SEDGEWICK, Edward (1617-63), of Chipping Ongar, Essex.

The Sedgewick family originally came from Dent in Yorkshire, but their association with East Anglia began with Edward’s great-grandfather, who married a Norfolk woman, and was continued by his father, James, who lived at King’s Lynn and married the daughter of a burgess from that town.12Vis. Essex, i. 600. The family moved to Wisbech in the Isle of Ely around the time of Edward’s birth.13PROB11/311/45. James Sedgewick seems to have been a relatively wealthy man, and Edward was sent first to Barnard’s Inn in 1634 and then to Gray’s Inn in February 1640.14Barnard’s Inn Admiss.; G. Inn Admiss. 225. The following April Edward secured a lucrative match with Susanna, daughter of Tobias Pallavicini, who lived at Chipping Ongar in Essex.15Vis. Essex, i. 600 ; St Stephen Walbrook par. reg.; VCH Essex, iv. 164. It was probably through this marriage that Sedgewick gained his own landed interest in the Ongar area. The Pallavicinis were not only rich but also well-connected. The founder of the dynasty, Sir Horatio, had been the collector of papal revenues in England, and his widow became the second wife of Sir Oliver Cromwell of Hinchingbrooke – the uncle of the future lord protector. The connection between the Pallavicinis and the Cromwells continued with the marriages of Sir Oliver’s daughters, Katherine and Jane, to Sir Horatio’s sons, Henry and Tobias. Edward Sedgewick’s wife, the daughter of the latter, was therefore a first cousin of the protectoral family. This relationship was recognised in the 1650s. Sedgewicke was a party to the marriage indenture when Oliver Cromwell’s* niece, Robina Sewster, married Sir William Lockhart* in February 1655, and the lord protector intervened to protect the business interests of the Pallavicinis in 1657.16Abbott, Writings and Speeches, i. 20-1; iv. 430; NLS, Lockhart Charters, A.1, folder 2, no. 4.

During the 1640s, Sedgewick remained at Gray’s Inn, and was called to the bar in June 1645.17PBG Inn, i. 354. Little is known of his activities in the later 1640s or early 1650s, although he evidently remained in London, where his first son was baptised in November 1649.18St Augustine, Watling Street, par. reg. After the foundation of the protectorate, he emerged as a government lawyer. In January 1655 he was involved in the investigation of those claiming false debentures, and on 1 April 1656 the protectoral council advised Cromwell to appoint him as the state’s counsel for prosecuting such fraud.19CSP Dom. 1655, pp. 9, 12; 1655-6, p. 246. In January 1657 ‘Mr Judico Sedgwick’ was counsel in the legal dispute which split the Scot family of Scots-Hall in Kent, and which was brought before Parliament.20Burton’s Diary, i. 298, 352. On 8 June 1658 Sedgewick was awarded £100 for his services to the commissioners for fraudulent debentures.21CSP Dom. 1658-9, p. 52. By this time he had also been chosen as judge of the vice-admiralty court for Hampshire and the Isle of Wight.22CSP Dom. 1657-8, p. 158. Sedgewick’s legal career was lucrative: in November he joined two colleagues in purchasing for £21,000 the manor of Cressing Temple and other lands in Essex.23Leics. RO, DE728/594. As a rising lawyer, and a kinsman of the protector, Sedgewick was considered a good candidate for one of the Scottish seats in Richard Cromwell’s* Parliament: his election in January 1659 was prompted by a letter to the burghs sent by George Monck* and Samuel Disbrowe* at the end of December.24Recs. of Elgin ed. W. Cramond (2 vols. Aberdeen, 1903), i. 308.

Sedgewick played little part in this Parliament. His only speech, on 16 March 1659, concerned ‘the honour of Parliament’ when Major-general Robert Overton’s imprisonment was questioned; and when, on 9 April, Sedgewick’s expertise was called on as a member of the committee on fraudulent debentures, he was found to be ‘absent’.25Burton’s Diary, iv. 157, 386. After the restoration of the Stuarts, Sedgewick continued to expand his legal practice. In November 1660 he acted as Bulstrode Whitelocke’s* legal adviser; in November 1662 he was elected as an ‘ancient’ of Gray’s Inn; and in the same year purchased a new house in St Andrew’s parish, Holborn.26Whitelocke, Diary, 616 ; PBG Inn, i. 444. He was also able to use the law to his own advantage in May 1662, when he was granted custody of the estate of one Toby Cage of Woodford in Essex, who had defaulted on a debt of £500.27CSP Dom. 1661-2, p. 376. This success was cut short in the spring of 1663, when, probably in his early forties, he became seriously ill. He made a hasty will on 8 April. Apart from gifts to his colleagues at Gray’s Inn, to various ministers and to the poor of the parishes of Holborn and Wisbech, he left his estate to his wife and children, with special provision for the children of James Pallavicini, under the terms of the will of Sir Horatio Pallavicini. He died within the next fortnight.28PROB11/311/45. His second (but first surviving) son, also Edward, was born in 1657, but the fate of the family is unknown.29St Augustine, Watling Street, par. reg.