Edmund Prideaux (died 1659) of Forde Abbey, Thorncombe, Devon, was an English lawyer and Member of Parliament, who supported the Parliamentary cause during the Civil War. He was briefly solicitor-general but chose to resign rather than participate in the regicide of King Charles I. Afterwards, he was attorney-general, a position he held until he died. During the Civil War and for most of the First Commonwealth he ran the postal service for Parliament.
Origins
Prideaux was born at Netherton House in the parish of Farway, near Honiton, Devon, and was the second son of Sir Edmund Prideaux, 1st Baronet (d.1629), of Netherton, an eminent lawyer of the Inner Temple and member of an ancient family which originated at Prideaux Castle in Cornwall, by his second wife, Catherine Edgcumbe, daughter of Piers Edgcumbe of Mount Edgcumbe in Devon (now in Cornwall).
Education
Prideaux was first educated at Truro Grammar School, graduated M.A. at Cambridge, and on 6 July 1625 was admitted ad eundem at Oxford. On 23 November 1623 he was called to the bar at the Inner Temple and subsequently practiced law chiefly in chancery. He was appointed to the honourable posts of Recorder of Exeter, and later in 1649 Recorder of Bristol.
Long Parliament
Prideaux was elected to the Long Parliament for Lyme Regis in Dorset (which seat he held till his death), and forthwith took the side of the Parliamentarians against King Charles I. In 1642 his subscription for the defence of parliament was £100. By his own side he was regarded as one of the persons best informed as to the state of feeling in the West of England.
For three years, from 10 November 1643 until it was transferred to the custody of the speakers of the two houses, Prideaux was one of the commissioners in charge of the Great Seal of Parliament, an office worth £1,500 per annum, and as a mark of respect, by order of the House of Commons, he was called within the bar with precedence next after the solicitor-general. Prideaux was one of the Parliamentary commissioners appointed to negotiate with the king's commissioners at the Treaty of Uxbridge in January 1645. Edward Hyde in his History of the Rebellion would accuse Prideaux, along with Henry Vane and Oliver Saint-John, of being spies for a party within Parliament that had no intention of allowing any sort of compromise in the furtherance of a treaty.
Resignation before the regicide
On 12 October 1648 he was appointed by parliament as Solicitor General for England and Wales. He resigned the office when the king's trial became imminent and John Cook was solicitor-general on that occasion and subsequently. Prideaux did not however lose favour with his party. On 9 April 1649 he was appointed attorney-general, and remained in that office for the rest of his life.
Postal service
For many years Prideaux was intimately and profitably connected with the postal service. The question of the validity of patents for the conduct of posts was raised in both houses of Parliament in connection with the 1640 sequestration of the office of Thomas Witherings, granted in 1633. Prideaux served as chairman of the committee appointed in 1642 to enquire into the rates of inland letters. In 1644 he was appointed, by resolution of both houses, "Master of the Posts, Messengers, and Couriers"; and he continued at intervals, as directed by the House of Commons or otherwise, to manage the postal service. In 1644 he was ordered to arrange a post to Hull, York, and Lyme Regis, and in 1649 to Chester, Holyhead, and Ireland, and also to Bideford in Devon; likewise in 1650 to Kendal, and in 1651 to Carlisle. By 1649 he is said to have established a regular weekly service throughout the kingdom.