_Impe_ (Vol. viii., pp. 443. 623.).--This epithet has been much discussed,
but I think that no reference has been made to the following remarkable
instances of its application.
In the Beauchamp Chapel at St. Mary's Warwick is the altar-tomb and effigy
of the infant son of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, with a long
inscription, which begins:
"Heere resteth the body of the noble impe Robert of Dudley, Baronet of
Denbigh, sonne of Robert, Erle of Leycester, nephew and heire unto
Ambrose, Erle of Warwike."
In a letter from Edinburgh, dated 5th November, 1578, John Aleyn to the
Bishop of Carlisle, writes of "the goodly young Imp their King," who was
afterwards our James I.; and the Earl of Shrewsbury in 1585 writes of "my
wife and her imps," the lady being his energetic Countess Elizabeth
Hardwick, widow of Sir William Cavendish. (See Lodge's _Illustrations of
British History_, vol. ii. pp. 135. 275.)