Anthony Rudd

Anthony Rudd (c.1549 – 1615) was a Welsh bishop.

Life
He graduated B.A. from Trinity College, Cambridge in 1567, and M.A. in 1570.

He became Dean of Gloucester in 1584, and Bishop of St. David's in 1594. In 1596 he preached a celebrated sermon before Elizabeth I at Richmond Palace, in which he made extensive allusions to her approaching old age (she was 63 in 1596, and he made play of this as the astrology, on his text “O teach us to number our days”) and physical signs of it. Thomas Fuller in his Church History of Britain claims that this sermon, and a later one in 1602, offended the Queen, one of his sources being Sir John Harrington's account. Anecdotally John Whitgift is supposed to have led Rudd on to preach plainly, and Rudd lost the succession as Archbishop of Canterbury by so doing, but Whitgift survived Elizabeth in any case.

He attended the Hampton Court Conference of 1604; he was sympathetic to Puritanism.

He is buried in the church at Llangathen, where his wife erected a “bedstead” tomb. Rudd had acquired adjacent property at Aberglasney.

Works
The early English comedy Misogonus has been attributed to him, without complete certainty. It was acted at Trinity College between 1568 and 1574.