Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hudson, William (d.1635)
HUDSON, WILLIAM (d. 1635), lawyer, was admitted in 1601 a member of Gray's Inn, where he was called to the bar in 1605, became an ancient in 1622, a bencher in 1623, and reader in Lent 1624. He practised in the Star-chamber, and was one of the subscribers of the information exhibited in that court on 7 May 1629 against Sir John Eliot [q. v.], Denzil Holles [q. v.], and the other members of the House of Commons who had been concerned in the tumultuous proceedings which preceded the recent dissolution. In February 1632-3 he opened the case against Prynne on his trial for the publication of ‘Histriomastix.’ He died in or before 1635. Hudson married twice. His second wife, whom he married at Islington by license dated 3 April 1613, was Anne, widow of William Stodderd of St. Michael-le Querne, London, skinner. He left in manuscript a learned and lucid ‘Treatise of the Court of Star Chamber,’ a copy of which was given by his son Christopher to Lord-keeper Finch, passed into the Harleian collection (Harl. MS.1226), and was printed by Hargrave in ‘Collectanea Juridica,’ London, 1792, 8vo.
[Douthwaite's Gray's Inn, p.68; Cases in the Court of Star Chamber (Camd. Soc.); Cobbett's State Trials, iii. 311, 562; Chester's London Marriage Licenses; Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1628-9, p. 540.]