ildren were born out of wedlock, held a good
position in their neighbourhood, and were regarded with respect. Lord
Dudley, though married and having legitimate heirs at the time, seems
to have attended to the up-bringing of his natural children; educating
them carefully, and afterwards employing them in confidential offices
connected with the management of his extensive property. Dud describes
himself as taking great delight, when a youth, in his father's
iron-works near Dudley, where he obtained considerable knowledge of the
various processes of the manufacture.

The town of Dudley was already a centre of the iron manufacture, though
chiefly of small wares, such as nails, horse-shoes, keys, locks, and
common agricultural tools; and it was estimated that there were about
20,000 smiths and workers in iron of various kinds living within a
circuit of ten miles of Dudley Castle. But, as in the southern
counties, the production of iron had suffered great diminution from the
want of fuel in the district, though formerly a mighty woodland
country; and many important branches of the local trade were brought
almost to a stand-still. Yet there was an extraordinary abundance of
coal to be met with in the neighbourhood--coal in some places lying in
seams ten feet thick--ironstone four feet thick immediately under the
coal, with limestone conveniently adjacent to both. The conjunction
seemed almost providential--"as if," observes Dud, "God had decreed the
time when and how these smiths should be supplied, and this island
also, with iron, and most especially that this cole and ironstone
should give the first and just occasion for the invention of smelting
iron with pit-cole;" though, as we have already seen, all attempts
heretofore made with that object had practically failed.

Dud was a special favourite of the Earl his father, who encouraged his
speculations with reference to the improvement of the iron manufacture,
and gave him an education calculated to enable him to turn his
excellent practical abilities to account. He was studying at Baliol
College, Oxford, in the year 1619, when the Earl sent for him to take
charge of an iron furnace and two forges in the chase of Pensnet in
Worcestershire. He was no sooner installed manager of the works, than,
feeling hampered by the want of wood for fuel, his attention was
directed to the employment of pit-coal as a substitute. He altered his
furnace accordingly, so as to adapt it t