Her husband, Ambrose Dudley, had a life interest in her estates, but when he died in 1590, they passed to Thomas Whorwood.
His election in 1572, sharing the county with Fleetwood, known to be decidedly Protestant, may have been because of the backing of a conservative clique among the Staffordshire landed gentry.
This faction, centred on the Harcourts of Ellenhall and Ranton Abbey and their kinsmen, the Astons and the Greys of Enville, Staffordshire had great influence in the county and, although slowly losing their grip, were still a force to be reckoned with.
It was probably because of these associations that Whorwood lost his place on the commission of the peace in 1580[2] and for some years his public career was in eclipse.
At about the same time as the marriage, the death of William Whorwood's son-in-law, Ambrose Dudley, brought Thomas into his greatest inheritance.
The Dudleys had long been at odds with the Lytteltons, the Worcestershire branch of a family descended from the great jurist Thomas de Littleton.
Lord Dudley and Gilbert Lyttelton became embroiled in a bitter dispute over ownership of Prestwood,[8] a Staffordshire farm near Whorwood's Stourton Castle, near Kinver.
[clarification needed] To smear Dudley, Lyttelton pointed out that he did not maintain his wife and children, choosing instead to live with his mistress, Elizabeth Tomlinson, a coal miner's daughter.
The Privy Council then intervened and in August 1597 confined Dudley in the Fleet Prison until he promised to contribute to their upkeep.
By supporting the candidature of his brother John in Staffordshire, Dudley could hope to repair some of the fractures in his own family, opening up a fresh route to profit for his impecunious brother, while damaging the interests of his enemies, as Sir Edward Littleton of Pillaton Hall, a kinsman of Gilbert, had already entered the contest.
The Dudley campaign was directed specifically against Littleton,[5] who was an ally and client of Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, a major force not only in the county but at Court.
On the day of the election, 6 October 1597, Whorwood, supposedly neutral, rallied the Dudley supporters on one side of the market square in Stafford.
It was later alleged that Whorwood used his authority as Sheriff to release Catholic recusants from the county gaol and allowed them and their wives to vote.
It seems that he later allowed the complaints against the brothers to lapse, while pursuing Whorwood, who had behaved "in very indecent and outrageous manner".