A manuscript in Benet College states that he was Rector of Stambourne, Essex, in 1560, at the same time that he was Vicar of Caldecote in Cambridgeshire. Stambourne’s local history site, which accesses the same source as ours (ie the Repertorium Ecclesiasticum), confirms that he took up the Hempstead living on the death of the previous incumbent George Mann.
Prior to that, Stambourne records an entry in the parish register for 1561 suggesting that he was married and had a son:
Henrye, son of John Lyddington & Sara his wife christened 9 May 1561:
However they go on to say that “It is probable that J.L. moved to Hempsted in 1564 and his other history is recorded there; it was a much richer parish with the famous Harvey monuments in the church.” Whatever vthe relative economic standings of the two parishes, the second half of the statement is inaccurate, as the Harveys did not acquire lands in Hempstead, nor put up any monuments, until the middle of the next century.
In his Story of the Sampfords, Gerald Curtis paints Luddington as an unsatisfactory parson. He failed to keep the Hempstead vicarage in good repair. He was charged before the Archdeacon’s court for preaching only twice in a year and failing to instruct children in the catechism. And although, under the Elizabethan settlement, priests were now allowed to marry, “there were ‘scandalous reports’ about the character of the lady he married and, when he put her away without authority, he was excommunicated for doing so” Curtis speculates that this first experience of married clergy was not a happy one for parishioners, who were probably relieved when, on Luddington’s death in 1601, he was succeeded by the unmarried Henry Greenwood.