Of course on Henry IV. succeeding, the crown resumed the ownership of the fortress, and thus it continued, often enlivened by the visits of royalty, until the days of Elizabeth, who bestowed it on her favourite, Robert Dudley, fifth son of the Duke of Northumberland, with all the royalties thereto belonging. Without enlarging on the history of this courtier, it is enough to say that he seems to have expended the enormous emoluments derived from the many dignities with which Elizabeth overwhelmed him in his lavish outlay upon Kenilworth. The additions and alterations made there by this Dudley involved an expenditure of £60,000--an incredible sum in those days. He erected the great gatehouse on the north, also the mass of square rooms from the north-east angle of the upper court, the buildings, called after him, and the gallery and lower gatehouse towers, together with a great range of stabling. He removed the Norman windows from the keep, replacing them by more modern ones; and it is evident that the great object of his outlay was to provide magnificent accommodation for the entertainment of his Queen and her Court. This reception took place in July, 1575, and the festivities were continued for seventeen days during which every sort of prodigal extravagance possible at that age was indulged in. It cost Leicester £1,000 a day. At his death he bequeathed the castle to his brother Ambrose, Earl of Warwick, for life, and afterwards to his own son Sir Robert Dudley, upon whose birth and legitimacy the father (who is certainly one of the dark characters in English history) chose to throw doubts. This seems to have incited that greedy monarch, James I., to refuse the succession to Sir Robert, whom he forced to consent to a nominal sale of the property to Henry, Prince of Wales, at one-third of its value, and even that was never paid. Dudley, in disgust, withdrew from England, and lived in much honour at Florence, when he died about the year 1650. When the place fell into the hands of Oliver Cromwell, a sort of commission of army officers was sent to Kenilworth to divide and share the property between them, and they, caring nothing for historical associations, the splendour of the structure, or the richness of the furniture and plenishing (it was but seventy-five years after the entertainment of Elizabeth there) proceeded to strip the place, to cut the timber, kill the deer, and even to sell the walls and roofing, for the value of the bare materials. At the restoration, Charles II. granted the reversion of the manor to Lawrence, Lord Hyde, second son of Chancellor Clarendon, whom he created Baron Kenilworth and Earl of Rochester. His grandson leaving only a daughter, the lands and ruins came by marriage to the Essex family and, afterwards, by marriage to Thomas Villiers, the second son of the Earl of Jersey, created, in 1756, Baron Hyde, in whose family they still continue.