Edward Waldegrave

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Sir Edward Waldegrave PC (c. 1516 – 1 September 1561) was an English courtier and recusant.

Waldegrave was the son of John Waldegrave and a maternal nephew of Robert Rochester. In 1547, he joined Princess Mary's household and was granted the manor and rectory of West Haddon, Northamptonshire.

In 1551, he was imprisoned in the Tower of London by King Edward VI (with Rochester and Francis Englefield), for refusing to carry out the Privy Council's ban on Mary having mass said in her house of Copt Hall, near Epping, Essex. He was released a year later and on Mary's accession in 1553, he was knighted, admitted to the Privy Council, granted the manors of Navestock, Essex and Chewton, Somerset, and became Master of the Great Wardrobe.

Waldegrave then served in the Parliament of England from 1553 until 1557, when he succeeded Rochester as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and was granted the manor of Cobham, Kent. However, after Mary's death a year later, he was dismissed from all his posts and committed to the Tower again, by Queen Elizabeth, for allowing mass to be celebrated in his house. Waldegrave had earlier married Frances Nevill, a daughter of the executed Sir Edward Nevill, and they had five children. Waldegrave died in the Tower in 1561; his grandson was Sir Edward Waldegrave, 1st Baronet.