LUDLOW, William I (1397-1474), of Stokesay, Salop.

The founders of the family, Nicholas Ludlow and his more famous son, Laurence (d.1294), made fortunes trading in wool during the reign of Edward I. The latter established the family among the gentry by purchasing the manor of Stokesay in south Shropshire. C. Train, Ludlows of Stokesey, 7-28. There he built what now remains ‘as the most complete late thirteenth-century fortified house to survive in England or Wales’. A. Emery, Greater Med. Houses, ii. 574. The marriage of his son, Sir William Ludlow† (d.1316), to Maud (d.1347), daughter and heiress of William de Hodnet†, brought the family landholdings in the north of the county centred on Hodnet. VCH Salop, viii. 312; Knights of Edw. I (Harl. Soc. lxxxii), 55-56. Later generations did not add significantly to this estate, but it was already sufficient to make them one of the wealthiest Shropshire gentry families, and they provided the county with MPs and sheriffs. Our MP’s paternal uncle, Sir Richard, who represented the county in three Parliaments, appears to have died unmarried, and was succeeded by his brother, Sir John. In 1396 the latter settled all his lands, save for the very small part held in chief, upon his wife, Isabel, in jointure. As the daughter of a knight and the widow of another, she was a desirable enough match, but she was not an heiress, and this settlement appears disproportionately generous. As events transpired, however, it served the short-term interests of the family. Sir John did not long survive his marriage, and on his death in 1398 his son by Isabel was little more than a year old. Sir Richard’s foresight in conveying the lands he held in chief to feoffees and Isabel’s life interest in the rest kept both the whole estate and the body of the heir out of a long wardship. CAD, vi. C4637, 4673; CIPM, xvii. 1178.

On the other hand, Isabel’s long survival, far longer than could have been sensibly anticipated when the jointure was settled, left our MP dependent upon his mother’s generosity until he was over 40 years old. Fortunately for him, she was ready to indulge him. On 26 Sept. 1415, while he was still underage, she demised to him and two local parsons the manor of Stokesay and other south Shropshire lands, together with the contents, valued at £100, of the manor-house of Stokesay, to hold for the term of nine years at the nominal rent. She retained in her own hands only the manor of Hodnet and the other Ludlow lands in the north-east of the county. Bodl. Earls of Craven mss, ‘Salop Deeds, 1279-1498’, unnumbered; CIPM, xxvi. 490. Isabel could afford to be generous. By the end of 1401 she had taken, as her third husband, Sir Fulk Pembridge† of Tong (Shropshire), and on his death in 1409 he left her well provided for. She had married Pembridge by 28 Dec. 1401: CIPM, xxvi. 489. This match in turn explains three more. Pembridge, without children of his own, took a special interest in his wife’s. In 1402 he contracted William’s sister, Margery, to Sir William Trussell† (c.1385-1464), a kinsman of his first wife, and within a few years William himself was married to Pembridge’s great-niece, Isabel Vernon, and another of his sisters, Benedicta, to Isabel’s brother, Sir Richard Vernon*. These two marriages had taken place before 25 Nov. 1410: CPR, 1408-13, p. 280. Early in his career it looked as though William might become as important a figure as his wealthy Vernon brother-in-law was to be. The appointments that came his way as a young man are striking. He was named as sheriff of Shropshire when only 20 years old (perhaps because better-qualified candidates were compromised by recent disorders in the county); he was added to the county bench soon after the end of his term of office; and in 1427 he was elected to Parliament. CFR, xiv. 215; CPR, 1416-22, p. 458; C219/13/5. He also saw at least one period of military service in France, mustering with a small retinue at Southampton on 6 May 1420; and, on 14 Apr. 1430, he sued out letters of attorney as departing on the King’s coronation expedition, although it is not known if he served. E101/49/36, m. 2; C76/112, m. 16.

Until the late 1440s, Ludlow was one of the main workhorses of local government in his native shire. From the moment of his appointment to the bench he was active as a j.p. In the autumn of 1420 he spent at least three days on the business of the bench at Shrewsbury, and during the payment period that ended in July 1433 he attended on all eight days on which the j.p.s met. KB27/641, rex rot. 17d; 646, rex rot. 4d; C258/43/11; E101/584/22. But it was as sheriff that he was most intensely busy: between 1417 and 1448 he served as many as five terms in the office. Such sterling service went with only minor reward from the Crown. On 28 May 1434, after his second term in the office, he was allowed a pardon of account in the modest sum of £32, and in June 1437 and July 1446 he secured pardons which would serve, among other things, as protection against any suit of the Crown for debts incurred as sheriff. E159/210, brevia Trin. rot. 1d; C67/38, m. 19; 39, m. 12. In the midst of this local administrative activity, Ludlow was, in July 1439, appointed by the Crown as marshal of Calais, and took up his office in person at the end of the following September. PPC, v. 406; E404/57/305. Nothing known of his career provides a clear context for his appointment, and it is tempting to conclude that the appointee was his more prominent namesake, William Ludlow II*. However, the pardon given to our MP in 1446 proves that he was the marshal, describing him as ‘of Stokesay, late sheriff of Shropshire, alias marshal of Calais’. Part of the explanation for his appointment lies in his connexion with the Household: from 1442 he numbered among the esquires of the King’s hall and chamber, a position he maintained until 1451. C67/39, m. 12; E101/409/11, f. 38v; 410/1, f. 30; 3; 6, f. 40. It is not known how long he served as marshal, an office requiring attendance at Calais. He was still in post in August 1441, when the Exchequer was ordered to pay £138 5s. 4d. due to him as arrears of wages, but it is likely that he was no longer so in November 1442, when pricked for a further term as sheriff of Shropshire. E404/57/305; CFR, xvii. 240.

Ludlow’s term as marshal marked the highpoint of his career, although he maintained his prominence into the late 1440s. He was among the many Household men who served in the expedition sent to escort Margaret of Anjou to England, and on 2 May 1445 he was rewarded with a life grant of the stewardship of Monmouth. Add. 23938, ff. 5d, 14d; Somerville, i. 647-8. His mother’s death late in 1446 augmented his wealth, bringing him the manor of Hodnet and taking the total value of his lands to about £80 p.a. In her inq. post mortem, she was returned as seised of six manors, all, save that of Westbury, in the north of the county, and together undervalued at £15 10s. p.a.: CIPM, xxvi. 490. No strictly contemporary valuation of the whole Ludlow estates survives, but the comprehensive inq. post mortem taken on the death of our MP’s son, Sir Richard, valued them at £78 4s. 4d.: CIPM Hen. VII, ii. 116. Our MP was himself assessed on an income of £50 p.a. to the subsidy of 1436, that is, before he had acquired his mother’s lands: E159/212, recorda Hil. rot. 14 (vii). In February 1447, described as ‘King’s esquire’ he was accorded the privilege of entering her lands without suing livery out of royal hands, and in the following November he was again pricked as sheriff of his native county. CPR, 1446-52, p. 51; E159/224, brevia Easter rot. 5d. Thereafter, however, Ludlow became almost inactive in public affairs beyond what had probably become a routine appointment as a j.p. He is not named among those in receipt of household robes in 1451-2, and on 31 May 1455, in the redistribution of offices that followed the Yorkist victory at the first battle of St. Albans, Richard Neville, earl of Warwick, replaced him as steward of Monmouth. E101/410/9; Somerville, i. 648. His loss of that office need not imply that he was distrusted by the Yorkists; it reflects rather the retirement of a man no longer interested in seeking advancement.

The practical headship of the family was already passing to Ludlow’s sons, Richard and Maurice, who became active at about the time of their grandmother’s death. In Hilary term 1447 they were sued for trespass by William Fitzalan, earl of Arundel; and the elder, Richard, attested the Shropshire parliamentary election of 1455. Two years later, he and Maurice were defendants in an action of trespass sued by John Talbot, earl of Shrewsbury; and, more significantly, at an unknown date, almost certainly in the 1450s, Maurice was granted an annuity of ten marks by Richard, duke of York. KB27/744, rot. 17d; 783, rot. 4; C219/16/3; LP Hen. VIII, ii (1), 1804. William’s only significant appearances in the records during these years are in their company. In June 1453 the three of them were indicted before the county coroners as receivers of a yeoman, John Sheldon, supposedly guilty of a murder at Hodnet in the previous autumn. The allegation appears to have been false: Sheldon claimed that the supposed victim had died of the plague and the indictment was maliciously obtained by Roger Corbet II*. Corbet’s quarrel was probably with our MP and his family, his near-neighbours, but there is no evidence to illuminate the matter further. KB9/271/102; C1/22/191. On 25 Oct. 1453, in London, Corbet entered into a bond in £200 to our MP, probably in connexion with a dispute between them: CP40/809, rot. 310d. More interesting is the appearance of William and Maurice Ludlow in conveyances connected with the great Mountfort quarrel in Warwickshire. In the summer of 1454 Sir Baldwin Mountfort, in dispute with his half-brother, Edmund Mountfort*, named the two Ludlows among his feoffees in two of the disputed manors. Family associations help explain Sir Baldwin’s choice, in that his wife was (or had been) a sister of our MP’s brother-in-law, Sir Richard Vernon, but there may also have been a political dimension. Among the other feoffees was the duke of York’s son, Edward, earl of March, and, in view of the annuity Maurice may already have had from the duke, the Ludlows may have been included as the duke’s clients. CCR, 1454-61, pp. 186, 429.

This evidence, together with the consideration that the Ludlows were tenants of the earldom of March in respect of their manor of Hodnet and other property, suggests that the family may have been active supporters of the duke of York during the civil war of 1459-61. If so, that support has gone undocumented. The only indication of our MP’s allegiance is his appointment to a commission of array early in the reign of Edward IV. His removal from the commission of the peace issued during the Readeption might also be taken that he was considered a supporter of York; and yet his almost complete inactivity, as far as activity is reflected in the records, make it unlikely that he was seen as a man of weight by either York of Lancaster. CPR, 1461-7, p. 98; 1467-77, p. 627. Indeed, it is possible that the marked diminution of his activities from the late 1440s was the result of some debilitating disorder. His sons were probably of greater account, and the Shrewsbury borough records provide an intriguing reference to Maurice. On the day of the county election to the Parliament of April 1463, the borough authorities paid 7s. 2d. in cash and 11s. in victuals to men to keep the town gates because of ‘discordia et lis’ between Maurice and an impoverished local peer, Richard, Lord Grey of Powis. Salop Archs., Shrewsbury recs., bailiffs’ accts. 3365/391, m. 1d.

There is no more to be said of William, save that he died shortly before 16 Sept. 1474, when a writ of diem clausit extremum was issued to the escheator of Shropshire. An inquisition was duly taken, but the return is now lost. In 1475 his eldest son was both knighted and added to the Shropshire bench. CFR, xxi. 227, 267; CIPM (Rec. Comm.), iv. 367; W.A. Shaw, Knights of Eng. i. 137; CPR, 1467-77, p. 628. The family failed in the main male line on Sir Richard’s death in 1498, and their lands passed to the Vernons. In 1493 Sir Richard had accepted 500 marks from Sir Henry Vernon† to marry his two grand-daughters and heiresses-apparent (the daughters of his late son, John), to their third cousins, two of Vernon’s younger sons, Thomas and Humphrey. CIPM Hen. VII, ii. 116. In 1520 a formal division of the Ludlow estates was made between the two couples: CAD, vi. C7569.