Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Molyneux, Edmund (d.1552)
MOLYNEUX, Sir EDMUND (d. 1552), judge, was eldest son of Sir Thomas Molyneux of Haughton, Nottinghamshire, by his second wife, Catherine, daughter of John Cotton of Hamstall Ridware, Staffordshire, relict of Thomas Poutrell of Hallam, Derbyshire. He graduated B.A. at Oxford on 1 July 1510, and about the same time entered Gray's Inn, where he was made an ancient in 1528, and elected Lent reader in 1532 and 1536. On 20 Nov. 1542 he was called to the degree of serjeant-at-law, and on the coronation of Edward VI was made a knight of the Bath (20 Feb. 1546-7). He appears as one of the witnesses to the patent of 24 Dec. 1547, by which the powers of the protector Somerset were at once amplified and made terminable at the pleasure of the king, signified under the great seal. In 1549 he was placed on the council of the north, and on 22 Oct. 1550 was created a justice of the common pleas. He appears to have been a sound lawyer. He died in 1552.
Molyneux was lord of the manor of Thorpe, near Newark, and of lands adjoining which had belonged to the Knights Hospitallers of the Preceptory of Eagle. By his wife Jane, daughter of John Cheyney of Chesham Bois, Buckinghamshire, he had issue four sons one of whom, Edmund, is noticed below and four daughters.
[Burke's Extinct Baronetage ; Wotton's Baronetage, i. 148-50; Reg. Univ. Oxon. (Oxford Hist. Soc.), i. 70 ; Dugdale's Orig. pp. 292, 293 ; Chron. Ser. p. 87 ; Nicolas's Orders of Knighthood, vol. iii. Chron. List, p. xiii ; Thoroton's Nottinghamshire, pp. 13, 179; Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1601-3, Addenda, 1547-65, p. 399; Archæologia, xxx. 463 et seq. ; Strype's Mem. fol. vol. i. pt. i. pp. 22-3, pt. ii. p. 458; Burnet's Reformation, vol. ii. pt. ii. p. 312; Visitation of Nottinghamshire (Harl. Soc.), iv. 72 ; Visitation of Huntingdonshire (Camden Soc.), p. 26 ; Plowden's Reports, p. 49 ; Foss's Lives of the Judges.]