In this dedication, Iden refers to the benefit he has received from the favour of their father, and to the affection the boys — they were all under fifteen — have shown him.
William Herbert was one of the most powerful men in Wiltshire, and it is possible that he used his influence to persuade Thomas Capon, bishop of Salisbury, to collate Iden to the prebend of Hurstbourne and Burbage in December 1552.
[3] In any case, Iden duly compounded for his first fruits on 22 December, and kept the living until 25 September 1556, when he resigned it in favour of John Jeffreys.
Iden’s connection with Islington, in Middlesex, and particularly to the estate formerly belonging to St Mary’s Priory in nearby Clerkenwell, go back at least to the 1550s.
By the time of his death in 1568, Iden had collected other parcels of land from the estate of the old priory : Cowley, Highbury, Lower Place, and London Fields.
[7] The surveyor-general worked under the Master of Ordnance, in the Tower of London, and he was responsible for examining (‘surveying’) the quality of weapons and ammunition stored there, especially the guns and cannons.
Anthony had a genuine interest in artillery, but he probably used a deputy to do the actual work, and paid him from the fee of £36 10/- he received as surveyor.
The best we can say is that Iden had powerful friends at court, not only William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, who was very much the military man, but also sir Walter Mildmay, Treasurer of the Household in 1561, and later Chancellor of the Exchequer.
[9] And in 1585, Robert Parry (1540--1612) dedicated to Powell his translation of part of Diego Ortúñez de Calahoora’s Mirror of Knighthood.