Edmund Dudley

, Son of John Dudley Esquire, Second Son of John Lord Dudley, of Dudley Castle in Staffordshire, became a Student in this University about 1478. went afterwards, as it seems, to Greys-Inn in Holborn near London, where he in a short time became so noted a Proficient in the Municipal Law; that King Henry 7. taking notice of him, did (r)(r) Pol. Virgil. in Lib. 26. Angl. Hist. for his singular prudence and faithfulness, make choice of him to be one of his Privy Council in the first year of his Reign, Dom. 1486. Dudley being then but twenty four years of age. Soon after, he discerning the King to be of a frugal disposition, did, to gain his favour the more, project the taking advantage against such as had transgressed the Penal Laws, by exacting from them the Forfeitures according to those Statutes. In which employment he had for his assistant one Sir Richard Emson, another Lawyer, Son of a Sieve-maker of Tocester in Northamptonshire. Both which being constituted by the said King his Judices fiscales, as one (s)(s) Idem ibid. is pleased to stile them, (Dudley being then (t)(t) Franc. Bacon Vis [•] . S. Alban, in his History of Henry 7. Printed at London in folio 1622. p. 209. a person that could put hateful business into good language) they became so extremely hated of all people, that they were forced many times to go guarded in the Streets. In the 19. of Henry 7. he being Speaker of the House of Commons in Parliament, should have been made Sergeant at Law on the 13. of November the same year, but (for what reason it appears not) he did petition that he might be discharged from assuming that Degree, which was accordingly done to his desire, and in the 22. of the said Kings Reign, he (u)(u) In the third Tom. of the Baronage of England, p. 217. b. obtained the Stewardship of the Rape of Hastings in Sussex. He hath written (w)(w) Baleus ut supra, Cent. 11. nu. 84. a Book Entit.

Arbor Reipublicae, &c. It is penned in a Juridic Stile, and is now, or at least lately was, reserved, as a choice Monument, in the Cottonian Library. Whether ever Printed, I cannot tell. At length after King Henry 7. (who favoured his actions because he brought Grist to his Mill) being dead, his Successor King Henry 8. did, for the Peoples satisfaction, issue out his special Precept for the Execution of the said Dudley, then a Prisoner in the Tower of London. Whereupon he had his Head smitten off on Tower-Hill, 28. Aug. 2. Henry 8. being the year of our Lord fifteen hundred and ten, 1510 leaving then behind him several Sons, the eldest of which was John, afterwards Duke of Northumberland, Father to Ambrose Dudley, Earl of Warwick, and to Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester.