PENRUDDOCK, Sir Thomas (c.1578-1637), of Hale, Hants; Whitehall; and Ealing, Mdx.

Although originally of Arkleby in Cumberland, Penruddock’s father settled at Hale, on the border of Wiltshire and Hampshire.Hutchinson, Cumb. ii. 351. He represented both Wilton and Southampton under Elizabeth, and was a bencher at Gray’s Inn, where Penruddock himself was entered at an early age, although the latter does not appear to have followed his father into the legal profession. Penruddock’s mother was decidedly Cumbrian, and further northern links were maintained via his sister’s marriage to Edward Musgrave*. Upon inheriting his father’s estates in 1601, Penruddock bought a long lease of Ealing manor in Middlesex.VCH Mdx. vii. 124. He was knighted at the coronation of James I, and in 1604, despite having married into a strongly Catholic family, he entered the royal Household as a sewer, on a salary of £33 6s. 8d. a year.C66/1638, 1650; Lansd. 165, f. 254. Though ‘much affected’ to Catholicism, it was not until 1624, when his wife was presented for recusancy, that he was dismissed from both the Hampshire and Middlesex commissions of the peace.STAC 8/210/1; ‘Nicholas 1624’, f. 180; LJ, iii. 396a.

Penruddock was distantly related to the crypto-Catholic earl of Arundel via his mother, and probably became a client of the earl sometime before her death in February 1614.HMC Cowper, i. 83, 87. On inheriting her northern jointure lands he was nominated by Arundel’s kinsman, Lord William Howard, as knight of the shire for Cumberland, though he cannot have been well known in the county.PROB 11/123, f. 381; D. Howarth, Lord Arundel and his Circle, 12, 43, 52-3, 88. He left no trace on the records of the Addled Parliament. He followed the royal progress to Scotland in 1617, was sent to Ireland as a member of the royal commission in 1622, and carried a banner at King James’s funeral in 1625.STAC 8/210/1; HMC Downshire, vi. 139; J. Nichols, Progs. of Jas. I, iv. 1047; Lismore Pprs. ed. A.B. Grosart (ser. 1), ii. 52-3. In 1631 he transferred his place at Court to his son George.LC5/132, p. 272. Penruddock made his will on 26 May 1637, leaving a portion of £2,000 to an unmarried daughter, and died five days later. The inquisition valued his Cumberland property at £5 8s. 8d. p.a. against £16 for Hale.PROB 11/174, f. 315; C142/565/179. His eldest son John was presented for recusancy in 1640. No later member of this branch of the family sat in Parliament.Mdx. County Recs. ed. W. le Hardy, iii. 151, 154.