John Rudd (cartographer)

[3] 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.

[b] This maps was sent, in exchange for extraditing his release from solitary conferment, to the new Bishop-elect of Chester Rowland Lee.

[4][5] By the 1540s he began to achieve some positions of note in Protestant England, even being nominated Clerk of the Closet.

[3] In 1561, at the request of Elizabeth I he was given two years' leave from his duties as a prebendary of Durham Cathedral, to "travayle by his own sight to view and considere divers parts of our … Realme" with the objective of mapping all of England.

[6][7] 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.