# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Waldegrave, Edward

​WALDEGRAVE, Sir EDWARD (1517?–1561), politician, born in 1516 or 1517, was the second son of John Waldegrave (d. 1543) of Borley in Essex, by his wife, Lora, daughter of Sir John Rochester of Essex, and sister of Sir Robert Rochester [q. v.] He was a descendant of Sir Richard Waldegrave [q. v.], speaker of the House of Commons. On the death of his father, on 6 Oct. 1543, Edward entered into possession of his estates at Borley. In 1 Edward VI (1547–8) he received a grant of the manor and rectory of West Haddon in Northamptonshire. He was attached to the Princess Mary's household, and on 29 Aug. 1551 was committed to the Fleet, with his uncle Sir Robert Rochester and Sir Francis Englefield [q. v.], for refusing to enforce the order ​of the privy council by preventing the celebration of mass at Mary's residence at Copt Hall, near Epping. Two days later they were removed to the Tower, where Waldegrave fell sick, and received permission on 27 Sept. to be attended by his wife. On 24 Oct. he was permitted to leave the Tower, though still a prisoner, and to reside ‘in some honest house where he might be better tended.’ On 18 March 1551–2 he received permission to go to his own house, and on 24 April he was set at liberty and had license to repair to Mary at her request.
On the death of Edward VI Waldegrave, whom Mary much esteemed for his sufferings on her behalf, was sworn of the privy council, constituted master of the great wardrobe, and presented with the manors of Navestock in Essex, and of Chewton in Somerset. He was returned for Wiltshire in the parliament of October 1553, and for Somerset in that of April 1554. In the parliament of January 1557–8 he represented Essex. On 2 Oct. 1553 he was knighted, on 4 Nov. was appointed joint receiver-general of the duchy of Cornwall (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1547–80, p. 55), and on 17 April 1554 he was appointed one of the commissioners at the trial of Sir Nicholas Throckmorton [q. v.] Waldegrave was a strenuous opponent of the queen's marriage with Philip of Spain, and, with Lord Derby and Sir Edward Hastings, threatened to leave her service if she persisted. A pension of five hundred crowns bestowed on him by Charles V early in 1554 quieted his opposition, and he undertook the office of commissioner for inquiry into heresies. In 1557 he obtained a grant of the manor of Hever Cobham in Kent, and of the office of lieutenant of Waltham or Epping Forest. On the death of his uncle, Sir Robert Rochester, on 28 Nov. 1557, he succeeded him as chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster. In the following year he formed one of the commission appointed to dispose of the church lands vested in the crown. On the death of Mary he was deprived of his employments, and soon after was sent to the Tower with his wife, the priest, and the congregation, for permitting mass to be said in his house (ib. pp. 173, 176, 179, Addenda, 1547–65, pp. 509, 510). He died in the Tower on 1 Sept. 1561, and was buried in the Tower chapel. A monument was erected to his memory and that of his wife at Borley. He married Frances (d. 1599), daughter of Sir Edward Neville (d. 1538) [q. v.] By her he had two sons: Charles, who succeeded him in his Norfolk and Somerset estates, and was ancestor of the Earls Waldegrave; and Nicholas, ancestor to the Waldegraves of Borley in Essex. They had also three daughters: Mary, married to John Petre, first baron Petre [see under Petre, Sir William]; Magdalen, married to Sir John Southcote of Witham in Essex; and Catharine, married to Thomas Gawen of Wiltshire.
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