page_title: Ambrose Dudley, 3rd Earl of Warwick
section_title: Private nobleman
hierarchical_section_title: Ambrose Dudley, 3rd Earl of Warwick / Private nobleman
caption_attribution_description: English: Effigy of Ambose Dudley on jis tomb in Collegiate Church of St Mary, Warwick.
context_page_description: Ambrose Dudley, 3rd Earl of Warwick, KG was an English nobleman and general, and an elder brother of Queen Elizabeth I's favourite, Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester. Their father was John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, who led the English government from 1550–1553 under King Edward VI and unsuccessfully tried to establish Lady Jane Grey on the English throne after the King's death in July 1553. For his participation in this venture Ambrose Dudley was imprisoned in the Tower of London and condemned to death. Reprieved, his rehabilitation came after he fought for King Philip in the Battle of St. Quentin.
  On Queen Elizabeth's accession in November 1558 Dudley was appointed Master of the Ordnance, in which capacity he was to unofficially assist William the Silent in his struggle against Spain by delivering English weaponry. As the senior member of his family, Dudley was created Earl of Warwick in December 1561. In 1562–1563 he commanded the army Elizabeth sent to Le Havre to garrison the town and assist the Huguenots in the First French War of Religion.
context_section_description: Ambrose Dudley became one of the leading patrons of moderate Puritanism, the principal concern of which was the furtherance of preaching. Discouraged by the official Church, this was largely dependent on private initiatives by influential noblemen. In 1567 the two Dudley earls, together with local gentry, founded a consortium which provided for "the preachers of the Gospel in the county of Warwick." Ambrose Dudley also helped the preacher John Field when he got into trouble over a subversive book he had published in 1565; and when he was imprisoned in 1572, Leicester and Warwick worked his transfer into comfortable confinement in a London alderman's house before he was released altogether by his patrons' means. Like his brother, Ambrose Dudley invested in exploration and privateering voyages; in Martin Frobisher's 1576 search for the Northwest Passage he was the principal patron, although he contributed only the relatively modest sum of £50.
  The two Dudley brothers were on the closest personal terms and Ambrose said of Robert: "there is no man [that] knoweth his doings better than I myself", while Robert's recurrent phrase about Ambrose was: "him I love as myself". Elizabeth, who liked Warwick, loved to joke that he was neither as graceful nor as handsome as his brother—and stouter as well. Lacking a grand London residence of his own, Warwick had his suite of rooms in the palatial Leicester House: "the Lord of Warwick's bedchamber, the Lord of Warwick's closet, the Lord of Warwick's dining parlour". In the administration of their lands the brothers shared their estate managers and lawyers, while their local affinities consisted of the same gentry families. Privately, they were "almost inseparable", passing time together whenever possible. When Robert Dudley had incurred the Queen's wrath while serving in the Netherlands as Governor-General in 1586, Ambrose wrote to him: "if I were you ... I would go to the furthest part of Christendom rather than ever come into England again. ... Let me have your best advice what is best for me to do, for that I mean to take such part as you do."
  After his first marriage Ambrose Dudley remained childless. His second wife, Elizabeth Tailboys, suffered a phantom pregnancy in 1555. Anne Russell, though nearly 20 years her husband's junior, turned out to be a congenial partner. Through their paternal grandmother the Dudley brothers descended from the famous 15th century earls, John Talbot, 1st Earl of Shrewsbury, and Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick. The Beauchamp descent especially—which was represented by the earldom of Warwick—filled them with pride. Ambrose's childlessness deeply concerned the widowed Robert Dudley, who for many years dared not to remarry for fear of the Queen's displeasure, and eventually died without direct heirs himself in September 1588. Most of Leicester's estate—and debts—passed on to Warwick and encumbered his remaining lifetime. He also took care of his deceased brother's illegitimate teenage son Robert, who was his godson and whom Leicester had willed to inherit after Warwick's death.
  From the 1570s the Earl of Warwick often resided at North Hall, his house in Northaw, Hertfordshire. He travelled little as he was often unable to move about, having "no use of his legs". At the end of January 1590 he finally had his gangrenous leg amputated; as a consequence he died at Bedford House in the Strand, London, on 21 February. Two days before, the diplomat Sir Edward Stafford visited him and described his spasms and pain "which lasted him unto his death". He also saw the Countess sitting "by the fire so full of tears that she could not speak". The Earl of Warwick was buried in the Beauchamp Chapel of Collegiate Church of St Mary, Warwick, in the vicinity of his ancestor Richard Beauchamp, his brother Robert, and his little nephew Robert Dudley, Lord Denbigh, Leicester's son who during his short life had been heir to both Dudley earldoms. Ambrose Dudley's widow commissioned his monument, but on her request was buried with her ancestors in Chenies, Buckinghamshire, when
caption: Funeral effigy of Ambrose Dudley in the Beauchamp Chapel of Collegiate Church of St Mary, Warwick
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