Edmund Colles

Edmund Colles (1528–1606) was an English landowner, administrator and legislator from Worcestershire who, although sympathetic to Catholicism,[2] held public office throughout the reign of Queen Elizabeth I.

[3] The eldest son of William Colles (1495–1558) and his second wife Margaret Hitch (1495–1572), he received a legal education in London at the Inner Temple, being admitted a member in 1553.

[3][1] Starting at county level, in 1564 he was appointed escheator for Worcestershire, being sent by the sheriff in 1585 to collect contributions from Catholic recusants to help the English forces fighting for the Protestant Dutch against Spain.

Among committees he probably attended were those on enclosures, poor relief, penal laws against Catholics, letters patent granting monopolies, and taxation.

[3] The lands he had inherited and expanded were however charged with debts, which had mounted up with interest, so that William had to hand them all over to trustees, who after his death in 1615 sold them to Sir Walter Devereux in 1617.