Family and Education

bap. 6 May 1660, 3rd but 1st surv. s. of Thomas Bludworth, being 1st s. by 2nd w. unm. suc. fa. 1682; kntd. 7 June 1682.1

Offices Held

Standard-bearer of gent. pens. 1684-9.2

Freeman, Portsmouth 1684; dep. lt. London 1685-7, Surr. Feb. 1688-9; j.p. Surr. 1687-?89, commr. for assessment 1689.3

Lt. Queen’s Horse (later 1 Dgn. Gds.) 1685; capt. Lord Plymouth’s Horse (later 3 Dgn. Gds.) 1686-9.

Biography

Bludworth doubtless owed his conspicuous, if not very demanding post at Court to his brother-in-law, Judge Jeffreys, whom he assisted at the Buckinghamshire election of 1685. Meanwhile he had been returned as court candidate for Bramber, but he left no trace on the records of James II’s Parliament, being commissioned in June in one of the new cavalry regiments that defeated the Duke of Monmouth at Sedgemoor. With £20,000, he was the largest single subscriber to the 7 per cent government loan raised on the security of the linen duties in 1686. Although there is no evidence that he was anything but an Anglican, he was one of the army officers given a dispensation from the oaths. Unlike his colonel, Sir John Fenwick, and most of the senior officers of his regiment, he did not surrender his commission to James II in December, but he lost all his places after the Revolution, and was presumably a non-juror. He died at Leatherhead in 1694. His brother and heir Charles married the daughter of Richard Brett, and his nephew Thomas sat for Bodmin as an opposition Whig from 1741 to 1747.4

Ref Volumes: 1660-1690

Author: B. M. Crook

Notes

• 1. St. Dionis Backchurch (Harl. Soc. Reg. iii), 115; Le Neve’s Knights (Harl. Soc. viii), 48-49.
• 2. CSP Dom. 1684-5, p. 74; 1685, p. 40.
• 3. R. East, Portsmouth Recs. 367; Surr. RO, Q52/1/6/241.
• 4. Verney Mems. ii. 380; H. W. Keeton, Jeffreys, 449; Cal. Treas. Bks. viii. 1686.