tried by artists and smiths, that the ironmasters and ironmongers who had
complained that the author's iron was not merchantable, were silenced until
the twenty-first of King James." "At the then parliament all monopolies were
made null, and divers of the ironmeasters endeavoured to bring the invention
of making iron with pit-coal within the compass of a monopoly; but the Lord
Dudley and the author did prevail, yet the patent was limited to continue but
fourteen years."

This exception in the Statute of Monopolies, which incontestably proves the
claim of the Dudley family to the honour of having invented the art of
smelting iron with coal, runs in the following terms:--"Provided also that
this Act shall not extend to, or be prejudicial to, a graunt or priviledge
for the melting of iron ewer, and of maling the same into sea coals or pit
coals, by His Majesties letters Patent under the Great Seale of England, made
or graunted to Edward Lord Dudley."

After the passing of the Act, it seems that Dudley Dudley made "great store
of iron and sold it at 12 pounds a ton, and also cast-iron wares, as brewing
cisterns, pots, mortars;" but, being ousted of his works, he again set up a
furnace at "Himley, in the county of Stafford." Himley Hall is the present
residence of Lord Ward, the representative of the Dudley family. From that
time forward, the life of the unfortunate inventor was but one series of
misfortunes. Under Charles I. he got into law-suits, was the victim of riots
set on by the charcoal ironmasters, and was eventually lodged in prison in
the Compter. Then came the Great Rebellion, during which he had the
disadvantage of being a Royalist as well as an inventor, and of having
"Cromwell, with Major Wildman and many of his officers, as opponents in rival
experiments tried in the Forest of Dean, where they employed an ingenious
glassmaster, Edward Dagney, an Italian then living in Bristow," but they
failed. And so he was utterly ruined. On the accession of Charles II., he
petitioned, and eventually sent in the statement from which the preceding
extracts have been made, but apparently without any success. The king was
too busy making dukes and melting the louis d'ors of his French pension, to
think of anything so common as iron or so tiresome as gratitude.

The iron manufacture, for want of the art of smelting by coal, and of a
supply of wood, which the march of agriculture daily diminished, dwindled
away, until,