He received a legal education in London at the Inner Temple, being admitted a member in 1553. The Colles family had had minor landholdings in Worcestershire for generations, originally in the village of Suckley, and his father held the lease of the manor, advowson and demesne lands of the village of Leigh which before the Dissolution of the Monasteries had belonged to Pershore Abbey. [2]
Edmund first married Joan, daughter of Robert Somervile of Edstone, and his wife Mary, sister of Sir Edward Greville[3] They had at least two children:
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. By then he was sitting as a justice of the peace for the county and in both 1574 and 1590 served as sheriff, becoming later a deputy lieutenant. [2]
Before 1585 Edmund had bought part of the demesne lands and held the rest from Elizabeth I who had previously leased it to Christopher Hatton "with tenths of corn and hay, the advowson, gift, right of patronage and free disposition of the Rectory and Rectorial Parish Church of Leigh with all their rights, members and appurtenances' in In 1590 he had a grant of the whole manor of Leigh,and in 1605 he acquired the lands there previously granted to the Earl of Leicester. [12]
He was a Justice of the Peace, MP and Sheriff, also Deputy Lieutenant and on the Council of the Marches of Wales and described as 'that grave and learned justice of this shire.'[12]
He died on 19 Dec 1606 aged 76 and was buried at Leigh, Worcestershire at his request "without pomp". His monument in the church reads:
"Hic jacet sepultus Edmundus Colles arm. qui. obiit 19
Dec., A.D. 1606, aet. suae. 76."
Sources
↑ Camden, William, 1551-1623; Fetherston, John; College of Arms (Great Britain) The Visitation of the county of Warwick in the year 1619. Internet Archive
↑Marriage:
"Shropshire, England, Extracted Church of England Parish Records, 1538-1812"
Extracted Church of England Parish Records; Title: Various publications of parish and probate records Ancestry au Record 61516 #367369 (accessed 31 October 2021)
Edmond Colles marriage to Anne on 28 Oct 1562 in Shropshire, England.
↑ 12.012.1 "Parishes: Leigh with Bransford," in A History of the County of Worcester: Volume 4, ed. William Page and J W Willis-Bund (London: Victoria County History, 1924), 101-111. British History Online, accessed October 24, 2020, http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/worcs/vol4/pp101-111.
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