of the estate of the Earl of Lincoln, and continued so for more
than ten years. Plunged in debt as the estate had been by the
excesses of Thomas, Earl of Lincoln, who left the property to his
son Theophilus, so encumbered that it was well nigh worthless, a
few years of Dudley's skillful management freed it entirely, and
he became the dear and trusted friend of the entire family. His
first child had been born in 1610, a son named Samuel, and in 1612
came the daughter whose delicate infancy and childhood gave small
hint of the endurance shown in later years. Of much the same
station and training as Mrs. Lucy Hutchinson, Anne Dudley could
undoubtedly have written in the same words as that most delightful
of chroniclers: "By the time I was four years old I read English
perfectly, and having a great memory I was carried to sermons....
When I was about seven years of age, I remember I had at one time
eight tutors in several qualities, languages, music, dancing,
writing and needle work; but my genius was quite averse from all
but my book, and that I was so eager of, that my mother thinking
it prejudiced my health, would moderate me in it; yet this rather
animated me than kept me back, and every moment I could steal from
my play I would employ in any book I could find when my own were
locked up from me."

It is certain that the little Anne studied the Scriptures at six
or seven, with as painful solicitude as her elders, for she writes
in the fragmentary diary which gives almost the only clue to her
real life:

"In my young years, about 6 or 7, as I take it, I began to make
conscience of my wayes, and what I knew was sinful, as lying,
disobedience to Parents, etc., I avoided it. If at any time I was