Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 49.djvu/383

 should, after Diarmait's time, be abandoned for ever. In the end the king agreed to give back the fugitive to Ruadhan on payment of an eric for his herald of thirty horses. All the Irish chronicles agree that Tara was never occupied after the time of Diarmait Mac Cearbhaill, while the extensive earthworks still visible there, as well as the universal agreement of Irish literature on the point, prove that up to that period it had long been the seat of the chief king of Ireland. The reign of Diarmait Mac Cearbhaill was the time of the first epidemics of Cron Chonaill, afterwards called Buidhe Chonaill, which was probably the oriental plague. Great multitudes died of it, and its ravages may account for the abandonment of Tara at that time. In later literature it is generally attributed to the curse of Ruadhan. Dramatic accounts of the proceedings of Ruadhan and the other saints at Tara on this occasion, and their fasting against the king, are to be found in the story of Aedh Baclamh in the ‘Book of MacCarthy Riach’ (Lismore), a manuscript of the fifteenth century, and in the ‘Life of St. Molaissi,’ in a sixteenth-century manuscript (Addit. 18205 in the British Museum), both of which are printed, with translations by S. H. O'Grady, in ‘Silva Gadelica.’ The life of Ruadhan in the ‘Codex Salmanticensis’ represents him as in occasional communication with his contemporary, Columba. He died at Lothra, and its abbots were known as his successors. His feast is kept on 15 April.

[Martyrology of Donegal, ed. O'Donovan and Reeves, 1864; Acta Sanctorum Hiberniæ ex codice Salmanticensi, ed. De Smedt and De Backer, 1888; S. H. O'Grady's Silva Gadelica, 1892; Lives of Saints from the Book of Lismore, ed. W. Stokes (sub. Findian), 1890; Book of Leinster, facsimile, Dublin, 1880; Book of Ballymote, photograph, Dublin, 1887; Annala Rioghachta Eireann, ed. O'Donovan, vol. i.; G. Petrie's History and Antiquities of Tara, 1839; Colgan's Acta Sanctorum Hiberniæ, vols. i. ii. Louvain, 1645 and 1647.] 

RUD, THOMAS (1668–1733), antiquary, baptised at Stockton on 2 Jan. 1667–8, was son of Thomas Rud (1641–1719), curate of Stockton, afterwards vicar of Norton and rector of Long Newton, all in the county of Durham, who married at Stockton, on 13 Nov. 1666, Alice, daughter of Thomas Watson of Stockton. From Durham grammar school he was admitted as subsizar at Trinity College, Cambridge, on 2 Feb. 1683–4, and graduated B.A. 1687, M.A. 1691. From 1697 to 1699 he was the master of his old school at Durham, and from 1699 to 1710 he was head master at Newcastle grammar school and master of St. Mary's Hospital. In 1707 he printed at Cambridge a Latin syntax and prosody compiled for the use of his scholars.

In 1711 Rud returned to Durham, where he was instituted to the vicarage of St. Oswald (1 Sept.); he received in the same year the posts of lecturer of holy-day sermons in the cathedral and librarian to the dean and chapter. He was promoted in 1725 to the vicarage of Northallerton, and held with it, from June 1729, the rectory of Washington, co. Durham. He was collated, on 9 July 1728, as prebendary of the fifth stall at Ripon collegiate church, and retained these preferments until his death. He died on 17 March 1732–3. His wife was Isabel, daughter of Cuthbert Hendry of Shincliffe, near Durham, and they had several children.

Rud compiled with much labour and learning, and with beautiful penmanship, a catalogue of the manuscripts at Durham Cathedral, which he completed at North Allerton on 15 Sept. 1727. It was printed for the dean and chapter under the editorship of the Rev. James Raine [q. v.], and with an appendix by him, in 1825. To Rud Raine owed much of the material embodied in the latter's ‘Catalogi veteres Librorum Eccl. Cathedralis Dunelm.’ (Surtees Soc. 1838). To Thomas Bedford's edition of the treatise of Symeon of Durham, ‘De exordio atque procursu Dunhelmensis ecclesiæ’ (1732), there was prefixed a Latin dissertation (pp. i–xxxv) by Rud, proving, in opposition to the views of Selden, that Symeon of Durham, and not Turgot, was its author. Rud's copy of this work, with the errors of the press corrected, and with some important additions, ultimately passed to Dr. Raine (Surtees Soc. vii. 149–50). Rud contributed to the two volumes of ‘Miscellaneous Observations upon Authors, Ancient and Modern,’ which were edited by Dr. Jortin in 1731–2, several articles signed T. R., chiefly relating to the Arundelian marbles. A copy of Beza's New Testament (1582), at the British Museum, has many manuscript notes by Rud.

[Halkett and Laing's Anon. Lit. ii. 1625–8; Ripon Church Memorials, ii. 315–16 (Surtees Soc. 1886); Preface to Cat. of Durham MSS. 1825 (by Rev. W. N. Darnell); Surtees's Durham, vol. iv. pt. ii. p. 107 (pedigree of family); Brand's Newcastle, i. 84, 95; Nichols's Illustr. of Lit. History, v. 121–2; information from Dr. Aldis Wright.] 

RUDBORNE or RODEBURNE, THOMAS (d. 1442), bishop of St. Davids, probably a native of Rodbourne, Wiltshire, was educated at Merton College, Oxford,