LUDLOW, Henry II (1592-1643), of South Court, Maiden Bradley, Wilts.

From a prosperous gentry family, whose main estates lay in Wiltshire, Ludlow was well provided for, despite having three older half brothers. On his marriage in 1612 his father gave him the Wiltshire manor of Fifield. In addition, his father-in-law Richard Phelips (nephew of the former Commons Speaker Sir Edward Phelips) bestowed upon him three manors in Somerset and Wiltshire, two of which lay close to Maiden Bradley, where he resided with his father. Although Ludlow enjoyed the profits of these manors he never moved from his father’s house, which he inherited in 1624. Wilts IPMs, 95; Som. RO, DD/PH/62. The transfer of Fifield manor to Ludlow exacerbated a family feud, as the property had earlier been promised to his step-brother Henry. Ludlow was involved in wranglings over this and other properties for many years: as late as January 1640 he and six siblings petitioned the Council to prevent his nephew, son of the said Henry, mortgaging estates in which Ludlow himself held a claim. CSP Dom. 1639-40, pp. 335-6.

Despite his youth, Ludlow was able to secure the nearby parliamentary seat of Heytesbury in 1614. His father’s local influence may have helped, but he must also have won the support of the borough’s patron, (Sir) Thomas Thynne*, who shared Heytesbury with Ludlow in the following two parliaments. In 1625 Thynne in turn looked for support from Ludlow when soliciting help in his unsuccessful pitch for the county seat. Procs. 1625, pp. 703-4. Perhaps preoccupied with his large family, Ludlow showed no recorded interest in the business of the parliaments in which he sat.

Ludlow was sufficiently respected in Wiltshire to serve on the bench and, in 1633, be pricked as sheriff, but his subsequent behaviour was unco-operative. Just as his half brother Henry had been censored for refusing to contribute towards the Forced Loan in 1627, Ludlow himself ignored a royal request for a loan in 1639. SP16/52/67; Historical Collections ed. J. Rushworth, iii. 915. In addition, he was a defaulter for the musters of 1636, and in the following year he and his fellow Wiltshire magistrates were threatened with a summons by the Privy Council for obstructing the Navy’s timber purveyors. SP16/345/99; 16/357/20; CSP Dom. 1637, p. 137. He was also attacked by Laud for contributing only a small sum towards the repair of St. Paul’s, and by the Council for attempting to have his Somerset manor excluded from rates. M.F. Keeler, Long Parl. 260; SP16/388/51; 16/407/57.

Along with his uncle Edward Manning, Ludlow paid £1,520 to the Crown in March 1639 for all that part of Chute Forest which lay in Wiltshire, along with some woodland in adjoining Hampshire. CSP Dom. 1638-9, p. 592; VCH Wilts. xvi. 120; iv. 427. It was not until he was elected for the county to the Long Parliament that his contributions were recorded - by which time he had become allied with John Pym. Keeler, 260. As an ally of Pym’s he actively took up Parliament’s cause and encouraged his eldest son Edmund, the later regicide, to join Essex’s army. His house at Maiden Bradley was plundered by royalist forces in March 1643 and in the following October, perhaps out of revenge, he obtained an order from Parliament for Edmund to slight the royalist stronghold at Wardour Castle, Wiltshire. In the same month Ludlow’s second son, Robert died a prisoner of the royalists. According to Edmund, this tragedy contributed to Ludlow’s own death in London later in the month. Ludlow Mems. i. 53, 59, 65-6. Ludlow, who died intestate, was buried at St. Andrew’s, Holborn on 1 Nov. following. Administration of his estate was granted to Edmund in 1647. Wilts. Arch. Mag. xxvi. ped. bet. pp. 172-3. Edmund was the only son to serve in Parliament; another son died at sea in 1650 while the youngest, also called Henry, was ancestor to the earls of Ludlow.