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 daughters, on the ground that he had been precontracted to some one else. Orders were issued by the English government for Dudley's return (2 Feb. 1606–7), to meet a charge of having assumed abroad the title of Earl of Warwick. He refused to obey, and his estates were forcibly sold. On 21 Nov. 1611 Kenilworth, which had been valued at 38,550l., was purchased for 14,500l. by Henry, prince of Wales; but Dudley, who claimed to retain the office of constable of the castle, obtained nothing from the transaction. The Sidneys of Penshurst seized his estates of Balsall and Long Itchington; but his daughters Catherine and Anne recovered them after many years' litigation. On the appeal of Sir Thomas Leigh, the privy council ordered (21 May 1616) the sale of all Dudley's remaining property for the benefit of his forsaken wife and daughters. On 30 July 1621 Sir Thomas Chaloner wrote that if Dudley made proper provision for his legitimate family, means might be found for his return to England.

Dudley meanwhile settled at Florence, and became a Roman catholic. In 1612 he sent to his friend, Sir David Foulis, a pamphlet about bridling parliaments, with a view to recovering James I's favour. An accompanying note was signed ‘Warwick.’ Under the same signature he forwarded to Foulis in the same year ‘A Proposition for Henry, Prince of Wales,’ which chiefly dealt with the necessity on England's part of maintaining an efficient navy, and suggested a new class of war-ships, called Gallizabras, and carrying fifty cannon. In January 1613–14 he sent further letters from Leghorn, describing his nautical inventions. On 15 July 1614 he informed Foulis that he could build his own kind of ship, and wished to return to England; but this wish was never gratified. In 1613 he bought a house of the Rucellai family at Florence, still standing in the Vigna Nuova. His ingenuity as a shipbuilder and mathematician attracted the attention of Cosmo II, duke of Tuscany, whose wife, Magdalen, archduchess of Austria, and sister of the emperor, Ferdinand II, appointed him her grand chamberlain. On 9 March 1620 the emperor, who had heard of his accomplishments and knew his history, created him Earl of Warwick and Duke of Northumberland in the Holy Roman Empire, and he was enrolled by Pope Urban VIII among the Roman nobility. Dudley was employed by Ferdinand II, who succeeded his father, Cosmo II, as Duke of Tuscany in 1621, to drain the morass between Pisa and the sea, an operation to which the town of Leghorn owed its future prosperity. A pension was granted him for this skilful piece of engineering. He built himself a palace at Florence, and was presented with Villa Castello in the neighbourhood. Lord Herbert of Cherbury visited Dudley at Florence in 1614, and has described the meeting at length in his ‘Autobiography.’ [q. v.] met him in 1646, and has also left on record an account of his interview. He died at Villa Castello 6 Sept. 1649. His remains were placed in the nunnery of Boldrone, where they are said to have remained as late as 1674. A stone coroneted shield—with the bear and ragged staff engraved upon them—is still preserved in what remains of the Florentine church of San Pancrazio, and is locally described as part of a tomb set up there above Dudley's body. Elizabeth Southwell, who died before Dudley, was certainly buried in that church, but the tomb and inscription were destroyed by the French in 1798.

, Dudley's deserted wife, was created in her own right Duchess Dudley on 23 May 1645. The patent which recognises her husband's legitimacy confers the precedence of a duke's daughters on her surviving children. The title was confirmed by Charles II in 1660. The duchess resided at Dudley House, St. Giles's-in-the-Fields, once the residence of her husband's grandfather, the Duke of Northumberland, and she enjoyed the rents of some of her husband's landed property. She was a great benefactor of the church and parish of St. Giles, and bequeathed large sums to the parochial charities, on her death at Dudley House, 22 Jan. 1668–9. She was buried at Stoneleigh. A funeral sermon (‘Mirror of Christianity’), preached at St. Giles's Church by the rector, [q. v.], was published. A portrait is at Trentham Hall, Staffordshire. Of her seven daughters by Dudley, Alicia, born at Kenilworth in 1597, died in 1621. Frances married Sir Gilbert Kniveton of Bradley, Derbyshire, and died before 1645, being buried in St. Giles's Church. Anne was wife of Sir Robert Holbourne, and died in 1663. Catherine married Sir Richard Leveson of Trentham; died in 1673, and was buried at Lilleshall, Shropshire.

Dudley is credited with having had thirteen children by Elizabeth Southwell. Five sons were alive in 1638, of whom the fourth, Ferdinando, was a Dominican, and the eldest, Carlo, called himself ‘duca di Nortumbria’ after his father's death. Carlo married Maria Maddalena Gouffier, daughter of Duc de Rohanet of Picardy, and died at Florence in 1686. His son and heir, Ruperto, was first chamberlain to Maria Christina, queen of Sweden, at Rome. One of Carlo's daughters married Marquis Palliotti of Bologna, whose son was hanged at Tyburn, and