Hello and welcome to the Renaissance English History podcast. I'm your host, Heather Tesco, and I'm a storyteller who makes history accessible because I believe it's a pathway to understanding who we are, our place in the universe, and our connection

to our own humanity. This is episode 70. We're doing another joint episode with Melita Thomas of

Tudor Times. This one's on John Dudley. Just a quick note that the Renaissance English

History podcast is a proud member of the Agora Podcast Network, which you can learn more about

and discover some new favorite podcasts at agorapodcastnetwork.com.

Remember, you can get links to more information, resources, and sign up for my mailing list

at englandcast.com. At the end of this episode, Melita mentioned several resources for Dudley,

for example, and I've included those links on the website in the show notes for this episode.

So now let me introduce you to Melita. Melita is a co-founder and editor of Tudor Times,

a website devoted to Tudor and Stuart History from the period between 1485 and 1625.

You can find it at tudor times.co.uk.

Melita, who has always been fascinated by history, ever since she saw the 1970s series Elizabeth

R with Glinda Jackson, also contributes articles to BBC History Extra and Britain magazine.

And we started off the interview by me, as usual, asking her to tell us a little bit about

John Dudley's life and why she chose him as the person of the month this month.

Dudley is famous under his title of Duke of Northumberland as perhaps one of the great Tudor villains.

He's held responsible for the attempt to put Lady Jane Grey on the throne, which

resulted in Jane's death at the age of 17. And he was seen in his time as a tyrant and a sort of greedy, ambitious man.

I think he's perhaps more complex than that.

And his background, he was a son of one of Henry the Seventh's closest advisors.

And so he had to overcome the hurdle of the fact that Henry the Seventh's advisor Edmund Dudley was

executed for treason in the early part of Henry the Eighth's reign. His Dudley Senior was blamed

...