LUDLOW, Sir Richard (c.1361-1390), of Hodnet, Salop.

Ludlow’s descent may be traced from Odo de Hodnet (d.1201). From his father, who died in 1382, he inherited no fewer than 11 manors and three advowsons in Shropshire, thus becoming one of the more substantial landowners of the area. Hodnet itself was held in chief by service of the stewardship of the lordship of Montgomery (a post which allowed Ludlow easement of the houses in the castle bailey, the right to dwell there with his wife, two esquires and two serving women, entitlement to two sets of livery every year for himself and his wife, and the use of five grooms, five horses, four brachet hounds and two greyhounds, all at the expense of the King). The tenure of Westbury was much less attractive: Ralph, earl of Stafford, had once taken a distress on the manor, justifying his action on the ground that it was held of the barony of Caus by the service of hereditary cook at Caus castle, which necessitated attendance at the castle on Christmas Day and standing at the kitchen dresser girded with an apron, and this Ludlow’s father had refused to do.VCH Salop, viii. 313; CIPM, xv. 522-3; Peds. Plea Rolls ed. Wrottesley, 91; CFR, ix. 289; CCR, 1381-5, p. 46; Reg. Gilbert (Canterbury and York Soc. xviii), 124.

By the time of his father’s death Richard had already campaigned abroad from June 1380 until March 1381 as one of the retinue of Sir David Holgrave, a Worcestershire banneret, in the expedition led by Thomas of Woodstock. He was granted royal letters of protection in preparation for going overseas again in May 1383, but these were revoked three months later. Then, in 1386, he joined the entourage of Hugh, earl of Stafford (his current overlord at Westbury), for a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and he was one of the witnesses to the codicil to the earl’s will dated at Rhodes on 21 Sept. In the meantime, he had been made a knight. In March 1387 Ludlow enlisted in the personal retinue of the admiral, Richard, earl of Arundel, thus being at the nucleus of the large naval force which was to patrol the Channel that summer.Wm. Salt Arch. Soc. xiv. 231, 238; W. Dugdale, Baronage (1675-6 edn.), i. 162; CPR, 1381-5, p. 306; E101/40/33, 41/5. Whether Arundel had anything to do with Ludlow’s election to the Merciless Parliament of 1388, in which the earl played such a prominent part as one of the Lords Appellant, is now impossible to say, although it may be significant that Ludlow was appointed to the Shropshire bench that July, when the Appellants were still in power, only to be removed from it when Richard II regained control of the government in the following spring.

Ludlow was returned to his second Parliament in January 1390. In June he was among those summoned to appear before the King’s Council for their part in the violent dispute between John Darras and Roger Corbet and the latter’s niece over certain of the Corbet estates.CCR, 1389-92, p. 143; CPR, 1388-92, p. 340. He was re-elected to Parliament five months later and while the session was in progress he appeared in Chancery to take oath that he had never received the royal commission to which he had been appointed three years before. On 6 Dec. Sir Richard made a formal undertaking not to harm Edmund Ludlow, clerk, a feoffee of his estates and no doubt a kinsman, nor to trouble him in his possession of Wistanstow church. He had presented Edmund to the church five years previously, but in July this year he had replaced him, whereupon Edmund had petitioned the chancellor, alleging that he had been ‘torciousement dispoilli’ of the church and his goods and chattels, and that, although the court of Arches had awarded him restitution, John Burley I (another of Sir Richard’s feoffees) and Sir Richard’s servants had forcibly evicted him.CCR, 1389-92, pp. 302, 303, 306; Reg. Gilbert, 119; Reg. Trefnant (Canterbury and York Soc. xx), 174; C1/68/199, 234, 251. Ludlow did not live to defend the suit. He died, in his 30th year, on 12 Dec. Seven years earlier he had settled his estates in the event of his dying without issue on his brother John, who now duly inherited them.CIPM, xvi. 1010; CPR, 1381-5, p. 220; CCR, 1389-92, p. 238; CAD, vi. C4637.