INTRODUCTION.

NNE BRADSTREET, distinguished as the earliest poet of her sex in America, was the daughter of Governor Thomas Dudley, and the wife of Governor Simon Bradstreet, two of the principal founders of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay. The ancestry of that branch of the Dudley family to which Mrs. Bradstreet belonged is now simply a matter of conjecture. Many attempts have been made to trace it, but without success. "There is a tradition among the descendants of Governor Dudley, in the eldest branch of the family," says Mr. Moore, "that he was descended from John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, who was beheaded 22 February, 1553."† Mrs. Bradstreet seems to have shared this belief, if we may judge from the following verses from her "Elegy upon Sir

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"The Dudley Genealogies and Family Records." By Dean Dudley. Boston Published by the Author. 1848. N. E. Hist. Gen. Register, Vol. x. p. 133. — “The Sutton-Dudleys of England, and the Dudleys of Massachusetts." By George Adlard. New York: 1862. "The Herald and Genealogist," Vol. ii. London: 1865. pp. 409-426, and 494-499.

Lives of the Governors of New Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay. By Jacob Bailey Moore. New York: 1846. p. 273

Philip Sidney," whose mother was the Lady Mary, eldest daughter of that Duke of Northumberland:

"Let then, none dif-allow of these my straines,

Which have the self-fame blood yet in my veines."

But she retracts this claim to relationship, in the second edition of her poems, where the verses appear as follows :— "Then let none difallow of these my strainės

Whilft English blood yet runs within my veins.”*

Thomas Dudley, her father, was born at Northampton, in England, in the year 1576 or 1577, and was the only son of Captain Roger Dudley, who was killed in battle about the year 1586. He was thus left an orphan, together with a sister, concerning whom, as well as his mother, nothing is known. At a school, to which he was sent by a charitable lady of his native town, he acquired a good knowledge of Latin. But, while still young, he was taken from school, and became a page in the family of William Lord Compton, afterwards Earl of Northampton. He was subsequently a clerk of a kinsman "Judge Nichols," probably Thomas Nicolls, a serjeant-at-law. He next appears at the head of a company of eighty volunteers, raised in and about Northampton, and forming part of the force collected by order of Queen Elizabeth, to assist Henry IV. of France, in the war against Philip II. of Spain. He is said to have been at the siege of Amiens in 1597, and to have returned home to England soon after. From each of these various occupations, of page, lawyer's clerk, and soldier, he derived some benefit, courtesy of manners, considerable legal skill and acumen, straightforwardness, honesty, and courage. He established himself at Northampton, and married "a Gentle

* See pages 346, note, and 347