Page:The Complete Peerage Ed 1 Vol 3.djvu/189

DUDLEY. 187 [Tho title was assumed after his death (illegally, no termination having been made of its abeyance) as under.] XVI. 1757, lft. Anne, sno jure Baroness Dudley, eldest sister to and coheir of the last Lord, bap. 24 March 1714 at Halesowen; 1762. m. (sett!. 18 May 1737) William Smith, of Stoke Prior and Ridg- acre, co. Worcester, who d. 19 May 1784, aged 71, and was bur. in Halesowen church. She d. 29 April 1702, and was bur. there, her death being announced in the " Gent. Mag." as " The Right Hon. Anne Smith, Baroness Dudley, wife, of William Smith, of liidgacrc, Shropshire, lisq." Ferdinando Smith, her 2nd but only surv. s. and h. (who sue. to the Halesowen estate on the death of his br., Harry-Grey Smith, 21 March 1700 does not appear to have assumed the title, tho' it has been attributed to him iu one of the editions of Collins' Peerage. He d. 16 Jim. 1794,(") leaving issue. DUDLEY. Dukedom. « Alice, Lady Dudley," wife of Sir Robert Dudley, by a I 1644 patent,( b ) dat. at Oxford, 23 May (1644), 20 Car. I. in which [inter alia] ^ ' the creation as a Duke of the Holy Empire of her said husband (then 1GC9. settled at Tuscany) by the Emperor Ferdinand II. is recited, was a: " DUCHESS DUDLEY, for her life, in England and other of our realms and dominions with such precedencies^) as she might have had, if she had lived in the dominions of the sacred empire as a mark of our favour unto her and out of our Prerogative Royal which we will not have drawn into dispute" with the grant to her daughters " Lady Katharine and Lady Anne " of " the places, titles, and precedencies ( c ) of the said Duke's daughters, as from that lime of their said father's creation," i.e., 9 March 1620. This lady was the 2d da. of Sir Thomas Leigh, 1st Bart., of Stoneleigh, by Katharine, da. of Sir John Spencer, of Wormleighton, and was m. about 1596 (before 25 Sep. 1597) to the versatile Sir Robert Dudley, the " so-called base son "( J ) of Robert, Earl of Leicester, by Douglas, Dow. Baroness Sheffield, da. of William (Howard), Baron Howard of Effingham. About this time Sir Robert tried to establish his legitimacy and his right to his ancestral titles, but in May 1605 the Star Chamber pronounced against him. He left England for Florence about 1608 and contracted a (so called) marriage abroad on the ground that having seduced Alice Leigh in the lifetime of a former wife the subsequent marriage with her was invalid. by diploma of the Emperor of Germany, 9 March 1620, he was a: DUKE OF NORTHUMBERLAND, &e. See that title. He d. 6 Sep. 1649, aged 75. The foreign lady who, since 1620, had been received abroad as his Duchess predeceased him, probably dying before 1614, the date of the above recited patent. The Duchess Dudley d. s.p.m. 22 Jauy. 1668/fl, at Dudley House, St. Giles iu the fields, aged 90, and was bur. at Stoneleigh, co. Warwick. M.I. On her death her life peerage became, of course, extinct. She left many charitable bequests. Will pr. 1669. M See p. 1S6, note "b." ( b ) This remarkable patent is given in extenso in " Dugdale," vol. ii, p. 225 ("ex autogr. penes Cath. D. Leveson, an. 1670") and allusion is made therein to the extraordinary order of the Star Chamber that the depositions of Douglas, mother of the said Sir Robert, that she was the lawful wife of the Earl of Leicester as also those of " divers persons of quality and credit who were present at the marriage " were "soaled up" and no copies allowed to be taken. The King goes on to say that his " dear father not knowing the truth of the lawful birth of the said Sir Robert granted away the titles of the said Earldoms [Leicester and Warwick] to others which wo now hold not fit to call iu question," tho' " having a very deep sense of the great injuries done to the said Sir Robert Dudley and the Lady Alice Dudley," &c. ( c ) This is the last case of a warrant of precedency of higher date than the creation of the Peerage. See vol. i, p. 229, note » b," sub " Banbury " as to Precedency of warrant. ," vol. ii, p.!