as the "Great May-day Flood," swept away
Dudley's principal works at Cradley, and otherwise inflicted much
damage throughout the district. "At the market town called
Stourbridge," says Dud, in the course of his curious narrative,
"although the author sent with speed to preserve the people from
drowning, and one resolute man was carried from the bridge there in the
day-time, the nether part of the town was so deep in water that the
people had much ado to preserve their lives in the uppermost rooms of
their houses." Dudley himself received very little sympathy for his
losses. On the contrary, the iron-smelters of the district rejoiced
exceedingly at the destruction of his works by the flood. They had
seen him making good iron by his new patent process, and selling it
cheaper than they could afford to do. They accordingly put in
circulation all manner of disparaging reports about his iron. It was
bad iron, not fit to be used; indeed no iron, except what was smelted
with charcoal of wood, could be good. To smelt it with coal was a
dangerous innovation, and could only result in some great public
calamity. The ironmasters even appealed to King James to put a stop to
Dud's manufacture, alleging that his iron was not merchantable. And
then came the great flood, which swept away his works; the hostile
ironmasters now hoping that there was an end for ever of Dudley's
pit-coal iron.

But Dud, with his wonted energy, forthwith set to work and repaired his
furnaces and forges, though at great cost; and in the course of a short
time the new manufacture was again in full progress. The ironmasters
raised a fresh outcry against him, and addressed another strong
memorial against Dud and his iron to King James. This seems to have
taken effect; and in order to ascertain the quality of the article by
testing it upon a large scale, the King commanded Dudley to send up to
the Tower of London, with every possible speed, quantities of all the
sorts of bar-iron made by him, fit for the "making of muskets,
carbines, and iron for great bolts for shipping; which iron," continues
Dud, "being so tried by artists and smiths, the ironmasters and
iron-mongers were all silenced until the 21st year of King James's
reign." The ironmasters then endeavoured to get the Dudley patent
included in the monopolies to be abolished by the statute of that year;
but all they could accomplish was the limitation of the patent to
fourteen years instead of t