Immediately after the second trial had been made with such good issue, Dud wrote to his father the Earl, then in London, informing him what he had done, and desiring him at once to obtain a patent for the invention from King James. This was readily granted, and the patent (No. 18), dated the 22nd February, 1620, was taken out in the name of Lord Dudley himself. Dud proceeded with the manufacture of iron at Pensnet, and also at Cradley in Staffordshire, where he erected another furnace; and a year after the patent was granted he was enabled to send up to the Tower, by the King's command, a considerable quantity of the new iron for trial. Many experiments were made with it: its qualities were fairly tested, and it was pronounced "good merchantable iron." Dud adds, in his Treatise, that his brother-in-law, Richard Parkshouse, of Sedgeley,[5] "had a fowling-gun there made of the Pit-cole iron," which was "well approved." There was therefore every prospect of the new method of manufacture becoming fairly established, and with greater experience further improvements might with confidence be anticipated, when a succession of calamities occurred to the inventor which involved him in difficulties and put an effectual stop to the progress of his enterprise. The new works had been in successful operation little more than a year, when a flood, long after known as the "Great May-day Flood," swept away Dudley's principal works at Cradley, and otherwise inflicted much damage throughout the district. "At the market town called Stourbridge," says Dud, in the course of his curious narrative, "although the author sent with speed to preserve the people from drowning, and one resolute man was carried from the bridge there in the day-time, the nether part of the town was so deep in water that the people had much ado to preserve their lives in the uppermost rooms of their houses." Dudley himself received very little sympathy for his losses. On the contrary, the iron-smelters of the district rejoiced exceedingly at the destruction of his works by the flood. They had seen him making good iron by his new patent process, and selling it cheaper than they could afford to do. They accordingly put in circulation all manner of disparaging reports about his iron. It was bad iron, not fit to be used; indeed no iron, except what was smelted with charcoal of wood, could be good. To smelt it with coal was a dangerous innovation, and could only result in some great public calamity. The ironmasters even appealed to King James to put a stop to Dud's manufacture, alleging that his iron was not merchantable. And then came the great flood, which swept away his works; the hostile ironmasters now hoping that there was an end for ever of Dudley's pit-coal iron.