Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Cosin, Edmund
COSIN or COSYN, EDMUND (fl. 1558), vice-chancellor of Cambridge University, a native of Bedfordshire, entered King's Hall, Cambridge, as a bible clerk; proceeded B.A. early in 1535, M.A. in 1541, and B.D. in 1547; was successively fellow of King's Hall, St. Catharine's Hall, and of Trinity College (on its formation in 1546); and held from 21 Sept. 1538 to November 1541 the living of Grendon, Northamptonshire, which was in the gift of King's Hall. Cosin was proctor of the university in 1545, and his zeal in the catholic cause combined with Gardiner's influence to secure his election early in Mary's reign to the mastership of St. Catharine's Hall, and his presentation by the crown to the Norfolk rectories of St. Edmund, North Lynn (1553) and of Fakenham (1555), and to the Norfolk vicarages of Caistor Holy Trinity, and of Oxburgh (1554). In 1555 Trinity College presented him to the rectory of Thorpland, Norfolk. At the same time Cosin held many minor ecclesiastical offices, being chaplain to Bonner, bishop of London, and assistant to Michael Dunning, chancellor of Norwich diocese. In 1558 he was elected vice-chancellor of his university, but failing health and the ecclesiastical changes which accompanied Elizabeth's accession induced him to resign all his preferments in 1560 (cf. his letter to Parker in Strype's Parker, i. 176). He subsequently lived in retirement in Caius College, Cambridge, of which he was a pensioner in 1564. In 1568 the lords of the council summoned him before them to answer a charge of nonconformity, but Cosin appears to have preferred leaving the country to complying with the order. He was known to be living abroad in 1576.
[Strype's Memorials, III i. 80; Cooper's Athenæ Cantab. i. 204, 552; Egerton Papers (Camd. Soc.), p. 65; Nichols's Prog. Eliz. iii. 173; Blomefield's Norfolk.]