House of Dudley

choi

Catherine Ostler, A True Elizabethan Family Drama; In the Tudor court a noble family could go from a dukedom to execution for treason to favorite once more. Wall Street Journal, Mar 25, 2023, at page C11
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the ... of-thrones-8d74f2a6
(book review on Joanne Paul, The House of Dudley; A new history of Tudor England. Pegasus Books, Mar 7, 2023)

Note:
(a) "What a rum bunch the Dudleys were. * * * the name returned to the swampy oblivion from which it came [to be explained in (b)(ii)(A)]. * * * Along with the Seymours and the Howards, they formed a tangled puppet show of families behind the crown."
(i) rum (adj; rummer | rummest): "unusual and strange  <He said he wasn't coming, which I thought was a bit rum>"
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/rum
(A) The www.merriam-webster.com (an American dictionary based in western Massachusetts) says about etymology ("of uncertain origin") and its use ("British, informal + somewhat old-fashioned").
(B) Wiktionary gives the examples: "a rum idea; a rum fellow"
(ii)
(A) Seymour (surname)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seymour_(surname)
("is an English toponymic surname of Norman origin (de Saint-Maur)" )
(B) St Maur
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Maur
("may refer to:
Saint Maurus (512–584), Italian Roman Catholic saint
* * *
The Seymour family, an English family headed by the Duke of Somerset")
(C) Saint Maurus
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Maurus
(512-584; French: Maur; born in Africa; "was the first disciple of Benedict of Nursia" (a town in Italy) who sent him (Maurus) to France)
• Maurus is Latin spelling.
• Latin-English dictionary:
* Maurus (n; From Ancient Greek Μαυρός [romanization:] Maurós, Moor): "a Moor"  (In fact, English proper noun Moor descended from Greek Maurós via Latin Maurus.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/maurus
• Click "Seymour family: and you reach
House of Seymour
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Seymour
(section 2 Sir John Seymour, section 2.1 Family tree: John Seymour's daughter Jane was Henry VIII's third wife who "died of postnatal complications less than two weeks after the birth of her only child, the future King Edward VI." en.wikipedi.org under her name)
(D) Howard family
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_family


(b) "Edmund Dudley, a lawyer * * * To extort money from the merchant haberdasher Thomas Sunnyff and his wife, Agnes * * * with each monarch's overthrow or death, the Dudley name went back into the sorting hat. Henry VII's body was barely cold before Edmund's enemies * * * had him locked up inside the Tower of London. There Edmund calmly totted up his crimes."
(i) Henry VII of England
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_VII_of_England
(reign 1485 – Apr 21, 1509; "he concentrated on raising new revenues. He stabilised the government's finances by introducing several new taxes. After his death, a commission found widespread abuses in the tax collection process. Henry reigned for nearly 24 years and was peacefully succeeded by his son, Henry VIII")
(ii)
(A) Edmund Dudley
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmund_Dudley
(c 1462-1510; "Edmund Dudley was the son of Sir John Dudley of Atherington [with beaches and sand dunes], West Sussex and a grandson of John Sutton, 1st Baron Dudley")

The English surname Sutton is from name of "numerous places called Sutton named with Old English sūth south southern + tūn farmstead estate."

Son of "Sir John Dudley of Atherington," Edmund Dudley also had a son of his own whose name was John Dudley. The latter John Dudley would be father-in-law of Lady Jane Grey.
(B) Dudley
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dudley
("its name deriving from the Old English Duddan Leah, meaning Dudda's clearing")
does not have a swamp.
(C) The entire en.wikipedia.org does not mention Sunnyff.
(iii) magical objects in Harry Potter
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magical_objects_in_Harry_Potter
(section 7 Legendary magical artifacts, section 7.4 Sorting Hat: "to determine which of the four school houses – Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw or Slytherin – each new student is to be assigned for their years at Hogwarts. The hat resembles a dilapidated conical leather wide-brimmed wizard's hat, with folds and tears that make it appear to have eyes and a mouth. During the opening banquet at the beginning of each school year, the Hat is placed on every first-year student's head. The Hat announces its choice aloud, and the student joins the selected house")

In the movie series, one does not place a name in the Sorting Hat.
(iv) tot (v; shortened from total"): "(usually foll by up) mainly British  to total; add"
https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/tot


(c) "A son of Edmund Dudley, "John Dudley [1504-1553] started his snakes-and-ladders game early. At 17, he was in Calais, France, in the retinue of Cardinal Wolsey [of Roman Catholicism (Henry VIII had not had a rupture with Rome yet)], Henry VIII's lead minister. At 19, he was knighted for bravery in the army. Within a few years, having ingratiated himself with Henry’s second wife, Anne Boleyn, John led the procession of gifts at the christening of Anne’s daughter, Elizabeth; John and his wife, Jane [née Grey], hosted the king and queen on a hunting trip to Gloucestershire. The Dudleys spread their bets in a staggering fashion—Mary [who would become Mary I of England], Henry VIII's daughter by Catherine of Aragon, was godmother to two of their children; Jane Dudley served Jane Seymour, Boleyn’s successor. As master of the horse, John was sent to fetch wife No 4, Anne of Cleves, from the Continent. He carried the letter [I fail to learn about the letter] to the king that saw Catherine Howard beheaded. * * * John's son died fighting alongside him in the siege of Boulogne, the port town seized from the French in 1544. By the time Henry VIII died, John was all-powerful and unpredictable. He supported his friend Edward Seymour, the Duke of Somerset, in becoming Lord Protector during Edward VI's minority—before securing Somerset's execution.  The boy-king Edward VI made John Dudley the Earl of Warwick and Lord Chamberlain, one of the three principal officers in the king's household. John routed the rebels in Norfolk with his remaining sons."
(i) Snakes and ladders
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snakes_and_ladders
("helped by climbing ladders but hindered by falling down snakes")
(ii) John Dudley, 1st Duke of Northumberland
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Dudley,_1st_Duke_of_Northumberland
(1504-1553; section 1 Career under Henry VIII: "He [John Dudley] took part in Cardinal Wolsey's diplomatic voyages of 1521 and 1527, and was knighted by Charles Brandon, 1st Duke of Suffolk, during his first major military experience, the 1523 invasion of France")

The 1523 invasion was part of
Italian War of 1521–1526.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_War_of_1521–1526
(iii) staggering (adj)
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/staggering
has a synonym of "astonishing."

The staggering is different from staggered
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/staggered
in meaning, though both are adjectives.
(iv) Master of the Horse
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_of_the_Horse
(v) "John's son died fighting alongside him in the siege of Boulogne, the port town seized from the French in 1544"
(A) Sieges of Boulogne (1544–1546)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sieges_of_Boulogne_(1544–1546)
(B) John Dudley's son who died in the siege is "Sir Henry Dudley" -- the eldest child of John Dudley. See table in
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Dudley,_1st_Duke_of_Northumberland
, under the "Issue," meaning legitimate children.  The en.wikipedia.org has no page for this son.
(vi) "John routed the rebels in Norfolk with his remaining sons"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Dudley,_1st_Duke_of_Northumberland
("During the country-wide uprisings of 1549 Dudley put down [Robert] Kett's Rebellion in Norfolk")


(d) Robert Dudley "charming Queen Mary's husband, Philip [to be Philip II] of Spain * * * Ms Paul, a senior lecturer in early modern history at Sussex University

University of Sussex
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Sussex
(1959- ; public)