DUDLEY, EDMUND (c. 146 2-151 o) , minister of Henry VII. of England, was a son of John Dudley of Atherington, Sussex, Vii. of England, was a son of John Dudley of Atherington, Sussex, and a member of the great baronial family of Sutton or Dudley. After studying at Oxford and at Gray's Inn, Dudley came under the notice of Henry VII. He and his colleague Sir Richard Emp son (q.v.) are called fiscales indices by Polydore Vergil, and their extortions made them bitterly hated. Dudley, who was speaker of the House of Commons in 1504, amassed a great amount of wealth for himself, and possessed large estates in Sussex, Dorset and Lincolnshire. When Henry VII. died in April 1509, he was thrown into prison by order of Henry VIII. and charged with the crime of constructive treason, being found guilty and attainted. He was executed on Aug. 17 or 18, 151o. Dudley's nominal crime was that during the last illness of Henry VII. he had ordered his friends to assemble in arms in case the king died, but the real reason for his death was the unpopularity caused by his avarice. During his imprisonment he sought to gain the favour of Henry VIII. by writing a treatise in support of absolute monarchy called Viii. by writing a treatise in support of absolute monarchy called The Tree of Commonwealth (printed privately, in Manchester 1859).
See Francis Bacon, History of Henry VII. edit. J. R. Lumby (i880 ; and J. S. Brewer, The Reign of Henry VIII., edit. J. Gairdner (1884) .