John Rudd was born in Yorkshire in 1498, with nothing being known about his family background. He attended
Clare College, with a
BA and
MA by 1520. He entered the priesthood in 1521, becoming a fellow at
St John's College, Cambridge. During the
Reformation Rudd initially adopted a stridently catholic position, being briefly imprisoned on the orders of
Thomas Cromwell because of a sermon that Rudd had given at
Paul's Cross, thought to have expressed sympathy with
Elizabeth Barton and her followers. To avoid execution he renounced Catholicism and after was allowed to continue to preach. While imprisoned, Rudd would create his first map, a now lost "
Ptolemaic" map of the
Holy Land, at some point before 1534. This maps was sent, in exchange for extraditing his release from solitary conferment, to the new
Bishop-elect of Chester Rowland Lee. By the 1540s he began to achieve some positions of note in Protestant England, even being nominated
Clerk of the Closet. In 1561, at the request of
Elizabeth I he was given two years' leave from his duties as a
prebendary of
Durham Cathedral, to " by his own sight to view and parts of our … " with the objective of mapping all of
England. Although he does not appear to have completed this objective, it was completed by his
apprentice,
Christopher Saxton. Saxton was employed by Rudd as a servant, and it seems likely that he accompanied him on these trips, and learned draughting and surveying skills from his master. While little of Rudd's own work survives, it has been suggested that
Mercator's maps of the
British Isles, published as
Angliae, Scotiae et Hiberniae nova Descripto [...] was, to some extent, based on Rudd's work. == Family ==