incomparable virtues and goodness.' Edwin came to London, and in or before 1670 married Elizabeth, the daughter of Samuel Sambrooke, a wealthy London merchant of the ward of Bassishaw, and sister of Sir Jeremy Sambrooke. He began business as a merchant in Great St. Helen's, and here his four eldest children were born—Samuel, baptised 12 March 1671; Humphrey, 24 Feb. 1673; Thomas, 4 July 1676; and Charles, 7 Feb. 1677 (St. Helen's, Bishopsgate, Reg. of Baptisms). He afterwards appears to have removed to the neighbouring parish of St. Peter-le-Poor, where his son Samuel was living at the time of his marriage in September 1697 (Chester, Marriage Licenses, ed. Foster, col. 444). His marriage and success in trade (probably as a wool merchant) brought him great wealth. In 1678 he was admitted a freeman of the Barber-Surgeons' Company by redemption, becoming afterwards an assistant of the company, and master in 1688. In 1694, however, he was dismissed from the office of assistant for his continued non-attendance at the court meetings. He afterwards became a member of the company of Skinners. Edwin was a nonconformist, and very firm in his opinions. This seems to have brought him under the notice of James II, who was anxious to conciliate the dissenters, in order to obtain their help in relaxing the penal laws against the Roman catholics. On 11 Oct. 1687 he was sworn in as alderman of Tower ward, on the direct appointment of the king, in the place of Sir John Chapman, discharged by the royal mandate. On the 18th of the following month the king knighted him at Whitehall, and a few weeks later appointed him sheriff of Glamorganshire for the ensuing year (London Gazette, No. 2308). It was probably before this that he purchased the considerable estate and mansion of Llanmihangel Plas in Glamorganshire, from Sir Robert Thomas, bart., the last of a long line of manorial lords of that name (Nicholas, Hist, of Glamorganshire, 1874, p. 125).
In August 1688 Edwin was chosen sheriff of London and Middlesex, entering upon his duties on 11 Oct. following. The year was an eventful one. In December Edwin, with his colleague and the aldermen of London, attended the Prince of Orange on his entry into London, and took part in February in the proclamation of the king and queen in Cheapside and at the Royal Exchange. On 25 Oct. Edwin was elected alderman of the ward of Cheap, in succession to William Kiffen, the baptist minister [q. v.], who suffered notorious persecution from James II, but he again removed, 22 Oct. 1689, to Tower ward, which he continued to represent until his death. He and six others were appointed by the king, in April 1689, commissioners of excise, but in the following September all were dismissed excepting Edwin and Sir Henry Ashurst, and other wealthy citizens were appointed in their room. Edwin continued to hold the office, to which a salary of 1,000l. was attached, until April 1691. Edwin took a prominent part in the military affairs of the city. Besides being an officer of the Artillery Company, he became captain of the regiment of horse volunteers, a corps of four hundred citizens, established in July 1689 and maintained at their own expense, with the king as their colonel and the Earl of Monmouth as lieutenant-colonel. He was also colonel of a regiment of the trained bands; but in March 1690, on the churchmen becoming a majority in the court of lieutenancy, Edwin and five other aldermen who held nonconformist opinions, were turned out, and five others belonging to the church party chosen in their places. In the following year Edwin was the victim of a malicious prosecution conducted by Sir Bartholomew Shower, afterwards recorder of London. He was indicted for perjury, and a true bill found against him in November 1691 by the grand jury of Ossulston hundred in Middlesex; but upon his trial in the following February he was acquitted. In a contemporary pamphlet the prosecution is described as 'so unjust that the L. C. J. Holt, seeing it proceeded from the depth of malice, would not suffer Sir Humphry to swear all his witnesses, there being no need of any further proofs at his trial' (A Letter to an honest citizen cone, the election of a Recorder for the City of London, by T. S., 1692, Guildhall Library, Tracts, vol. cciii. No. 24). From two treasury minutes dated 5 July 1694 and 20 Oct. 1696, Edwin appears to have owned extensive property in Westminster, adjoining Westminster Hall and the clock house (Cal of Treas. Papers, 1557-1696, pp. 377, 554). He also had a town house at Kensington (Hatton, New View of London, i. 33), and added to his Glamorganshire property by the possession of the castle and lordship of Ogmore, the lease of which was renewed to him in 1702 (Notes and Queries, 6th ser. xi. 486). In September 1697 Samuel, the eldest son of Sir Humphrey, was married to Lady Catherine Montague, daughter of the Earl of Manchester, and on the 30th of the same month Edwin was elected lord mayor, the customary mayoralty pageant being omitted, owing doubtless to his religious principles (Fairholt, Lord Mayors' Pageants, Percy Soc. vol. x, pt. ii. pp. 283-4). Shortly after his accession to
