Thomas Sutton Dudley, Gov of Massachusetts Bay Colony

Thomas Sutton Dudley was reportedly the only son of Capt. Roger Dudley and Susanna Thorne. The supplied material gives differing birth descriptions: he was said to have been born in Northampton, England, in 1576, while another account places him at Yardley Hastings, Northamptonshire, and records his baptism there on 12 October 1576. Family and biographical accounts state that his mother had already died when his father was killed at the Battle of Ivry on 14 March 1590, leaving Thomas and a sister orphaned.

According to the family notes, Thomas inherited £500 from his father and was raised as a page in the household of Lord Compton, Earl of Northampton. He later served as clerk to his maternal kinsman, Judge Nichols or Nicolls, acquiring knowledge of law. The same account says that, while still a minor, he studied Latin with “Mrs. Purefoy,” possibly his maternal grandmother, Mary Purefoy. These experiences were said to have given him a competent education.

Tradition holds that Dudley received a captain's commission in 1596 and led volunteers from Northampton in French service under Henry IV. Cotton Mather was quoted in the notes as saying that about eighty men enlisted after Dudley was commissioned. He was said to have taken part in the siege of Amiens in 1597 and to have returned to England after the peace that year. These early military details are presented in the supplied material as tradition or later historical reporting.

After returning to England, Dudley lived at Northampton and came into contact with Puritan leaders, including Dod and Hildersham. He became a Puritan. He married first, on 25 April 1603 at Hardingstone, Northamptonshire, Dorothy Yorke, daughter of Edmund or Edmonde Yorke and Katherine Yorke. Dorothy was baptized at Hardingstone on 25 April 1582. The supplied material describes Dudley as steward to Theophilus, Earl of Lincoln, from about 1600 to 1630, or during a substantial part of that period. In this work he managed the earl's estates and was credited in the notes with helping restore the earl's finances. He also became acquainted with John Cotton of Boston, Lincolnshire.

Dudley was among the signers of the 1629 agreement to form the Massachusetts Bay Company. On 20 October 1629, he was chosen as one of five officers to go to America with the royal charter. John Winthrop was elected governor and Dudley deputy governor. The supplied account places these decisions in the setting of increasing pressure upon Puritans in England, but the precise personal reasons for Dudley's emigration are not documented in the material provided.

In 1630, Dudley, Dorothy, and their children emigrated with the Winthrop Fleet, reportedly aboard the Arbella. The fleet reached Salem in June. Dudley was deputy governor on arrival. He was early associated with Newtown, later Cambridge; spent a short time at Ipswich; and eventually made his principal home at Roxbury. The notes state that he also had a mill at Watertown. Dudley recorded that about 200 emigrants died during the first year in New England.

His long public career made him one of the leading magistrates of Massachusetts Bay. He served as governor in 1634, 1640, 1645, and 1650, and the supplied material reports that he was deputy governor for thirteen years. In other years he served as an Assistant. He was also among the first three selected to a Standing Council intended as a body of members for life. When the New England Federation was formed in 1643, he was one of Massachusetts's two commissioners. Some supplied accounts refer to him as the colony's third governor under the royal charter and as its second-ranking officer.

Dudley and Simon Bradstreet are credited in the notes with founding Cambridge in 1631. In 1636 Dudley was one of twelve men appointed by the General Court to consider establishing a college at Newtown, and he was among those who reported favorably on the proposal. As governor in 1650, he signed the original charter of Harvard College. He was also a principal founder of the First Church in Boston and was admitted as member number 2 at its founding in 1630, according to the supplied material.

Dudley and Dorothy Yorke had children identified in the supplied material as Thomas, Samuel, Anne, Patience, Sarah, and Mercy. Dorothy died at Roxbury on 27 December 1643. Dudley married second, on 4 April 1644 at Roxbury, Catherine Dighton, daughter of John Dighton and Jane Bassett. Catherine, also called Katherine Deighton in the notes, had been baptized at St. Nicholas, Gloucester, Gloucestershire, on 16 January 1614. Their children were Deborah, Joseph, and Paul. Their son Joseph Dudley, born in 1647, later became royal governor of Massachusetts.

Dudley prepared his will on 26 April 1652 and added to it on 13 April, 28 May, and 8 July 1653. He died at Roxbury on 31 July 1653; one compiled entry instead gives 30 July, and another erroneous-looking entry gives 31 July 1652. He was buried at Roxbury, with one account giving 6 August 1653 and another listing burial on the date of death. The notes describe a large funeral attended by civic, clerical, and military representatives. His estate was reportedly valued at £1,560 and included military equipment and books in Latin, law, literature, and religion.

The supplied material preserves a later tradition that Dudley descended from the Sutton-Dudleys of Dudley Castle, based on his use of Dudley arms and an asserted claim by his eldest son, Rev. Samuel Dudley. This descent is described by the cited writer as debated among historians and genealogists and should be treated as unproven here. The material also rejects a modern claim connecting Dudley to events at Dudleytown, noting that he died in Roxbury in 1653, before the first “Dudleytown brother” was said to have arrived there.