Richard Dudley, born in 1635, was, says Alexander Smith, "a gentleman of old descent in Northamptonshire." His father, a man of considerable estate in that shire of squires, spires, pride, and poverty, was ruined in the war between King and Parliament, and his son Robert was glad to accept the help that Charles the Second gave him, in presenting him with a commission in a foot regiment that was presently ordered to Tangier. It was a poor return for the loyalty in which his father was brought so low.

Captain Dudley soon earned the reputation of a martinet with his regiment; and perhaps something over and above that, if the story of his horrible treatment of a soldier on parade be true. It seems that one of the men stood a little in advance of his comrades as they were drawn up on the parade-ground, and this annoyed our Captain, who desired a sergeant to knock him down. The sergeant was not so violent about it as Dudley wished, and, in a fury he exclaimed, "When I command you to knock a man down, knock him down thus." Suiting the action to the word, he snatched the sergeant's halberd, and, striking the man on the head with it, cleft his skull in two; "of which," adds Smith, rather unnecessarily, "he immediately died."

We are not surprised, after this, to learn that Dudley's military career was not successful, and that it shortly came to an end. Returning to England, his unbridled extravagance left him no choice but to work or take to the road; and what gentleman of the merry and inglorious reign of Charles the Second would hesitate a moment in such a pass, before choosing the road as the better and more gentlemanly way? Work! Perish the thought!

So he resorted to Hounslow Heath, where he robbed the Duke of Monmouth, and was captured in so doing and was conveyed to the prison then called the Poultry Compter, from which mansion of sorrow and tribulation he broke out; and, resuming the road, met the Earl of Rochester coming from his seat at Woodstock, accompanied by his chaplain, two footmen, and a groom. The association of the riotous Earl of Rochester, the wittiest and most dissolute nobleman of the age, with a chaplain is a distinctly humorous touch. Dudley robbed my lord of a hundred guineas. What the footman and the groom—to say nothing of the chaplain—were doing while he committed the robbery, we do not learn. They appear, for all we know to the contrary, to have looked on. But the chaplain, at any rate, improved the occasion by soundly rating him. "I don't think I commit any sin in robbing a person of quality," said Dudley, "because I keep generally pretty close to the text, 'Feed the hungry, and send the rich empty away.'" To which Captain Alexander Smith, Dudley's biographer, adds, "This was pretty true in the main, for whenever he had got any considerable booty from great people, he would very generously extend his charity to such whom he really knew to be poor."

After this adventure, Dudley had the impudence to rob Captain Richardson, the Governor of Newgate prison, whom he met on the road to Tonbridge. He had already been in the Governor's clutches on three or four occasions, and so felt a glow of satisfaction when he robbed him. But he did not succeed in doing so without considerable trouble, and the Governor told him pretty plainly that he would fare ill if ever he came again within the walls of Newgate, which would not be long hence, he suspected.

Dudley had his ready answer. "I expect," he said, "no favour from the hands of a gaoler, who comes of the race of those angels that fell with Lucifer from Heaven, whither you'll never return again. Of all your bunches of keys, not one hath wards to open that door, for a gaoler's soul stands not upon those two pillars that support Heaven: Justice and Mercy. It rather sits upon those two footstools of Hell, Wrong and Cruelty So"—changing his didactic manner for a more business-like attitude—"make no more words about your purse, for have it I will, or else your life."

There was no help for it, and "Richardson was obliged to grant his request, and between Dudley and taking the waters at Tonbridge, went home as well purged and cleansed as a man could desire."

Dudley often robbed, it appears, with Swiftnicks, but their joint adventures are not recorded. With some other companions, he on one occasion robbed a clergyman travelling on the Exeter Road, near Hartley Row, but his pocket was not well-lined, and Dudley made him preach a sermon in praise of thieving, swearing to shoot him if he did not. This he performed with such humour and eloquence that Dudley assured him Old Nick would certainly soon make him Archbishop: "Meanwhile," said he, "here is your money back, and if you will take up a collection, my fine fellows here shall contribute to it."

It may, however, be suspected that the congregation of "fine fellows" were not quite so satisfied with the sermon as their Captain, or perhaps did not appreciate their leader's humour; for the collection when taken up did not amount to more than four shillings. It was not a profitable day for the band.

The accounts, given severally by Smith and Johnson, of Dudley's adventures differ very widely. According to Johnson, Dudley's earliest effort was in a different line altogether, and was a burglary committed at Blackheath, where he broke into a house and carried off a large quantity of plate. The story well illustrates the peculiar ideas of honesty these seventeenth-century scoundrels pretended to hold. It seems he had sold most of the plate he had taken at Blackheath to a refiner, but was shortly afterwards apprehended and committed to Newgate. While there, he sent for the refiner who had bought of him, and angrily reproached him. "It is a hard thing," he said, "to find an honest man or a fair dealer. You cursed rogue, there was, among the plate you bought of me, a cup with a cover. You told me it was only silver-gilt, and bought it at the same price with the rest; but it plainly appears, by the advertisement in the Gazette, that it was a gold cup and cover. I see you are a rogue, and that there is no trusting anybody."

After robbing General Monk, under impudent circumstances, Dudley found his native land dangerous, and so crossed the Channel, and by easy stages traversed France and arrived at Rome, where he appeared in the garb of a pilgrim. He afterwards travelled to Jerusalem and returned to Rome, and endeavoured to obtain audience of the Pope.

But His Holiness would not receive him, said the Cardinal he approached, unless he came with a relic. Dudley then procured a very singular one, cut from the dead body of a criminal who had just been executed, and, returning to the Vatican, pretended he had come with no less a relic than the beard of St. Peter, which he said he had purchased at a great price from the fathers at the Holy Sepulchre. The Cardinal to whom he first showed the "relic" admired it, said that, if true, it was a jewel worth a kingdom, and admitted Dudley to audience with the Pope, who, kissing the object, said they had the skull of St. Peter already, but he had no idea his beard was preserved. What he could not understand, however, was why there should be so much hair on one side, and so little on the other.

"Oh," said our sham pilgrim, "your Holiness well knows St. Peter was a Jew by birth, and used to play much on the Jews' Harp, so that by often rubbing and twanging it with his fingers, he rubbed off the hair from the right side of his face."

This explanation being deemed satisfactory, the "beard of St. Peter"—that priceless relic—was purchased for one hundred ducats: a bargain, and if the story be true, it is probably in the Vatican still.

Soon after his return, Dudley met a Justice of the Peace on the road to Horsham, and requested his purse. But the courageous magistrate made a very stout resistance, and shot Dudley's horse under him, being, in return, wounded in the arm. Obliged at last to surrender, his pockets yielded twenty-eight guineas, a gold watch, and a silver tobacco-box. Dudley, then securing his horse, said, "Since your Worship has grievously broken the peace, in committing a most horrid and barbarous murder on my prancer, which with my assistance was able to get his living in any ground in England, I must make bold to take your horse, by way of reprisal. However, I'll not be so uncivil as to let a man of your character go home on foot. I'll make one Justice of the Peace carry another."

So, stepping into a field where an ass was grazing, he brought the animal into the road, and seated the Justice on his back, tying his legs under.

"I know I offend against the laws of heraldry," he said, "in putting metal upon metal, but as there is no general rule without an exception, I doubt not but all the heralds will excuse this solecism committed in their art, which I look upon to be as great a bite and cheat as astrology."

He then whipped up the animal, and it carried the magistrate into the streets of Petworth, where his worship attracted as much attention as though he had been a royal procession.

At last, Dick Dudley, as he is familiarly styled by Alexander Smith, attempting to rob the Duke of Lauderdale, as he was riding over Hounslow Heath, was captured instead, and committed to Newgate. No fewer than eighty indictments were preferred against him, and, being found guilty on some of these, he was executed at Tyburn, February 22nd, 1681, aged forty-six.

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