Edmund Prideaux

Edmund Prideaux (died 1659) of Forde Abbey, Thorncombe, Devon, was an English lawyer and Member of Parliament, who supported the Parliamentary cause during the Civil War. He was briefly solicitor-general but chose to resign rather than participate in the regicide of King Charles I. Afterwards, he was attorney-general, a position he held until he died. During the Civil War and for most of the First Commonwealth he ran the postal service for Parliament. Origins Prideaux was born at Netherton House in the parish of Farway, near Honiton, Devon, and was the second son of Sir Edmund Prideaux, 1st Baronet (d.1629), of Netherton, an eminent lawyer of the Inner Temple and member of an ancient family which originated at Prideaux Castle in Cornwall, by his second wife, Catherine Edgcumbe, daughter of Piers Edgcumbe of Mount Edgcumbe in Devon (now in Cornwall). Education Prideaux was first educated at Truro Grammar School, graduated M.A. at Cambridge, and on 6 July 1625 was admitted ad eundem at Oxford. On 23 November 1623 he was called to the bar at the Inner Temple and subsequently practiced law chiefly in chancery. He was appointed to the honourable posts of Recorder of Exeter, and later in 1649 Recorder of Bristol. Long Parliament Prideaux was elected to the Long Parliament for Lyme Regis in Dorset (which seat he held till his death), and forthwith took the side of the Parliamentarians against King Charles I. In 1642 his subscription for the defence of parliament was £100. By his own side he was regarded as one of the persons best informed as to the state of feeling in the West of England.