office (6 Nov. 1697) William III, who returned home after the treaty of Ryswick, made a magnificent public entry into London. The reception was the grandest spectacle witnessed in the city since the Restoration.
Soon after his election Edwin gave great offence by attending a nonconformist worship on the afternoons of Sunday, 31 Oct. and 7 Nov., in full civic state. A meeting of the court of aldermen was held on Tuesday, 9 Nov., to consider a complaint of the sword-bearer against the lord mayor for compelling his attendance on the occasion, when the lord mayor was deserted by all his officers except the sword-bearer, who was locked in a pew (Luttrell, iv. 303). According to the official minute, the court took notice that the lord mayor had 'for two Lords dayes past in the aftemoones gone to private meetmgs with the Sword.' His lordship promised to forbear the practice for the future, and it was ordered 'that the like practice shall not be used for the time to come' (City Records, Rep. 102, fol. 11). A letter written 11 Nov. states that the meeting-house attended by the lord mayor was More's. Wilson and others state that it was Pinners' Hall; a contemporary skit, 'A Dialogue between Jack and Will,' describes it as Salters' Hall. Burnet says that the bill for preventing occasional conformity had its origin in Edwin's state visit to Pinners' Hall (Hist. V. 49).
Edwin's unwise action roused all the bitterness of the high church party and caused an angry literary controversy. Dr. Nicholls led the attack in his 'Apparat. ad Def. Eccles. Angl.,' and was answered by James Peirce (Vindication of the Dissenters, pt. i. p. 276) and by Calamy(Abridgment,i.561). A young clergyman named Edward Oliver, preaching before Edwin in St. Paul's Cathedral towards the close of his mayoralty (22 Oct. 1698), had the bad taste to declaim against the nonconformist mode of worship. The sermon soon appeared in print and was answered by a pamphlet, of which two editions were published, entitled 'A Rowland for an Oliver, or a Sharp Rebuke for a Saucy Levite.... By a Lover of Unity.' Edwin had also to face the ridicule of the stage and the lampoons of the wits of the day. The two following brochures are preserved in the Guildhall Library: 'A Dialogue betwixt Jack and Will concerning the Lord Mayor's going to Meeting-houses, with the Sword carried before him,' London, 1697, 4to, and 'The Puritanical Justice, or the Beggars turn'd Thieves,' London, 1698, 4to.
Penkethman, in his comedy of 'Love without Interest,' 1699, has the following allusion: 'If you'll compound for a catch, I'll sing you one of my Lord Mayor's going to Pin-makers Hall to hear a sniveling non-conseparatist divine divide and subdivide into the two and thirty points of the compass.' Swift, in his 'Tale of a Tub,' by way of satirising the toleration of dissenters, states that Jack's tatters are coming into fashion both in court and city, and describes Edwin under the name of Jack getting upon a great horse and eating custard. A satiric print illustrating the text is given in the fifth edition of the 'Tale of a Tub' (sect. xi. p. 233); this is somewhat altered in later editions; the scene is Ludgate Hill, showing the gate, with St. Paul's in the background. De Foe wrote a pamphlet bearing the title 'An Enquiry into the Occasional Conformity of Dissenters in Cases of Preferment; with a Preface to the Lord Mayor, occasioned by his carrying the Sword to a Conventicle,' London, 1697.
The remainder of Edwin's mayoralty passed off without event and apparently with credit to himself. Many corporate offices fell vacant during the year, by which he received the large sum of 4,000l. Towards the end of May he temporarily retired through illness, with the king's leave, to his house at Kensington, Sir Robert Clayton filling his place in his absence (Luttrell, iv. 386).
Edwin died on 14 Dec. 1707 at his seat in Llanmihangel, where a monument to his memory remains in the parish church. His widow died in London on 22 Nov. 1714, and was subsequently buried beside him at Llanmihangel. He left no will, but administration was granted to his son Charles on 19 Feb. 1707-8. Towards the erection of the London workhouse, which was begun in his mayoralty, he gave 100l. and a pack of wool. Besides the children already mentioned Edwin had four daughters and a fifth son, John, from whom is descended the present Earl of Crawford and Balcarres.
[Memoir of the family of Edwin, by J. Edwin-Cole, in Nichols's Herald and Genealogist, vi. 54-62; Wilson's Life of De Foe. i. 270-4; Duncumb's Herefordshire; Luttrell's Relation; Extracts from the Barber-Surgeons' Company's Records, furnished by Mr. Sydney Young; Notes and Queries, 2nd ser. iv. 389; Chetham Society's publications, xxi. 248.]
EDWIN, JOHN, the elder (1749–1790), comedian, born 10 Aug. 1749 in Clare Street, St. Clement Danes, was the only son of John Edwin, a watchmaker, by Hannah, daughter of Henry Brogden, a statuary in York. He had two sisters, Mary and Elizabeth. He was sent at nine years of age to a farmhouse near Enfield, and obtained a moderate education, including a good knowledge of music,
