Robert, the child of Robert Dudley and Douglas Sheffield, was born in August 1574. His father appears to have been fond of him and oversaw his education. He went to Christchurch, Oxford and from there was apprenticed to a naval architect.
Somewhat surprisingly Elizabeth I didn’t appear to hold a grudge against Douglas Sheffield for her liaison with Robert Dudley – she even gave her a dress when she was pregnant with Robert and accounts suggest that the queen had a soft spot for the illegitimate son of her favourite.
When the Earl of Leicester died Robert who was the last remaining child inherited Dudley’s property including Kenilworth Castle but not the title – on account of his illegitimacy. When Ambrose Dudley died, Robert inherited land from his uncle as well.
In 1591 Robert was contracted to Margaret Vavasour with the approval of Elizabeth I but the bride wasn’t so keen on the match so married someone else and got herself banished from court. Dudley consoled himself by marriage to Margaret Cavendish in 1592 . Margaret Cavendish was part of the Suffolk family who were the senior line to the dukes of Devonshire. Margaret received two ships as a wedding gift from her father –who was an explorer as was her brother Charles Cavendish or other sources say that Dudley inherited two ships on the death of Charles. On Margaret’s death in 1593 Dudley married for a second time to Alicia Leigh in 1596, by whom he had four/fiveFerdinand II daughters.
In 1597 Robert was part of the raid on Cadiz with his step brother Robert Devereux, the Earl of Essex. Unfortunately he followed Essex a step too closely when he joined the earl in his rebellion. He was briefly imprisoned.
After the death of Elizabeth, Robert made a bid for legitimacy by claiming that his parents had been married in secret. The case was eventually heard by the Star Chamber but as his mother, who wrote a deposition, couldn’t remember the name of the cleric who married her and identified ten very dead witnesses it wasn’t a case that particularly held water. Essentially Robert who inherited land under the term of his father’s will wanted to claim the title as well.
Inevitably there’s more to the tale. In 1605 he went to Italy which would have been fine apart from the fact that he was accompanied by Elizabeth Southwell, the daughter of Sir Robert Southwell -she was Robert’s cousin. She was disguised as a page and there was the small matter of Robert’s wife and family to take into consideration. When Robert refused to return home his property was confiscated. Undeterred Robert promptly turned Catholic and married Elizabeth Southwell in Lyons. From there he went into the service of Cosimo II., grand-duke of Tuscany. He became a map maker and an engineer. In 1620 the Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II recognised his title not only to Warwick which his uncle Ambrose had held but also to Northumberland – remember his grandfather, the Duke of Northumberland had been executed. The Duca di Nortombria died near Florence on the 6th of September 1649, leaving a large family.
Prior to the sixteenth century Derbyshire did not have an extremely powerful local magnate to dominate affairs. The position was occupied in latter half of the fourteenth century by John of Gaunt who acquired manors, castles and rights through his marriage to Blanche of Lancaster. On his death the land and power base, along with the loyalty of the local affinity when largely to his son Henry of Bolingbroke, Earl of Derby who returned from exile to reclaim his father’s title and estate when Richard II confiscated them. As a consequence of this Bolingbroke turned into Henry IV and duchy land turned into Crown estates.
In 1547, at Bradgate in Leicestershire, Bess of Hardwick as she would become known married Sir William Cavendish. Cavendish was the younger son of a Suffolk family but had gained a foothold in the household of Cardinal Wolsey thanks to the support of his older brother George who remained a loyal servant of the cardinal’s throughout Wolsey’s life. In 1529 when Wolsey had fallen from favour Thomas had gone into Thomas Cromwell’s service putting him nicely in place as an auditor for the Court of Augmentations to profit from the dissolution of the monasteries.
Like Bess, who was his third wife, Thomas had an eye for a bargain. The pair soon started to build up a property portfolio. Bess’s mother wrote to her telling her of bargains to be had in Derbyshire. Bess would marry twice more after her husband’s death in 1557 first to Sir William St Loe and then to George Talbot, 6th Earl of Shrewsbury but she would have no more children. She ensured all her children made good marriages – a dynasty had been founded.
Henry Cavendish (1550 – 1616) was married off to Grace Talbot as part of Bess and the Earl of Shrewsbury’s marriage agreement. As the eldest son he should have inherited Chatsworth but he managed to get into Bess’s bad-books and got himself disinherited. He didn’t have any legitimate off spring. It should be noted that he actually did inherit Chatsworth but sold it to his brother. One of his illegitimate sons, also called Henry, founded the Cavendish of Doveridge line.
William Cavendish (1552 – 1626) started off having the kind of career that readers of this blog might expect of a scion of the gentry. He was an MP and a justice. He was also the Sheriff of Derbyshire. He became a baron in 1605 thanks to his niece Arbella Stuart who presents this case to her cousin King James I. After his mother’s death he became very wealthy and together with his court connections was able to gain the title Earl of Devonshire. It is reported that he paid James I £10,000 for the privilege. I shall be coming back to William tomorrow. I find that I need an understanding of who is who in the Devonshire fold – as someone said to me recently – it’s impossible to escape the Devonshires in Derbyshire and whilst on one hand the fact that quite a lot of them are called William means that I can get away with a lot its an aristocratic skein that I need to untangle.
Let us return today to the Royalist summer of victories in 1643. It was really only in the east of the country that events did not go all Charles I’s way. On 20 July 1643, Lord Willoughby captured Gainsborough in Lincolnshire for Parliament. This meant that the Earl of Newcastle could not now communicate so easily with the royalists at Newark and he could not simply march south expanding royalist territory. The Committee of Safety scratched their various heads and then sent Oliver Cromwell and Sir John Meldrum from the Eastern Association Army to back up Lord Willoughby as he was being threatened by the Royalist military commander – Colonel Charles Cavendish – who was the nephew of the Earl of Newcastle.