♂Thomas Dudley

Thomas Dudley (1576 – 31 July 1653) was a deputy governor and governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony^W, born in Northamptonshire, England, and the father of the poet Anne Bradstreet^W. He was the ninth great-grandfather of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006) by two separate lines of descent, both through his son Samuel Dudley (1608–1683).

Early life in England

He was baptized at Yardley Hastings, Northamptonshire, on 12 October 1576. The entry itself reads only “Thomas Dudley” and names no parent, though its neighbors name fathers and mothers; Joseph Gardner Bartlett, writing in 1911 from a printing of the register made in 1910, described it as the baptism of a son of Roger and Susanna (Thorne) Dudley. The mother’s maiden name, Thorne, is not in the entry as quoted: it comes from a heraldic visitation pedigree of the Purefoy family, which names a Susanna Thorne, daughter of Thomas Thorne of Yardley, and Bartlett’s identification of her as Thomas Dudley’s mother is a compiled one. A family history published in 1886, whose long sketch of his life leans on an early manuscript biography kept by his descendants, calls his father Captain Roger Dudley, a soldier, makes Thomas the only son, and says he lost his parents young and was brought up by his mother’s relatives. According to that book, he served as a page in a noble household, and in 1597 he took a company of more than eighty Northamptonshire volunteers to France for Henry IV^W, who was trying to relieve Amiens^W; peace came before a battle was fought, and he brought the company home. The same book says he then worked as a clerk to Judge Augustine Nicolls^W, described as “his kinsman by the mother’s side”, and picked up his knowledge of the law there.

He married Dorothy Yorke at Hardingstone, Northamptonshire, on 25 April 1603; the parish register enters the couple as “Thomas Dudley & Dorathie Yorke”. She was a daughter of Edmond Yorke of Cotton End, Northampton. Her forename is not given in her father’s will, made on 18 November 1614 and known from a printed abstract; it names “my daughter Dudley”, her children Samuel and Anne Dudley, and Thomas Dudley as one of the overseers, and Dorothy is identified as that daughter through those children. Samuel was baptized at All Saints, Northampton, on 30 November 1608. The family history names five children of the marriage, all born in England: Samuel, Anne, Patience, Sarah and Mercy. Samuel became a minister and settled at Exeter, New Hampshire, and Anne married Simon Bradstreet^W and became known as the poet Anne Bradstreet. According to the family history, Dudley was recommended in 1618 as steward to Theophilus Clinton, 4th Earl of Lincoln^W, and in a few years paid off debts on the earl’s estates of more than twenty thousand pounds; a compiled dictionary of New England settlers records his daughter Sarah’s baptism at Sempringham, in Lincolnshire, on 23 July 1620.

Massachusetts Bay

The dictionary says he came over in 1630 as deputy governor, probably in the Arbella, in the fleet^W that carried John Winthrop^W and several hundred settlers. The family history prints his letter to the Countess of Lincoln, which counts about two hundred of the settlers dead between April and December of that year: “so low hath the Lord brought us”. He built a house at Newtown, later Cambridge, which the leaders had agreed to make their chief town, and when Winthrop settled at Boston instead the two men quarreled; the book says Dudley resigned his offices in April 1632 and was talked out of it. He later lived for a time at Ipswich and, from 1639, at Roxbury.

Both books say he was elected governor in 1634, 1640, 1645 and 1650 and served as deputy governor for thirteen years. The family history adds that he sat on the committee of twelve appointed in 1636 to consider founding a college at Newtown, that the General Court made him Sergeant Major General of the colony in 1644, and that as governor in 1650 he signed the charter granted to Harvard College. It quotes a saying of his, “a bargain’s a bargain and must be made good”.

Later life and death

Dorothy was buried at Roxbury on 27 December 1643, aged 61; the family history says she died that day of “wind colic” and was laid in the family tomb. In April 1644 he married at Roxbury Catharine, the widow of Samuel Hackburn of Roxbury, and they had three children, Deborah, Joseph and Paul (the family history gives the wedding as 14 April); the son Joseph Dudley became governor of Massachusetts in his turn.

He died at Roxbury on 31 July 1653, and the dictionary records his burial on 6 August. The family history describes a large funeral, with the militia in attendance and many guns fired, and a tomb in the old burial ground near his house. It also notes a short poem often printed as his, ending “I died no libertine”, which tradition said was found in his pocket; the book doubts that he wrote it.

Lines of descent

Both lines run through his son Samuel Dudley and Samuel’s third wife, Elizabeth. According to the published family history and genealogical dictionary, one runs through their son Stephen Dudley, by way of James and John Dudley to Nathaniel Dudley (1763–1844); the other through their daughter Dorothy and Moses Leavitt of Exeter, whose son Stephen Leavitt was the father of Mary Leavitt, the mother of Anna Smith. Nathaniel Dudley and Anna Smith were therefore third cousins, both great-great-grandchildren of Samuel Dudley, and the two lines meet again in their marriage.