Carlo 'Charles' Dudley, il Duca di Nortumbria

• 'Life of Sir Robert Dudley, earl of Warwick and duke of Northumberland By John Temple Leader
• http://books.google.com/books?id=9CowAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA153&lpg=PA153&dq...
• Pg. 138
• And now as to the fates of this large progeny.
• Cosimo Dudley 2 was indeed a most promising young man, trained from his youth to courtly service, a great favourite with the Grand-Duke, who made him Colonel of his guard, while he was yet very young. He died in 1631, as we had said, at Piombino, cut off in the opening of a fine career.
• Pg. 139
• Anna, his next sister, died young, just about the time of her presentation. She seems to have been a gentle and saintly girl of great beauty. Nothing remains of her but her baptismal register 1 and funeral epitaph.
• Maria Maddalena, the god-daughter of the Archduchess Maria Maddalena, 2 after her elder sister's marriage took her place at the Tuscan Court, and married into an old and well-known family, the Malespina, whose history we have given at pages 109, 110. Here Dudley sent his 'wild son Charles when in disgrace' with the Grand-Duke, ....
• Pg. 140
• ' Carlo, 1 the scapegrace of the family, was as we have seen a thorn in his father's side, and by his insolence and contumacy made it difficult for Robert Dudley to maintain his position at the Tuscan Court. If like his father, he had been allowed to work off his youthful energies in travel and adventure, he would probably have been less hard to manage. As it was, the trammels of Court life chafed him, and he escaped them by absenting himself without leave, and refusing the bonds of etiquette. Unfortunately he fell into bad hands, and for the sake of lawlessness consorted with outlaws, the result of which we see in his raid on his father's Villa. He was but ill prepared to take his rank as Duke of Northumberland after his father's death. However he for many years sustained the office of gentleman of the chamber to Cardinal Giovan Carlo de'Medici, for which in 1640 he was receiving 192 ducats a year besides Christmas gifts of wine and meat, and afterwards made a grand marriage with Marie Madeleine Gouffier of the ancient house of Gouffier of Poitou.
• The founder of the house, Jean Gouffier, was Seigneur of Bonnivet of Lovan-Gouffier, of Bellefaye and .....
  • ' 1 Don Carlo's baptism:
  • ' Lunedi 8 Settembre 1614 Carlo dell' Ill.mo et Ecc.mo Sig. Conte Roberto del Signor Alberto di Varuick e dell' Ill.ma Sig. Contessa Lenter di Lanceter nominata Lisabetta del Sig. Cav. Ruberto Sotuherch P. S. Pancrazio a di 7 do. h 2 b. a di 8 d. C. l' Ill.mo et Ecc.mo Don Gio: Medici. C.
  • ' This son Carlo was an unruly and undutiful son to his father, as we shall shew later.
• Pg. 141
• .... Among the family titles, which are numerous, are those of Comte d'Etampes, Comte de Caravas, Baron de Maulevrier, Duc de Roannez, Marquis de Boisy and Seigneur de Crevecoeur.
• The last was the branch to which 'Carlo Dudley's bride belonged, being the second daughter of Charles Antoine Gouffier, Marques de Braseux, Seigneur de Crevecoeur, and his wife Francoise de Pisseleu, daughter of the Seigneur de Heilly. Marie Madeleine was, when Carlo married her, already the widow of Sig. Fabroni, Lord of Marradi in the Romagna. As to whether her marriage with Carlo Dudley were happy or not, we have not much evidence. Straw, they say, will shew which way the stream flows, and few very small straws remain to us, in some gragments from Carlo Dudley's MS. Such as :
• ' La Signora Duchessa mia moglie ha voglia di licenziarsi. 6 Aprile 1648. (My wife the Duchess wished to go away.) ....
• ' After all these signs of not being able to live in the same house, the longer manuscript, a petition, from Rome, dated May 5th 1676, is more intelligible. It says that, owing to the Duke of Northumberland being so long separated from his family, and deprived of his property (this seems to mean exile and confiscation), he beseeches the Grand-Duke to remember on his behalf .... He pleads that, without his property, his daughter is losing a great matrimonial chance, the Princess of Rossano having proposed a marriage for her with the Prince of Strongoli, but in his present state he has no means of giving her the requisite dower.
• This daughter was Carola, not the famous Christine who was married in 1663 to Marchese Paleotti. 'It may be presumed that the Grand-Duke recalled him from exile, for in 1685 we have evidence of his living in his father's house in Florence, under circumstances which seem to show however, that Carlo, Duke of Northumberland was little less amenable to the decencies of Court life than Carlo the youth.
• Pg. 144
• ' .... This is the last we hear of Carlo Dudley till his death in 1686.
• Don Ambrogio, who was no doubt named after his great uncle Ambrose, Earl of Warwick, was a page to the Grand-Duchess and ... No such marriage is recorded, nor no we hear of Don Ambrogia after this, as he died young.
• Pg. 145
• Don Giovanni his next brother also died young.1
• Don Antonio 2 was one of the pages of the Grand-Duchess. ..... after all the young man only donned the white robe of Knighthood a few months before his early death.3
• Pg. 147
• Don Ferdinando 1 became a monk. .... He was in the Convent of San Domenico at Fiesole.
• At the same time his next sister Donna Teresa 2 was in the Convent of the Crocetta in Via del Boldrone, .... she wished at an early age to be a nun, but as
• Pg. 148
• she grew older and went to Court, ... on September 24th 1645, she was married to the Duca della Cornia of the great Perugia family. ....
• Pg. 150
• Of little Maria Christina there seems but little to say, the only view of her we get is Dudley's mention of her christening, 1 and her being nursed by her mother.
• Don Enrico, the youngest of all, appears now and then in the family chronicles. 2 For instance .....
• Pg. 151
• ..... This Henry, who in 1652 became Earl of Warwick (all his elder brother, except 'Carlo', being deceased), was joint heir with 'Carlo Duke of Northumberland, of their father's house in Vigna nuova.
• ' To the third generation the family of Dudley kept up its prestige. The wild Carlo had two sons, Antonio, and Roberto, and two daughters, Christine who was a famous if unprincipled beauty, and another Carlotta, who was to have married Prince Strongoli.2
• At the birth of Carlotta on December 1650, we find 'Carlo Duke of Northumberland ......
• Pg. 152
• ' Carlo Duke of Northumberland had taken up his residence in Bologna', and there his son Robert retained his home till his death in 1706. He was Chamberlain to Queen Christine. His will drawn up by Ser Jacopo Mezzavilla, is dated April 29th 1706, and is to be seen in the Archives of Bologna.
• Don Antonio, 'Carlo's second son', chose the Church as his profession, although he had been made Knight of St. Stephen without the usual formalities. He was
• Pg. 153
• Canon of the Vatican, and was buried in Rome in 1728 aged 75, in the especial place of sepulture for the Canons. He lived in Via Sant'Agnese in Rome, in the house of his brother-in-law the Marchese Paleotti;1 until, in 1692, both 'Carlo' and Enrico being deceased, their shares of the family home in Florence passed to him. This same priestly Don Antonio also became possessed, in 1695, of several farms near Fiesole, and in the parish of San Martino at Maiano, left to him by his mother 'Maria Maddalena Gouffier, marchioness of Braxeis'.
• Till 1720 the Canon lived at Viterbo, where he made his will, leaving his nephew Marchese Tommaso Paleotti sole heir to all the Dudley property in Florence, Fiesole, and Maiano. He too seems to have died soon after, for in the year 1728, all these properties lapsed to the Marchese Andrea Paleotti, Canon Antonio's heir at law, the line of Dudley being then extinct.
• 'Carlo's daughter' Cristina, who married Marchese Paleotti, was at a very early age a lady in waiting at the court of Savoy; the chronicler Tioli records under the date of December 23rd 1663, that "the Marchese Andrea Paleotti arrived at Bologna from Turins with his bride Donna Cristina, daughter of the English Duke of Northumberland, who was in the Court of Madama di Savoia at the age of fifteen." He adds that "for beauty, spirit, and bizzarria, few or none could equal
  • 1 From information kindly afforded by the Cavaliere Dottore Odoardo Vecchietti of Florence for which I beg to thank him sincerely, we learn that the Palazzo Paleotti in Bologna is in the Via Luigi Lamboni gia San Donato, and that it occupies the site of the ancient Palazzo Bentivoglio, with which family the Paleotti intermarried in the 17th century. Several of the Paleotti were Senators, and one of them a Cardinal.
• Pg. 154
• her, and that neither Prince nor Cavalier could pass without admiration, and wishing to know her."
• ______________
• From Italy after the Renaissance:
• http://books.google.cl/books?id=Yn49AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA201&lpg=PA201&dq=...
• Cristina di Nortumbria is not one of the great women of the century, but the lives of this clever, beautiful adventuress and her children are so full and varied that they help to throw a vivid light on the social conditions towards the end of it, when French influence was rapidly gaining the ascendant. Her story has been admirably told by Corrado Ricci in his "Vita Barocca," which makes anyone with a taste for such amusements sigh for a year's browsing among the diaries and avvisi in the Bologna library. Her English origin gives Cristina an added interest for us.
• She was born to adventure. 'Her father was Carlo, son of' Robert, the eldest surviving son and heir of Elizabeth's favorite, the Earl of Leicester. Robert had left England in 1606 in disgust at the treatment his claims to legitimacy had received. James I confiscated his property when he refused to return. With him went his cousin, Elizabeth Southwell, an old love of Essex, disguised as his page. They both became Roman Catholics. He repudiated his first wife, who was still alive in England, and married Elizabeth by Papal dispensation. He rose high in favor with the Tuscan court, being Grand Chamberlain to three Grand Duchesses. One of them, Maria Maddalena, induced her brother, the Emperor Ferdinand, to make him Duke of Northumberland in 1620. In his youth, he had an adventurous career at sea, and it was as a sailor that he made himself indispensable to the Grand Duke. Not only was his help invaluable in building a fleet, but it was on his advice that Leghorn, for which he designed the mole, was made a free port. He also induced a number of English Catholics to settle there.
• Dudley actually appealed to the Papal court against the confiscation of his property in England, and was awarded 8 million pounds, with 200,000 pounds interest, by way of compensation. The sentence was fixed to the Duomo in Florence, to the great annoyance of the Grand Duke, who feared complications with England.
• 'Carlo had not the opportunities of his father for sowing his wild oats decently. A typical Italian scapegrace of the day, he consorted with outlaws, keeping a Genoese bravo in his pay. He had already been in prison, when, one day, while the family was at mass, he broke into his father's villa and carried off all the plate, afterwards taking refuge in a church where he lived in sanctuary with two armed retainers. The Grand Duke did his best to help his father to manage him and he was confined in the Bargello to bring him to his senses. However, in due course, he became a gentleman of the Bedchamber to Cardinal Medici, though he was always quarrelsome. He married a French girl of good family, Madamoiselle de Gouffier de Poitou. .....
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• 'Warwick Castle and Its Earls Part One By Frances Warwick
• http://books.google.com/books?id=9RI4jdvdmwIC&pg=PA421&lpg=PA421&dq...
• Pg. 418
• Dudley's Italian family was much more extensive, Elizabeth Southwell bore him seven sons --- Cosimo, 'Carlo', Ambrogio, Giovanni, Antonio, Ferdinando, and Enrico; and five daughters --- Maria, Anna, Madalena, Teresa and Maria Christina.
• Cosimo was a young man of great promise, but off in his prime. He was hardly more than a boy when the Grand Duke made him Colonel of the Guard. He died at Piombino, of malaria, at the age of twenty-one.
• Pg. 420 is not part of this book preview.
• Pg. 421 (THIS PAGE STARTS OUT ABOUT CARLO'S DAUGHTER)
• 'the title. One of his daughters, Christine, married the Marchese Paleotti, and had two children: a son, who was hanged at Tyburn for the murder of his valet: and a daughter, who married Charles Talbot, Duke of Shrewsbury, and was one of the beauties at the Court of George I.
• Ambrogio became page to to the Grand Duchess. There was some talk of marrying him to "a daughter of the Rucellai close by"; but he died young, unmarried. The next brother, Giovanni, also died young; Antonio only just lived to reach man's estate; Ferdinando became a monk. Of Enrico we know very little except that in 1652, all his brother except Carlo, Duke of Northumberland, being dead, he took the title of Earl of Warwick.
• We turn to the daughters.
• Maria, in 1630, married Orazio Appiano, Prince of Piombino. Anna died unmarried in 1629, and was buried in San Pancrazio. Madalena married first Spinetta Malepina, and then Giambattista, son of Gianantonio Fieschi of the Counts of Lavagna-- with which house the English Family of Heneage is connected. Christina, Queen of Sweden, was present at her first marriage. Teresa first thought of taking the veil, but afterwards changed her mind and accepted an offer of marriage from the Duca della Cornia. her husband died son afterwards, and she then married Count Mario Carpegna, first Gentleman of the Chamber to the Cardinal Carlo di Medici, subsequently High Steward and Vice-Legate to Avignon. She died in
• Pg. 422
• Rome on August 21, 1698. Of the youngest sister, Maria Christina, there is no information.
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• Charles [Talbot], 12th Earl of Shrewsbury later 1st Duke of Shrewsbury, KG PC 1st son and heir of Francis [Talbot], 11th Earl of Shrewsbury, by his second wife Lady Anna Maria Brudenell, dau. by his second wife of Robert [Brudenell], 2nd Earl of Cardigan
• • mar. 20 Aug 1705 Adelaide Paleotti, Lady of the Bedchamber to Caroline, Princess of Wales 1714-26 (d. 29 Jun 1726), dau. of Andrew, Marquis Paleotti, of Bologna, by his second wife Maria Cristina Dudley, 5th dau. of 'Carlo Dudley, titular Duke of Northumberland'
• http://www.cracroftspeerage.co.uk/online/content/Shrewsbury1694.htm
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Carlo, the eldest and heir, was frequently at odds with his father. In his youth he was said to be riotous, extravagant and unruly; one evening he made a disturbance at a great reception at Palazzo Strozzi. He was for some time in disgrace at Court, and confined by the Grand Duke's order to the Fortezza at Florence.

Sources:

Life of Sir Robert Dudley, Earl of Warwick and Duke of Northumberland By John Temple Leader