Edmund Ashfield (Catholic agent)

An aunt or cousin Cecily Ashfield was married to the Lord Chancellor Sir John Fortescue of Salden.

In 1612, Henry Peacham dedicated his Graphice, or the Auncient Arte of Drawing and Limning to Ashfield, by then Deputy-Lieutenant of Buckinghamshire.

[6] Edmund Ashfield wrote to James VI offering the advice that he ought to publish books setting forth his claim to the succession to Elizabeth I of England, and showing how he could gain support and rule.

[9] The royal hunt could be watched from the tower of Colinton Castle and James VI would dine there as a guest of the Foulis family.

[10] An agent of the Earl of Essex, Thomas Weynman, later wrote that Ashfield had discussed the possibility of James becoming King of England over dinner with some noblemen.

He considered the possibility that Elizabeth I might allow Arbella Stuart to marry an English husband, and thus "assisted by some domestical match", she might become queen and continue the "sweet pleasing government" of England by a female ruler.

James VI was unsurprisingly indignant at this activity and wrote to Willoughby on 14 June 1599 demanding Ashfield's return or an explanation for "the taking away violentlie out of the hart of our country and in sight of our chief palais and eyes of our counsale, ane Inglis gentilman.

[23] A council convened at Nonsuch Palace on 26 August 1599 minuted various reasons why the complaint was groundless, including a statement from Ashfield that he was a willing passenger in Willoughby's coach.

He was knighted at the Tower of London on 14 March 1604, given the lease of Whaddon Priory,[28] and in April 1604 admitted as one of his Majesty's pensioners in ordinary.

The continuation of the Historie of King James the Sext follows the account in English letters by describing Ashfield as favoured by James VI;Sir William Bowes, ambassador for hir majestie, used a slight (deceitful) stratageme by exposing sum of his craftie gentilmen to beare cumpanie with an Inglish gentilman of account whom the king favorit for certen secret occasionis betuix them, and heistit the man a cosh (on a coach), maid haistie depesh (dispatch) of him touart Ingland, for the whilk his majestie was exceiding angrie; and therfore causit the lodging of the said ambassador to be ombeset at all partis (surrounded) least he sould escape.

After the Union of Crowns, when James VI had become King of England, poet and calligrapher John Davies of Hereford wrote an epigram on the subject of Ashfield's journey to Scotland and rendition to the Tower of London:[31]You once entreated me to walke with youFrom Hereford but unto Edenbrough:Because (said you) we live heere in the hamsOf this scalld worlde, where neither EpigramsNor Satyrs can preserve it from the itchOf scratching, common to the scraping-ritchYou went, I staid : but wished afterwardI had gone with you: yet, when that I heardeA Wayne-man brought you backe, and that your Inne Was but the Towre (a lodging straight and thinne)I joy’d I went not : But fowre yeares expir'd,And that all things fell out as you desir'dI wisht againe I had bene in your place:So, joy'd and griev'd as Fortune chang'd your caseBut, sith your case is now too bigg for mee,(You be'ng growne fatt, I leane in low'st degree,)Let me rest in your heart, and then my caseI better hold than your old resting place.

Wayneman thought that Ashfield had tried to present the Earl of Essex as an obstacle to James VI gaining the English throne.