Edmund Prideaux (Roundhead)

Edmund Prideaux (died 1659) of Forde Abbey, Thorncombe, Devon,[1] was an English lawyer and Member of Parliament, who supported the Parliamentary cause during the Civil War.

[5] 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.

[2] Edward Hyde in his History of the Rebellion would accuse Prideaux, along with Henry Vane and Oliver Saint-John, of being spies for a party within Parliament that had no intention of allowing any sort of compromise in the furtherance of a treaty.

The question of the validity of patents for the conduct of posts was raised in both houses of Parliament in connection with the 1640 sequestration[11] of the office of Thomas Witherings, granted in 1633.

In 1644 he was ordered to arrange a post to Hull, York, and Lyme Regis, and in 1649 to Chester, Holyhead, and Ireland, and also to Bideford in Devon; likewise in 1650 to Kendal, and in 1651 to Carlisle.

[15] In 1650 the Common Council of London endeavoured itself to organise the carriage of letters, whereupon Prideaux brought the matter before Parliament, which on 21 March 1650 referred the question to the Council of State, which on the same day ordered that Attorney-General Prideaux should take care of the business of the inland post, and be accountable for the profits quarterly, and ordered the appointment of a committee to confer with him as to the management of the post.

[7] After various claims had been considered, on 21 March 1652 Parliament resolved that the office of postmaster ought to be at the sole disposal of the House of Commons, and the Irish and the Scotch committee, to which the question was referred, reported in favour of letting contracts for the carriage of letters.

On 31 May 1658 he was made a baronet by the Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell, for "his voluntary offer for the mainteyning of thirty foot-souldiers in his highnes army in Ireland".