Sir Thomas Tuddenham was an influential Norfolk landowner, official and courtier. He served as Steward of the Duchy of Lancaster, and Keeper of the Great Wardrobe. During the Wars of the Roses he allied himself with the Lancastrian side, and after the Yorkist victory in 1461 was charged with treason and beheaded on Tower Hill on 23 February 1462.

The King's Wardrobe, together with the Chamber, made up the personal part of medieval English government known as the King's household. Originally the room where the king's clothes, armour, and treasure were stored, the term was expanded to describe both its contents and the department of clerks who ran it. Early in the reign of Henry III the Wardrobe emerged out of the fragmentation of the Curia Regis to become the chief administrative and accounting department of the Household. The Wardrobe received regular block grants from the Exchequer for much of its history; in addition, however, the wardrobe treasure of gold and jewels enabled the king to make secret and rapid payments to fund his diplomatic and military operations, and for a time, in the 13th-14th centuries, it eclipsed the Exchequer as the chief spending department of central government.