[12] Mr. Mushet, in his 'Papers on Iron,' says, that "although he had carefully examined every spot and relic in Dean Forest likely to denote the site of Dud Dudley's enterprising but unfortunate experiment of making pig-iron with pit coal," it had been without success; neither could he find any traces of the like operations of Cromwell and his partners.
[13] Dudley says, "Major Wildman, more barbarous to me than a wild man, although a minister, bought the author's estate, near 200L. per annum, intending to compell from the author his inventions of making iron with pitcole, but afterwards passed my estate unto two barbarous brokers of London, that pulled down the author's two mantion houses, sold 500 timber trees off his land, and to this day are his houses unrepaired." Wildman himself fell under the grip of Cromwell. Being one of the chiefs of the Republican party, he was seized at Exton, near Marlborough, in 1654, and imprisoned in Chepstow Castle.
[14] June 13, 1661. Petition of Col. Jas. Proger and three others to the king for a patent for the sole exercise of their invention of melting down iron and other metals with coal instead of wood, as the great consumption of coal [charcoal?] therein causes detriment to shipping, &c. With reference thereon to Attorney-General Palmer, and his report, June 18, in favour of the petition,—State Papers, Charles II. (Dom. vol. xxxvii, 49.)
[15] In his second petition he prays that a dwelling-house situated in Worcester, and belonging to one Baldwin, "a known traitor," may be assigned to him in lieu of Alderman Nash's, which had reverted to that individual since his return to loyalty; Dudley reminding the king that his own house in that city had been given up by him for the service of his father Charles I., and turned into a factory for arms. It does not appear that this part of his petition was successful.
[16] State Papers, vol. xxxi. Doquet Book, p.89.
[17]
Pulvis et umbra sumus
Memento mori.
Dodo Dudley chiliarchi nobilis Edwardi nuper domini de Dudley filius, patri charus et regiae Majestatis fidissimus subditus et servus in asserendo regein, in vindicartdo ecclesiam, in propugnando legem ac libertatem Anglicanam, saepe captus, anno 1648, semel condemnatus et tamen non decollatus, renatum denuo vidit diadaema hic inconcussa semper virtute senex.
Differt non aufert mortem longissima vita
Sed differt multam cras hodiere mori.
Quod nequeas vitare, fugis:
Nec formidanda est.
Plot frequently alludes to Dudley in his Natural History of
Staffordshire, and when he does so he describes him as the "worshipful
Dud Dudley," showing the estimation in which he was held by his
contemporaries.