LUDLOW, EDMUND (c. 1617-1692), English parliamentarian, son of Sir Henry Ludlow of Maiden Bradley, Wiltshire, whose family had been established in that county since the 15th century, was born in 1617 or 1618. He went to Trinity College, Oxford, and was admitted to the Inner Temple in 1638. When the Great Rebellion broke out, he engaged as a volunteer in the life guard of Lord Essex. His first essay in arms was at Worcester, his next at Edgehill. He was made governor of Wardour Castle in 1643, but had to surrender after a tenacious defence on the 18th of March 1644. On being exchanged soon afterwards, he engaged as major of Sir A. Hesilrige’s regiment of horse. He was present at the second battle of Newbury, October 1644, at the siege of Basing House in November, and took part in an expedition to relieve Taunton in December. In January his regiment was surprised by Sir M. Langdale, Ludlow himself escaping with difficulty. In 1646 he was elected M.P. for Wilts in the room of his father and attached himself to the republican party. He opposed the negotiations with the king, and was one of the chief promoters of Pride’s Purge in 1648. He was one of the king’s judges, and signed the warrant for his execution. In February he was elected a member of the council of state. In January 1651 Ludlow was sent into Ireland as lieutenant-general of horse, holding also a civil commission. Here he spared neither health nor money in the public service. Ireton, the deputy of Ireland, died on the 26th of November 1651; Ludlow then held the chief command, and had practically completed the conquest of the island when he resigned his authority to Fleetwood in October 1652. Though disapproving Cromwell’s action in dissolving the Long Parliament, he maintained his employment, but when Cromwell was declared Protector he declined to acknowledge his authority. On returning to England in October 1655 he was arrested, and on refusing to submit to the government was allowed to retire to Essex. After Oliver Cromwell’s death Ludlow was returned for Hindon in Richard’s parliament of 1659, but opposed the continuance of the protectorate. He sat in the restored Rump, and was a member of its council of state and of the committee of safety after its second expulsion, and a commissioner for the nomination of officers in the army. In July he was sent to Ireland as commander-in-chief. Returning in October 1659, he endeavoured to support the failing republican cause by reconciling the army to the parliament. In December he returned hastily to Ireland to suppress a movement in favour of the Long Parliament, but on arrival found himself almost without supporters. He came back to England in January 1660, and was met by an impeachment presented against him to the restored parliament. His influence and authority had now disappeared, and all chance of regaining them vanished with Lambert’s failure. He took his seat in the Convention parliament as member for Hindon, but his election was annulled on the 18th of May. Ludlow was not excepted from the Act of Indemnity, but was included among the fifty-two for whom punishment less than capital was reserved. Accordingly, on the proclamation of the king ordering the regicides to come in, Ludlow emerged from his concealment, and on the 20th of June surrendered to the Speaker; but finding that his life was not assured, he succeeded in escaping to Dieppe, travelled to Geneva and Lausanne, and thence to Vevey, then under the protection of the canton of Bern. There he remained, and in spite of plots to assassinate him he was unmolested by the government of that canton, which had also extended its protection to other regicides. He steadily refused during thirty years of exile to have anything to do with the desperate enterprises of republican plotters. But in 1689 he returned to England, hoping to be employed in Irish affairs. He was however remembered only as a regicide, and an address from the House of Commons was presented to William III. by Sir Edward Seymour, requesting the king to issue a proclamation for his arrest. Ludlow escaped again, and returned to Vevey, where he died in 1692. A monument raised to his memory by his widow is in the church of St Martin. Over the door of the house in which he lived was placed the inscription “Omne solum forti patria, quia Patris.” Ludlow married Elizabeth, daughter of William Thomas, of Wenvoe, Glamorganshire, but left no issue.
His Memoirs, extending to the year 1672, were published in 1698-1699 at Vevey and have been often reprinted; a new edition, with notes and illustrative material and introductory memoir, was issued by C. H. Firth in 1894. They are strongly partisan, but the picture of the times is lifelike and realistic. Ludlow also published “a letter from Sir Hardress Waller ... to Lieutenant-General Ludlow with his answer” (1660), in defence of his conduct in Ireland. See C. H. Firth’s article in Dict. Nat. Biog.; Guizot’s Monk’s Contemporaries; A. Stein’s Briefe Englischer Flüchtlinge in der Schweiz.
LUDLOW, a market town and municipal borough in the Ludlow parliamentary division of Shropshire, England, on the Hereford-Shrewsbury joint line of the Great Western and London & North Western railways, 162 m. W.N.W. from London. Pop. (1901) 4552. It is beautifully situated at the junction of the rivers Teme and Corve, upon and about a wooded eminence crowned by a massive ruined castle. Parts of this castle date from the 11th century, but there are many additions such as the late Norman circular chapel, the Decorated state rooms, and details in Perpendicular and Tudor styles. The parish church of St Lawrence is a cruciform Perpendicular building, with a lofty central tower, and a noteworthy east window, its 15th-century glass showing the martyrdom of St Lawrence. There are many fine half-timbered houses of the 17th century, and one of seven old town-gates remains. The grammar school, founded in the reign of John, was incorporated by Edward I. The principal public buildings are the guildhall, town-hall and market-house, and public rooms, which include a museum of natural history. Tanning and flour-milling are carried on. The town is governed by a mayor, 4 aldermen and 12 councillors. Area 416 acres.
The country neighbouring Ludlow is richly wooded and hilly, while the scenery of the Teme is exquisite. Westward, Vinnal Hill reaches 1235 ft., eastward lies Titterstone Clee (1749 ft.). Richard’s Castle, 3 m. S. on the borders of Herefordshire, dates from the reign of Edward the Confessor, but little more than its great artificial mound remains. At Bromfield, 3 m. above Ludlow on the Teme, the church and some remains of domestic buildings belonged to a Benedictine monastery of the 12th century.
Ludlow is supposed to have existed under the name of Dinan in the time of the Britons. Eyton in his history of Shropshire identifies it with one of the “Ludes” mentioned in the Domesday Survey, which was held by Roger de Lacy of Osbern FitzRichard and supposes that Roger built the castle soon after 1086, while a chronicle of the FitzWarren family attributes the castle to Roger earl of Shrewsbury. The manor afterwards belonged to the Lacys, and in the beginning of the 14th century passed by marriage to Roger de Mortimer and through him to Edward IV. Ludlow was a borough by prescription in the 13th century, but the burgesses owe most of their privileges to their allegiance to the house of York. Richard, duke of York, in 1450 confirmed their government by 12 burgesses and 24 assistants, and Edward IV. on his accession incorporated them under the title of bailiffs and burgesses, granted them the town at a fee-farm of £24, 3s. 4d., a merchant gild and freedom from toll. Several confirmations of this charter were granted; the last, dated 1665, continued in force (with a short interval in the reign of James II.) until the Municipal Corporations Act of 1835. By the charter of Edward IV. Ludlow returned 2 members to parliament, but in 1867 the number was reduced to one, and in 1885 the town was disfranchised. The market rights are claimed by the corporation under the charters of Edward IV. (1461) and Edward VI. (1552). The court of the Marches was established at Ludlow in the reign of Henry VII., and continued to be held here until it was abolished in the reign of William III. Ludlow castle was granted by Edward IV. to his two sons, and by Henry VII. to Prince Arthur, who died here in 1502. In 1634 Milton’s Comus was performed in the castle under its original style of “A Masque presented at Ludlow Castle,” before the earl of Bridgewater, Lord President of Wales. The castle was garrisoned in 1642 by Prince Rupert, who went there after the battle of Naseby, but in 1646 it surrendered to Parliament and was afterwards dismantled.
See Victoria County History, Shropshire; Thomas Wright, The History of Ludlow and its Neighbourhood (1826).
LUDLOW GROUP, or Ludlovian, in geology, the uppermost subdivision of the Silurian rocks in Great Britain. This group contains the following formations in descending order:—Tilestones, Downton Castle sandstones (90 ft.), Ledbury shales (270 ft.), Upper Ludlow rocks (140 ft.), Aymestry limestone (up to 40 ft.), Lower Ludlow rocks (350 to 780 ft.). The Ludlow group is essentially shaly in character, except towards the top, where the beds become more sandy and pass gradually into the base of the Old Red Sandstone. The Aymestry limestone, which is irregular in thickness, is sometimes absent, and where the underlying Wenlock limestones are absent the shales of the Ludlow group graduate downwards into the Wenlock shales. The group is typically developed between Ludlow and Aymestry, and it occurs also in the detached Silurian areas between Dudley and the mouth of the Severn.
The Lower Ludlow rocks are mainly grey, greenish and brown mudstones and sandy and calcareous shales. They contain an abundance of fossils. The series has been zoned by means of the graptolites by E. M. R. Wood; the following in ascending order, are the zonal forms: Monograptus vulgaris, M. Nilssoni, M. scanicus, M. tumescens and M. leintwardinensis. Cyathaspis ludensis, the earliest British vertebrate fossil, was found in these rocks at Leintwardine in Shropshire, a noted fossil locality. Trilobites are numerous (Phacops caudatus, Lichas anglicus, Homolonotus delphinocephalus, Calymene Blumenbachii); brachiopods (Leptaena rhomboidalis, Rhynchonella Wilsoni, Atrypa reticularis), pelecypods (Cardiola interrupta, Ctenodonta sulcata) and gasteropods and cephalopods (many species of Orthoceras and also Gomphoceras, Trochoceras) are well represented. Other fossils are Ceratiocaris, Pterygotus, Protaster, Palaeocoma and Palaeodiscus.