294 DUDLEY body of royalists under Col. Beanmont, and held out for three weeks against the parlia- mentary forces. DUDLEY, the name of an English historical family, descended from John de Somerie, who acquired the castle and lordship of Dudley in the reign of Henry II. The barony passed by marriage from the house of Somerie to that of Sutton in the reign of Edward II. John Sut- ton (Lord Dudley, died in 1487) was distin- guished in tbe wars of the roses, and left two sons, Edward and John. A grandson of the latter was Edmund Dudley, the extortionary minister of Henry VII., who was executed for high treason under Henry VIII. (Aug. 18, 1510). His son John Dudley (1502-1553) was created Viscount L'Isle by Henry VIII. (1542), earl of Warwick by Edward VI. (1547), and after ef- fecting the ruin of the duke of Somerset was made duke of Northumberland (1551). He persuaded the young king Edward to set aside his sisters Mary and Elizabeth from the succes- sion, and bequeath the crown to Lady Jane Grey, who belonged to a branch of the royal family, and had married Lord Guilford Dudley, a son of Northumberland. The attempt proved a failure, and Northumberland perished with his son and daughter-in-law on the scaffold. His son Ambrose (1530-1589), usually called the good earl of Warwick, to which dignity he was restored by Elizabeth (1561), served in youth in the Netherlands, and was a distin- guished ornament of the English court. He died childless. ROBERT, earl of Leicester, younger brother of the preceding, the favorite of Queen Elizabeth, born about 1531, died in Cornbury, Oxfordshire, Sept. 4, 1588. He came early into the service of Edward VI., by whom he was knighted. In 1550 he married Amy, daughter and heiress of Sir John Robsart, the nuptials being solemnized in presence of the young king. In the first year of Mary he was imprisoned and condemned with his father for the attempt to transfer the succession to Lady Jane Grey; but the sentence of death was soon remitted, and he was afterward re- stored in blood. On the accession of Eliza- beth he met with rapid preferment, his elegant and courtly address winning for him the chief place in the affections of the queen. He was made master of the horse, knight of the garter, and privy councillor, and was enabled to main- tain the splendor of his station by grants of manors and castles. His intimacy with the queen was the occasion of scandal, and of a belief that he was encouraged to aspire to the hand of his sovereign. In 1560 his countess died, not without suspicion of violence, in the lonely mansion of Cumnor, in Berkshire, where she was living in retirement. In 1564 he was created baron of Denbigh and earl of Leicester, and other important offices were conferred upon him. Lady Douglas Howard, widow of Lord Sheffield, bore him a son, and claimed to have been privately married to him. In 1575 he was at the height of his power, and entertained the queen for 17 days at his castle of Kenilworth in Warwickshire, on the decora- tion of which he is said by Dugdale to have expended 60,000, and the pageants and fes- tivities were hardly surpassed in magnificence even in that splendid reign. In 1576 he se- cretly married the countess of Essex, imme- diately after she had become a widow. When this marriage was revealed to Elizabeth, she was with difficulty dissuaded from committing him to the tower. A virulent and skilfully written book against him, entitled " Leicester's Commonwealth," was published in 1584, and was many times reprinted under different titles. In 1585 he commanded the English forces in the Netherlands, and received from the United Provinces the office of captain general, and the whole control of their army and finances. This offended Elizabeth, and his ill success in the field disappointed the Hollanders. In 1586 he was called back to England to advise in the case of the queen of Scots, and recom- mended that she should be secretly despatched by poison ; and in 1587 he returned to Hol- land, where his administration was so un- popular that he was soon recalled. In 1588, when the Spanish armada menaced the king- dom, he was nominated to the new office of lord lieutenant of England and Ireland ; and he commanded the forces at Tilbury for the defence of the capital. He set out thence for his castle of Kenilworth, but was attacked with a violent malady, and died on the way. Notwithstand- ing his dissolute life, he maintained a show of respect for religion. He erected the hospital at Warwick, and gave its mastership to a Puritan divine. Sir ROBERT, son of the pre- ceding by Lady Sheffield, born in Sheen, Sur- rey, in 1573, died near Florence in 1639. He fitted out a maritime expedition at his own ex- pense, with which he sailed to America in 1594, and captured some Spanish vessels. In 1596 he distinguished himself at the taking of Cadiz. On his return to England he attempted to es- tablish his legitimacy and secure his paternal estates, but was defeated by his father's widow, the countess of Essex. He fled with the daughter of Sir Robert Southwell to Florence, and, assuming the title of earl of Warwick, was made chamberlain to the grand duchess of Tuscany and duke of the holy Roman em- pire. Meanwhile his estates in England were confiscated, and he was outlawed, but at the Tuscan court his honors increased. By drain- ing a vast morass between Pisa and the sea he made Leghorn a large and beautiful town. He improved its harbor, caused the grand duke to declare it a free port, drew many English mer- chants to settle there, and having received a liberal pension, built a noble palace in the capi- tal, and beautified his country seat of Carbello, three miles from Florence. He was the author of several works, the best known of which is DeW arcano del mare, a remarkable collection of tracts relating to commerce and navigation (Florence, 1630, 1646; there is a copy in the
