Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Budden, John
BUDDEN, JOHN (1566–1620), professor of civil law at Oxford, the son of John Budden of Canford, Dorsetshire, was born there in 1566, entered Merton College, Oxford, in Michaelmas 1582, was admitted a scholar of Trinity College, Oxford, on 30 May 1583, and proceeded B.A. on 29 Oct. 1586, M.A. on 27 June 1589, and B.C.L. and D.C.L. on 8 July 1602. At the request of Thomas Allen, the mathematician [q. v.], he migrated to Gloucester Hall about 1587, and devoted himself to civil law. Before 1602 he became philosophy reader at Magdalen College, held the office of principal of New Inn Hall from 1609 to 1618, and was king's professor of civil law, and principal of Broadgates Hall (afterwards Pembroke College). ‘He was a person,’ says Wood, ‘of great eloquence, an excellent rhetorician, philosopher, and a most noted civilian.’ He died at Broadgates Hall on 11 June 1620, and was buried in the neighbouring church of St. Aldate's. He was the author of Latin lives of Bishop Waynfleet (or William Patten), Oxon. 1602, and of Archbishop Morton, London, 1607. The former was published by William Bates [q. v.], and was republished in the volume entitled ‘Vitæ selectorum aliquot virorum,’ London, 1681. Budden also translated into Latin Bodley's ‘Statutes of the Public Library’ and Sir Thomas Smith's ‘Commonwealth of England’ (1610, other editions in 1625 and 1630), and into English (from the French of Pierre Ayrault) ‘A Discourse for Parents' Honour and Authority over their Children,’ London, 1614, dedicated to Toby Matthew, archbishop of York.
[Wood's Athenæ Oxon. ed. Bliss, ii. 282–3; Fasti, ed. Bliss, i. 236, 249, 296; Cat. of English Books in Brit. Mus. before 1640; Cat. Oxf. Graduates, p. 806; Coote's Lives of the Civilians.]