He was son of Sir John Borlase, who received the appointment of master-general of the ordnance, Ireland, in 1634, and held office as lord justice there from 1640 to 1643.
Edmund Borlase is stated by Anthony à Wood to have been educated at Dublin, and to have obtained the degree of doctor in physic at Leyden in 1650.
He enjoyed the patronage of Charles Stanley, 8th Earl of Derby, to whom he dedicated a treatise, published in 1670, on 'Latham Spa in Lancashire, with some remarkable Cases and Cures affected by it.
'[1] In 1676, Borlase published at London an octavo volume of 284 pages, with the following title: The Reduction of Ireland to the Crown of England; with the Governours since the Conquest by King Henry II, anno 1172 ; with some passages in their government.
The compilation of a history of affairs in Ireland from 1641 to 1662 was undertaken by Borlase chiefly with the object of demonstrating that the administrators of the English government there had not acted adversely to the royal interests nor unjustly towards Irish Catholics.
For the purposes of his work, Borlase obtained a copy of an unpublished treatise on Irish affairs by Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon.
[1] The appearance of Borlase's work induced James Tuchet, 3rd Earl of Castlehaven, to publish in the same year, at London, a small volume of 'Memoirs,' in which he gave an account of his 'engagement and carriage in the wars of Ireland.'