child of eight years of age was taken against
the mother ; and a girl of fourteen was
accused as a professed witch by a child scarce
out of the cradle.

CHIP.

WHO WAS HE?

MYSTERIES of all kinds environ the
memory of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester,
the proud favourite of Queen Elizabeth. He
seemed peculiarly prone to placing himself in
awkward predicaments by contracting
marriages which, if discovered, were sure to
bring upon him the wrath of his jealous
and vain mistress. That he was really the
husband of the unfortunate Amy Robsart,
the heroine of Sir Walter Scott's inimitable
novel, cannot be positively asserted; but it
seems a received opinion that he was
privately married, or else that he feigned a
marriage to deceive the Lady Douglas
Sheffield, the mother of his son, who was
called Sir Robert Dudley.

The fate of this young man is peculiarly
sad. During his mother's lifetime, the earl
became the acknowledged husband of another
lady, and it was not till after his father's
death that he endeavoured to prove his
legitimacy, Kenilworth Castle was left by the
earl to his brother Ambrose, Earl of
Warwick, for his life, but to descend on the
demise of that brother to Sir Robert Dudley,
whom he names in his will as his son. It
happened that he came into possession in a
very short time, and then, probably from
some proofs he obtained, resolved to
establish an undoubted right to the estates he
enjoyed by his father's gift.

Scarcely had proceedings been commenced
than all question was abruptly concluded
by a special order of the lords and
peremptory orders issued that all the depositions
brought forward should be sealed up,
and no copies taken without the king's special
license.

Permission, or rather a command, was
given to Sir Robert to travel for three years,
at the end of which time, in consequence of
his continued absence, the considerate King
James seized his castle and estates for the
use of the crown. Officers were sent down
to Kenilworth to make a survey, by whom it
was reported that "the like, both for strength
and pleasure, and state, was not within the
realm of England."

Doubtless, King James sincerely regretted
that the contumacious absence of the young
heir of Kenilworth should have obliged
him to take charge of these estates; to show
his disinterestedness he bestowed them, not
on his favourite Carr, but on his son, Prince
Henry, who, with his customary nobility of
spirit, proclaimed his readiness to pay to the
Desdichado Sir Robert, the sum of fourteen
thousand five hundred pounds, for his title to
the castle and domains. The death of this
amiable and generous prince, the very
contrast to his cold-hearted father, prevented the
payment of the money, except three thousand
pounds which, arrested by unworthy hands
before it reached Sir Robert, never
benefited him.

Kenilworth remained to the crown, and the
heir was forced to exist on a pension
granted him by the grand-duke of Tuscany,
whose warm friendship supported him under
his severe trials. He was held in high honour
by foreign sovereigns, and the title of duke was
bestowed on him by the Emperor Ferdinand
the Second. He had married before he
quitted England, a daughter of Sir Thomas
Leigh, who, for some unexplained reason,
remained behind in England, and died at the
advanced age of ninety, adored by all her
dependants.

She lies buried in the Church of
Stoneleigh in Warwickshire, with her daughter,
the sole solace of her long bereavement. She
bears on her tomb the title of Alice, Duchess
Dudley, and above her effigies, beneath a
canopy, are shields of arms to which royal
jealousy disputed the right of her
husband.

This is a curious story, and involves
much mystery. Who was Sir Robert
Dudley? An entry in a manuscript, at the
free school of Shrewsbury, tells of a
certain son of the Earl of Leicester and
Queen Elizabeth.* Was this son brought up
by Lady Douglas Sheffield, whose marriage
was never proved, and was the Maiden
Queen, as has been suspected, in truth,
privately united to her subject?

* This manuscript, which is well preserved and
partially illuminated, once belonged to a Roman Catholic vicar
of Shrewsbury, who in fifteen hundred and fifty-five was
appointed to the vicarage by Queen Mary. He afterwards
conformed to the Established Church, and held the living
for sixty years. This vicar, who was called Sir John.
Dychar, might not have been friendly to the Protestant
queen; and the singular entry in his hand on the margin
of the book may have been a piece of malice. It is,
however, remarkable that an attempt has been made to
efface the entry, but unsuccessfully, the first ink being
the blackest, and refusing to be overpowered by that
which substituted other words, in hopes of misleading
the reader. The entry runs as follows: "Henry Roido
Dudley Tuther Plantagenet, filius Q. E. reg. et Robt.
Comitis Leicestr." This is written at the top of the
page, nearly at the beginning of the book, and at the
bottom there has evidently been more; but a square
piece has been cut out of the leaf, therefore the secret is
effectually preserved. There is a tradition that such a
personage as this mysterious son was brought up secretly
at the free-school of Shrewsbury; but what became of
him is not known; nor is it easy to account for this
curious entry in the parish-church book of Shrewsbury

Was this the cause of her disinclination to
name her successor, and was this the reason
of Sir Robert's banishment? The fate of
Arabella Stuart, warning the heir of Kenilworth
that those who had even a distant
claim to the crown were never in safety from
the cruel and crafty James.

What became of those papers so carefully
sealed up and not permitted to see the light?
Did Overbury know of their existence? Did
Prince Henry suspect their contents, and did