PRUDDE, William, of ?Westminster, Mdx.

The identification of the man who represented Hindon in the second Parliament of 1449 presents some difficulties. Wedgwood believed him to have been one William Prout, the episcopal bailiff at Downton in the early 1440s, and there is no positive evidence to refute this suggestion. HP Biogs. ed. Wedgwood and Holt, 701. The bp. of Winchester’s pipe roll cited by Wedgwood in evidence dates from 1438-9, rather than 1443. Yet, Hindon rarely, if ever, returned local men, and it is thus not improbable that like his parliamentary colleague, the London lawyer Thomas Coberley*, Prudde was a complete outsider. If so, he may have been the son of John Prudde of Westminster, serjeant of the glasiery to Henry VI, and may have owed his return to the patronage of the royal household. Although no definite evidence has been discovered it is probable that John Prudde played his part in the glazing of Henry VI’s new foundation at Eton, and may there have come to the attention of William Waynflete, bishop of Winchester, the lord of the borough of Hindon. CCR, 1441-7, p. 239; 1468-76, no. 1202.