CUDWORTH, John, of Dunwich, Suff.

This MP is effectively unidentified, but one curious coincidence is worth noting. In the Parliament of 1447 his namesake, as master of the hospital of Holy Trinity at Pontefract, successfully petitioned for the restoration of a considerable property in Norfolk settled on the hospital by its founder, Sir Robert Knolles, but recovered against it by Robert Browe* in 1432. PROME, xii. 12-13; CPR, 1446-52, pp. 17, 425. It is possible that our MP was a close kinsman of the master, and thus that his election was connected with the presentation of this petition. Beyond this, however, it is difficult to go. There is no reason to identify the MP with the John Cudworth of Werneth in Lancashire, a tenant of the duchy of Lancaster who was still a minor in 1446, and he is the only candidate suggested by the surviving records. VCH Lancs. v. 95n. Most probably, the MP was a townsman of the borough he represented (who has left no trace on the records beyond his election), and it is mere coincidence that he was a namesake of the master of Holy Trinity.