LUDLOWE, Sir Henry (?1591-1643), of Maiden Bradley, Wilts.

Ludlowe, one of the few avowedly republican MPs during the early 1640s, came from a family which had been prominent in Wiltshire since the fourteenth century, and which had held the seat at Hill Deverill since its acquisition by William Ludlow† (d. 1478), who served as butler to Henry IV, Henry V and Henry VI. Ludlowe’s grandfather was sheriff of the county in 1567, and his father sat in four Parliaments between 1571 and 1614.18HP Commons 1558-1603; HP Commons 1604-1629. Ludlowe is not to be confused with his half-brother, Henry Ludlow† of Tadley (d. 1639), Sir Edmund’s heir from his first marriage. Henry Ludlow senior sat in the Commons in the final Elizabethan and first Jacobean parliaments, and succeeded to the family estates in 1624, although our MP received Maiden Bradley, and subsequently became involved in a protracted dispute over the remainder of the estate.19C142/457/86; Som. RO, DD/PH/62; PROB6/17, f. 74; SP16/442, f. 1.

That Henry Ludlowe junior became a prominent member of the Wiltshire gentry owed much to his marriage in 1612 to a niece of the master of the rolls, Sir Thomas Phelips†, which took place in Rolls Chapel. Phelips† may have been able to provide Ludlowe with electoral backing at Heytesbury, where he was returned in 1614, although the most likely patron was Sir Thomas Thynne†.20London Mar. Lics. ed. Foster, 868. Although returned again in 1621 and 1624, Ludlowe made little impression upon proceedings, and displayed little evidence of the political radicalism which later became apparent.21HP Commons 1604-1629. Ludlowe’s apparent conformity ensured that he was pricked as sheriff in 1633, but signs of opposition to Caroline policies began to emerge in 1637.22CSP Dom. 1633-4, pp. 491, 547, 550; 1634-5, pp. 105, 107, 446, 447. Objections to Ship Money may have provided the basis for Ludlowe’s reluctance – alongside other local justices of the peace – to cooperate with demands for timber supplies, which led to threats from the privy council, while in 1638 he also became involved in a local tithes dispute.23CSP Dom. 1637, p. 137; SP16/357, f. 29; SP16/388, f. 195; SP16/407, ff. 129-30. More important was Ludlowe’s refusal to loan money to the king in 1639 to finance the first bishops’ war.24Rushworth, Hist. Collns. iii. 915.

Although Ludlowe did not return to the Commons in the Short Parliament, he secured one of the county seats in October 1640, when he was almost certainly recognised as being hostile to the court.25CCSP i. 209. Nevertheless, Ludlowe made few contributions to proceedings during the opening year of the Parliament, other than in preparing instructions regarding the collection of the subsidy, and subscribing the Covenant.26CJ ii. 130b, 133b. That he subsequently became a particularly controversial member probably reflected political rather than religious tension. Ludlowe was considered to be on friendly terms with at least some known Catholics, and his only known involvement in religious affairs during the Long Parliament was as promoter of a Warminster petition concerning a particular minister, and as a member of a committee to consider propositions regarding sabbath observance.27Fairfax Corresp. ed. Johnson, ii. 290; PJ ii. 279; CJ ii. 173b, 559.

Ludlowe may have been radicalised by the attempted arrest of the Five Members in January 1642. Having been appointed in mid-December 1641 to a committee to consider the breach of Commons privilege arising from the king’s knowledge of the House’s proceedings, Ludlowe subsequently commented that the attempt by Sir William Killigrew† and Sir William Fleming to spread allegations against the Five Members around the inns of court represented ‘a traitorous conspiracy’. Although Ludlowe’s motion that these two men should be proceeded against was probably welcomed by many MPs, it was evidently considered to be ‘very long’ and to contain ‘too high expressions’.28D’Ewes (C), 398, 400; PJ i. 28, 30; CJ ii. 374. Ludlowe was appointed to the committee to investigate the matter but soon courted controversy again in a speech during a debate on the militia, in which he claimed that ‘the king is derivative from Parliament and not the Parliament from the king, and if he govern not by Parliament then he govern by force and abuseth the law’ (1 Feb.).29CJ ii. 394a; PJ i. 167, 249.

Such outbursts were evidently not considered unacceptable, however, and during the weeks which followed Ludlowe remained active in the Commons, and in conferences with the Lords on issues such as the militia bill. The latter he can be presumed to have supported, not least from his sponsorship of a Wiltshire petition which called for the kingdom to be placed in a posture of defence (24 Feb.).30CJ ii. 452b, 512b, 525b, 550b; PJ i. 453, 458; LJ iv. 611. Conflicting petitions – such as the Kent petition promoted by Sir Edward Dering* – Ludlowe was perfectly willing to suppress.31CJ ii. 550b.

Ludlowe could not refrain for long from making further provocative statements, however. On 7 May, during a debate on message from the king regarding Hull, Ludlowe was reported to have said that ‘he that wrote it did not deserve to be king of England’. Challenged by other MPs, Ludlowe was forced to withdraw from the chamber temporarily, while the matter was debated.32CJ ii. 563a-b; HMC 5th Rep. 147. On this occasion, however, Ludlowe was given the benefit of the doubt, and his speech was ‘interpreted in a mild sense as applied only to the writer, not to the king’. Ludlowe escaped with a ‘reprehension’ from the Speaker, who informed him that

the words which he spoke were words that had an aspect towards the king, and when words fall from him that may reflect upon his sacred person, he ought to weigh them, that they may be accompanied with that duty which is due from a loyal subject to so gracious a sovereign.33CJ ii. 563b; PJ ii. 292; HMC 5th Rep. 147-8.

One contemporary commentator considered this to be little more than a fudge, claiming that the matter was ‘shuffled over’ in order to clear Ludlowe.34HMC 5th Rep. 178. Charles too was less charitable towards Ludlowe, complaining to the Commons about his comments in the same passage as he highlighted Henry Marten’s* claim that ‘the happiness of the kingdom did not depend on His Majesty or upon any of the royal branches of that root’.35Clarendon, Hist. ii. 149.

While it was unclear how many Members would continue to support the ‘fiery spirits’ in the Commons, Ludlowe’s radicalism was evidently tolerated by those future parliamentarians who did not share his republican outlook. During the weeks that followed he was engaged by negotiations with the king, and involved in early preparations for enlisting an army, for which he personally offered to provide at least three horses.36CJ ii. 583b, 609b, 626b, 664a, 685a, 728b; PJ iii. 223, 474. Following the raising of the royal standard at Nottingham in August 1642, Ludlowe was among MPs who attempted to make alterations to Parliament’s daily prayers, although the nature of those changes can only be speculated upon.37CJ ii. 739b.

Amid the early skirmishes of the wars, Ludlowe objected to the king’s refusal to accept communications from Parliament delivered by those he had branded as ‘traitors’, and mocked what he regarded as Charles’s attempt to establish York as ‘a kingdom of itself’ (3 Oct.).38Add. 18777, ff. 18b, 19b. He also became involved in negotiations with, and plans for the defence of, the City of London, as well as in the organisation of the wider war effort.39CJ ii. 817b, 825a, 825b, 838b; Add. 18777, f. 45v. Among those proclaimed traitors by the king in early November, Ludlowe responded that Parliament was ‘inferior to the whole body of the kingdom [and] the king inferior to Parliament, to the law, and to God’; even though he conceded that ‘in himself’ the king ‘was superior to any man in the kingdom’, one diarist recorded that ‘the House would not hear him out’.40LJ v. 436a; Add. 31116, p. 13; Add. 18777, ff. 52, 54.

Ludlowe’s vigour in defending Parliament and sequestering the estates of its opponents made him perhaps the best known of the parliamentary radicals during the early months of the war, more famous even than Henry Marten before the latter’s expulsion from the chamber in August 1643.41CJ ii. 925a, 953b. One widely circulated libel, read in the Commons on 24 January 1643, contained the following lines

Who talks of peace, quoth Ludlow

hath neither sense nor reason,

for I ne’er spoke in the house but once,

and then I spoke I treason.

Your meaning is as bad as mine.

You must defend my speech

or else you’ll make my mouth as fam’d

as was my father’s breach.42Harl. 164, ff. 281, 400-1.

This verse apparently caused ‘much laughter’, no doubt for reminding members of Sir Edmund Ludlow’s infamous ‘parliament fart’, but in its characterisation of Ludlowe’s uncompromising views it was far from inaccurate. Proclaiming that ‘we took up arms for defence of the privileges of Parliament and calling of delinquents to justice’ (17 Feb.), and he wanted either a swift ‘treaty to the settling of the state’ or, if that was not granted by the king ‘within 20 days’, then ‘no treaty at all’.43Add. 18777, f. 158. Little over a week later, Ludlowe and Marten joined forces as tellers in favour of a motion to demand that royalist forces should disband during the Oxford treaty.44CJ ii. 983b. He was an early enthusiast for a ‘covenant and oath of association’ (Apr. 1643), and acted as a teller in support of an unsuccessful motion to seize, by force if necessary, the royal regalia.45CJ iii. 37b, 67b, 112b, 118b.

It was such activity, as well as his advocacy of the creation of a new great seal, the impeachment of the queen, and negotiations to secure a Scottish alliance, which guaranteed that Ludlowe was one of 18 individuals excluded from pardon by the king in June 1643.46CJ iii. 125b, 145a, 145b; LJ vi. 110b; Add. 31116, p. 116; Harl. 164, f. 278; Rushworth, Hist. Collns. v. 334. He continued to support both a vigorous and well-financed war effort and the embattled Henry Marten, and he sought action against peaceniks, and those who were considered to have violated the national covenant.47CJ iii. 178b, 212a, 214a, 216b, 244b, 257b. By the early autumn, however, Ludlowe had probably succumbed to the illness which finally killed him. He made no recorded appearances in the Commons after 29 September and, reported in the Commons as having died the previous evening, was buried at St Andrew, Holborn, in London on 1 November.48CJ iii. 258b; Wilts. Arch. Mag. xxvi. 173. Administration of the estate was granted to his heir, the future regicide Edmund Ludlowe II*, albeit not until the spring of 1647. Following that Edmund’s indictment in 1660, new letters of administration were granted to his younger brother, Colonel Nathaniel Ludlow.49PROB6/22, f. 37v; PROB6/37, f. 15.