CUDDON, Richard, of Dunwich, Suff.

The senior branch of the Cuddon family, represented by Richard’s uncle, Peter Cuddon†, and his cousin, Robert Cuddon*, had attained the status of gentry by the early fifteenth century, and the Cuddons were among the most important and well connected residents of Dunwich in Henry VI’s reign. Richard’s father, another Robert, was a younger son and less prominent than the senior members of the family, although he did serve five terms as bailiff of the borough. The Commons 1386-1421, ii. 707-9. Richard attained his majority long before his father died. As early as 1407, he appears to have contributed to the funds that the burgesses of Dunwich needed for its legal battles with Sir Roger Swillington, lord of the neighbouring manor of Blythburgh. There was perhaps a personal element to his support for the opposition to Swillington: four years earlier, the knight had been obliged to find sureties to keep the peace towards Richard’s uncle, Peter Cuddon, who held a small manor at Westleton, where Swillington was the chief lord. KB27/686, rot. 9; 702, rot. 45d; Bailiffs’ Minute Bk. 12-13, 47; C.F.

A contemporary minute book kept by the borough’s bailiffs provides much of our information about Cuddon. In about 1417, for example, he hired a gun that belonged to the community for 4d., but the uses to which he put it are unknown. The book also shows that a fellow burgess, Peter Bagge, was a close associate. During the late 1420s, he and Bagge co-owned a fishing boat of which the latter was skipper and, at the end of the same decade, they made a joint contribution to the borough of 6s. 8d., towards the costs of constructing a new east quay in the port of Dunwich. Bailiffs’ Minute Bk. 95, 97, 98, 101-2, 105-6, 110, 114, 118-19, 120-1, 125, A Chancery bill filed by Cuddon, probably in the 1430s or 1440s, provides further evidence of his association with Bagge. The purpose of the bill was to retrieve a bond that Cuddon had given John Gyne* of Dunwich; the purpose of the bond was to guarantee that Cuddon would pay Bagge ten marks for a last of red herring. Cuddon claimed that it had been superseded by a new bond, which Bagge and Peter Menser had entered on his behalf after Gyne had agreed to extend the period allowed to pay for the purchase, but it is not recorded whether the court accepted his claim. C1/16/444.

Cuddon had succeeded his father by April 1427, since by then he was in possession of the elder man’s property at Dunwich, including a shop in the market, for which he paid the corporation an annual rent of 21d. By now, he was very much involved in the borough’s affairs at an official level. He had already served two terms as bailiff of Dunwich and had taken part in making a lease of the lands once held by Augustine Illes† (a prominent burgess of the 1330s and 1340s) to John Luke* in July 1425. He had also become a property owner on his own account before his father’s death; although Robert Cuddon lived in St. Leonard’s parish his son paid tax as a resident of St. Peter’s in the early 1420s. In May 1422 the town’s court amerced John Moreff* for failing to fill a clay pit he had made in the common way by the seashore, next to a messuage which the younger Cuddon held in St. John’s parish. Richard also kept livestock, for he had 12 sheep and eight lambs pasturing on a common marsh at the end of the 1420s. The Commons 1386-1421, ii. 708; Bailiffs’ Minute Bk. 111, 123, 136; SC11/886, mm. 1, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 24, 27; Add. Roll 40722; Suff. RO (Ipswich), archdeaconry of Suff. wills, IC/AA2/1/168-70.

Before becoming an MP for the first time, Cuddon participated in several parliamentary elections at Dunwich, and he acted as a mainpernor for Richard Russell‡, upon the latter’s election to the Commons in 1427 (although in the event Russell did not sit). In the same year, he contributed 3s. towards the extraordinary levy imposed by the borough authorities to cover the costs of sending its representatives to Parliament. Bailiffs’ Minute Bk. 133. Although Russell appears on the return for 1427, the minute bk. records that John Polard* and Philip Canon* were the men who sat for the borough in that Parl.: ibid. 132. At his own election to the Parliament of 1431 his mainpernors were Robert Thorpe* and John Moreff. He subsequently took part in several more elections as an attestor and surety and gained election for the second time in 1449. In the meantime, he served two consecutive terms as bailiff of Dunwich and later as its coroner. Cuddon was still alive in late 1455, when a suit he had brought in the court of common pleas against Robert Thorpe of Dunwich (either the MP of 1435 or a younger namesake) came to pleadings. He alleged that Thorpe had entered into a bond with him at Dunwich for £10 as far back as Michaelmas 1435 but had failed to pay that sum. Thorpe counterpleaded that he had entered the bond under duress, while held against his will by Cuddon. Both parties agreed to put the matter to a jury, which had yet to assemble two years later and it possible that the trial never took place. CP40/779, rot. 145; 780, rot. 270; 781, rot. 95d; 784, rot. 189.