On the accession of Henry the Seventh, the Castle was bestowed upon his son, as Duke of Cornwall, who, to the numerous repairs and embellishments made by his royal predecessors, contributed many others. He removed what was called the ‘Plaisance en Marais’--supposed to have been a small summer-house in the marshy flat beyond the walls--to the interior of the castle-yard, where its remains are still visible near the <g>Swan Tower</g>. Inheriting the munificence and taste of his father--“the onlie phœnix of hys tyme for fyne and curious masonrie,”[198] and whose “buildings were most goodlie and after the newest caste, all of pleasure,”[199] the Duke evinced in his repairs of Kenilworth[200] that love and patronage of the fine arts by which he was afterwards distinguished as Henry the Eighth. The building formerly known as “Henry the Eighth’s Lodgings,” was a capacious structure, situated between the Keep, or Cæsar’s Tower, on the right, and Leicester’s Buildings on the left; comprising an extensive suite of apartments, and forming the eastern side of the inner court. Through this building, close to the tower, was the archway leading into the castle-yard. From Henry the Eighth it descended to his son, Edward the Sixth; then to Mary, and lastly to Queen Elizabeth, who bestowed it upon her favourite, Robert Dudley, fifth son of the Duke of Northumberland, with all the royalties thereto belonging. This forms the most memorable incident in the history of Kenilworth. This Sir Robert Dudley appears on almost every page of the history of Elizabeth’s reign. He had been included in the attainder of his family, but was restored in blood by Queen Mary, who appointed him, when a very young man, Master of the Ordnance at the siege of St. Quintin. Elizabeth overwhelmed him with dignities; giving him the Garter while a commoner; creating him Baron of Denbigh and Earl of Leicester; and investing him with the order of St. Michael, which the King of France, by way of compliment, had requested her to confer on two of her subjects. He was likewise Master of the Horse, Steward of the Household, Chancellor of Oxford, Ranger of the Forests south of Trent, and Captain-general of the English forces in the Netherlands; and, as though the great ancient offices of his country were not sufficient for the gratification of his ambitious temper, a patent was preparing at the time of his death for one before unheard of--the Queen’s Lieutenant in the government of England and Ireland. He was distinguished by the elegance of his manners and the profuseness of his expenses, and affected a great degree of piety, and a strict purity of conduct. To these plausible appearances, though unpossessed of either wisdom or virtue, he owed the maintenance of his power to the last, against a strong party at court, and even against the Queen herself, who would gladly have pulled him down when those motives, which doubtless produced her first favours to him, had lost their force.