where he was bursar 1399–1400, and was proctor of the university in 1399 and 1401. In 1411 he was with others appointed by the university to examine the doctrines of Wiclif, and was presented to the living of Deeping, Lincolnshire. Having been collated to the archdeaconry of Sudbury in 1413, he the same year exchanged that office for the deanery of the collegiate church of Tamworth. He was elected warden of Merton in 1416, and apparently resigned the following year, when he accompanied Henry V to Normandy as one of his chaplains. In 1419 he was admitted prebendary of Sarum, and in 1420 was elected chancellor of the university of Oxford. Being provided by papal bull to the bishopric of St. Davids in 1433, he was consecrated on 31 Jan. 1434. In 1436 Henry VI, whose chaplain he was, nominated him for election to the see of Ely, but the monks would not elect him. He built the tower over the gate of Merton College, and gave books to the library and to the library of the university. He died in 1442. His character is said to have been good and his manners affable, and he is described as an eminent divine, mathematician, and historian. He was a correspondent of Thomas Netter or Walden [q. v.] The works attributed to him are a book of letters to Thomas Netter (Waldensis) and others, to which a reference is made by his namesake Thomas Rudborne (fl. 1460) [q. v.], monk of St. Swithun's, Winchester, in the ‘Prologus in Historiam suam Minorem’ (Anglia Sacra, i. 287), and a chronicle not now known to exist.
[Brodrick's Mem. of Merton Coll. pp. 16, 38, 158, 221 (Oxf. Hist. Soc.); Godwin, De Præsulibus Angl. p. 583; Le Neve's Fasti Eccl. Anglic. i. 297, ii. 492, ed. Hardy; Wood's Hist. and Antiq. of Oxford, II. ii. 917, ed. Gutch; Bale's Scriptt. cent. vii. 53; Pits, De Angliæ Scriptt. p. 599; Tanner's Bibl. Brit. p. 645.]
RUDBORNE, THOMAS (fl. 1460), historian, was a monk of St. Swithun's, Winchester, and not, as Bale and others following him state, of the monastery of Hyde or Newminster. His date is fixed by references in his works (see Oudin, De Scriptt. Eccles. iii. cols. 2722–5). He states that he was allowed to use the records of Durham Cathedral through the courtesy of Robert Neville (1404–1457) [q. v.], who was bishop there between 1438 and 1457. He alludes to his namesake, Thomas Rudborne (d. 1442) [q. v.], the bishop of St. David's, but no relationship has been traced between them.
He was author of: 1. ‘Annales Breves Ecclesiæ Wintoniensis a Bruto ad Henricum VI regem.’ This was written in 1440, and was apparently a sketch, and not an epitome, of his larger work, the ‘Historia Major.’ It was extant in Cotton MS. Galba A. xv., of which only a few unintelligible fragments now remain. Wharton called it the ‘Historia Minor,’ and used it to fill in some of the blanks in the ‘Historia Major.’ 2. ‘Historia Major, lib. v.,’ which was completed in 1454, and printed by Wharton in his ‘Anglia Sacra,’ i. 179–286, from two manuscripts, one being Cod. 183 in Lambeth Library, and the other in Corpus Christi Library, Cambridge; neither of these manuscripts is perfect, and Wharton's edition ends with the reign of Stephen. Distinct from both of these appears to be 3. ‘Chronica Thomæ Rudborn monachi ecclesiæ Wintoniensis a Bruto ad annum 18 Henrici III’ [1234], a copy of which, in a sixteenth-century hand, is extant in Cotton MS. Nero A. xvii.; this manuscript was compiled by the author, at the request of his fellow-monks, from the works of Gildas, Beda, Geoffrey of Monmouth, Matthew Paris, Thomas Rudborn, bishop of St. David's, whose chronicle is now lost, and other writers. According to Bernard, a copy of it was No. 25 among the manuscripts of Sir Simonds D'Ewes [q. v.] Oudin also states that among the Ashmolean manuscripts was ‘Additio Chronicæ Wintoniensis per fratrem Thomam Rudborn monachum S. Swithini, scilicet, Genealogia comitum Warwicensium;’ but the only work of Rudborn's now extant in that collection is ‘Appendix e Thoma Rudborn de rege Oswio et fundatione eccl. Lichefeld’ (Black, Cat. Ashmolean MSS. p. 770). In Cotton MS. Claudius B. VII. i. is ‘Excerpta e Breviario Chronicorum Thomæ Rudborn monachi Wintoniensis de Matilda filia Malcolmi regis Scotorum.’ Rudborne's must be distinguished from the earlier ‘Annales de Wintonia,’ printed by H. R. Luard in the Rolls Series.
[Oudin gives a long disquisition on Rudborne's works in his Scriptt. Eccl. iii. cols. 2722–5; Leland's Comment. de Scriptt.; Bale, vii. 95; Pits; p. 668; Fabricius's Bibl. Latinitatis Medii Ævi, vi. 728; Tanner's Bibl. Brit.-Hib. pp. 645–6; Wharton's Anglia Sacra, vol. i. pp. xxvi–xxviii, 179–286; Cave's Scriptt. Eccl. II. ii. 161; Bernard's Cat. of MSS. passim; Cat. Cottonian MSS.; Black's Cat. Ashmolean MSS.; Hardy's Descr. Cat. of Materials; Annales de Wintonia, ed. Luard, pp. xiv, 25, and Liber de Hyda, ed. Edwards, pp. xxiv, xxvi, xxxix, xli, in Rolls Ser.; Chevalier's Répertoire; Chalmers's Biogr. Dict.; Darling's Cyclop. of Bibl. Lit.]
RUDD, ANTHONY (1549?–1615), bishop of St. David's, born in Yorkshire in 1549 or 1550, was admitted socius minor at Trinity
