Dugdale

Dugdale, Sir William, the descendant of an old Lancashire family, was born at Shustoke, near Coleshill, Warwickshire, in 1605. Marrying at the early age of seventeen, and succeeding to his paternal estates in 1624, he settled down as a country squire at Blyth Hall, devoting himself to those antiquarian studies that had attracted him from his boyhood. He was collecting materials for a history of Warwickshire when a visit to London brought him into contact with Sir Henry Spelman, the Earl Marshal, Lord Arundel, and Sir Christopher Hatton. He received a post in the Herald's Office, and began to lay the foundations of his great work Monasticon Anylicanum, making careful drawings, too, of the chief churches in England, the existence of which was threatened by Puritan zeal. In 1641 he joined Charles I. at Oxford, and spent his next four years in a curious alternation between military duties and archaeological research. After the surrender of Oxford he resumed his task in London, with Dodsworth's help, and begun the publication of the Monasticon in 1655. At the Restoration he was appointed Norroy King-at-Arms, and in 1677 succeeded to the more important office connected with the Order of the Garter. He died at his

Warwickshire home in 1686. We owe to him a History of St. Paul's, a Baronage of England, and other minor works, besides his autobiography and 1he great monument of industry with which his name is associated.