Benjamin Rudyerd

Sir Benjamin Rudyerd or Rudyard (1572 – 31 May 1658) was an English poet and politician who sat in the House of Commons at various times between 1621 and 1648.

He became a close friend of the poet and playwright Ben Jonson, who addressed three published epigrams to him in 1616, the first of which began: Rudyerd, as lesser dames to great ones use,My lighter comes to kiss thy learned museRudyerd was also an associate of John Owen and John Hoskins (who once wounded him in a duel, although they later became firm friends).

More valuable to him, however, was the admiration of the Earl of Pembroke, England's leading patron of the arts, who helped promote Rudyerd's political career.

At first, Rudyerd was generally supportive of the court, in line with the policy of his patron Pembroke, and by 1624 seems to have been the government's unofficial spokesman in the Commons.

By the end of the decade, he was less supportive of the Crown, taking a strongly critical line on the redress of grievances and denying the King's right to arrest without showing cause.

Rudyerd took the Parliamentary side on the outbreak of the Civil War, but does not seem to have been an enthusiastic supporter of the cause, and his attendance in the House was twice specially ordered.