctance to engage in ill affordable foreign conflicts.
In 1564 Ambrose Dudley was created Baron Lisle and Earl of Warwick. He was in high favour with Elizabeth, as was his third wife Anne, daughter of Francis Russell, 2nd Earl of Bedford.
The son of John Dudley, Earl of Warwick, and Duke of Northumberland, Ambrose Dudley was born about 1528/9 his mother being Jane (ne) Guildford and died on the 21 Feb 1589, at Bedford House, the Strand, in London apparently buried on the 9th of April 1590, in the Lady Chapel of Warwick Collegiate Church.
Ambrose was first married to Anne (ne) Whorwood the daughter of William Whorwood, Attorney General and Cassandra (ne) Grey sometime before the 4th of March 1545. Anne died on the 26th of May 1552, at Otford, her home in Kent and bore Ambrose a son they named John in 1550 but who died in 1552. Ambrose recovered from the loss of his first wife and married again to Elizabeth (ne) Talboys (of Kyme) before the 10th of September in 1553. This partnership was followed by a third wedding by his marriage to Anne Russell on the 11th of November 1565, at the Queen's Chapel, Whitehall.
Ambrose Dudley died after having a diseased leg amputated on the 21 Feb 1589, at Bedford House, in the Strand.