Edmund Plowden

Son of Humph. Plowden by Elizab. his Wife, Daughter of Joh. Sturey of Rosshall in Shropshire, was born of an ancient and gentile Family at Plowden in the said County, spent 3 years in the study of Arts, Philosophy and Medicine at Cambridge, and afterwards, as I conceive, was entred into the Inns of Court. Soon after coming to Oxon, he spent 4 years more in the same studies there, and in Nov. an. 1552 he was admitted to practice Chirurgery and Physick by the Ven. Convoc. of the said University. But as about that time Dr. Tho. Phaer did change his studies from common Law to Physick, so did our Author Plowden from Physick to the common Law, being then about 35 years of age. In 1557 he became Autumn or Summer reader of the Middle Temple, and three years after Lent reader, being then a Serjeant at, and accounted the Oracle of the, Law. He hath written in old French,

The Commentaries or Reports of divers cases, being matters in Law, and of arguments thereupon; in the times of the Reigns of K. Ed. 6. Qu. Mary and Qu. Elizabeth: In two parts. Lond. 1571. 78. 99. &c. fol. To which was a table made by Will. Fleetwood Recorder of Lond. They are esteemed exquisite and elaborate commentaries and are of high account with all professours of the Law. Afterwards they were abridged in the French tongue—Lond. 1659. oct. (and several times before) translated by Fabian Hicks Esq. and printed also in oct. There goes also under our Author Plowdens name,

Plowdens Queries, or a moot-book of choice cases useful for the young Students of the common Law—This was several times printed, and afterwards translated from French into English, methodised and enlarged by H. B. of Lincolns Inn Esq.—Lond. 1662. oct. At length, as this famous Lawyer Plowden mostly lived a R. Cath. in his heart, so he dyed in that faith, on the sixth day of Feb. in Fifteen hundred eighty and four,158 [•] . and was buried in the Church belonging to the Temples between the body of Catherine his Wife (Dau. of Will. Sheldon of Beoly in Worcestershire Esꝫ) and the North wall, near the East end of the choire; leaving then this character (†)(†) In Annal. Reg. Elizab. pro Gul. Camd. an. 1584. behind him, (which shall serve instead of his Epitaph, notwithstanding there is one already over his grave) that ut in juris Anglicani scientia, de qua scriptis bene meruit, facile princeps; ita vitae integritate inter homines suae professionis nulli secundus. He left behind him a fair estate in lands lying at Plowden beforemention’d, at Shiplake in Oxfordshire, and at Burfield in Berks, as also a Son of both his names to enjoy it, who dying in less than two years after his Father, did bequeath (*)(*) In reg. Rutland in offic. praerog. Cant. Qu. 1. his body to be buried in the Chappel of the Bow built and erected by his ancestors (wherein some of them were buried) joyning to the Church of North Lydbury (near to which place is the Village called Plowden situated) in Shropshire. The name and posterity of this Edm. Plowden do now remain at Shiplake in Oxfordshire.