The Prideaux family was one of the most ancient in Cornwall, tracing its ancestry to one ‘Paganus Prideaux … in the Conqueror’s time’.18Vivian, Vis. Cornw. 610. The mansion at Place, just outside Padstow, had been built by Edmund’s grandfather, Nicholas Prideaux†, and was praised by John Carew as a ‘stately house … [which] taketh a full and large prospect of the town, haven and countryside adjoining’.19Carew, Cornw. 143v. After studying at the grammar school at Bodmin, Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, and the Inner Temple, in 1639 Edmund Prideaux made a prosperous marriage with a daughter of the prominent east Cornwall gentleman, John Moyle II of Bake.20Al. Cant.; I. Temple database; Vivian, Vis. Cornw. 211. He succeeded to the family estates on the death of his eldest brother, Nicholas, in February 1643.21Vivian, Vis. Cornw. 611. Although there is no evidence that Prideaux was an active parliamentarian, he was penalised by the royalists during the first civil war, and the rents of his estates in the county had been confiscated by October 1644.22Cornw. RO, B/35/229. After the war he was drawn into the local administration, and was appointed as an assessment commissioner in June 1647 and February 1648, perhaps because of his close connection with the parliamentarian Moyle family.23A. and O.
Like so many other Cornish gentlemen, Prideaux’s involvement in public affairs declined after the regicide. He was named to the assessment commission in April and December 1649 but was omitted thereafter; and although he had been added to the commission of the peace for Cornwall by early 1650, there is no other evidence that he cooperated with the commonwealth or with the Cromwellian regime.24A. and O.; C193/13/3, f. 10v; C231/6, p. 345. His election as MP for Saltash on 11 January 1659 was presumably on the Buller interest – perhaps at the behest of his father-in-law, John Moyle – and his fellow MP for the constituency was John Buller*.25C219/46/28. He was in good company, as his brother-in-law William Morice* was returned for Newport and his wife’s brother Walter Moyle* was elected for Lostwithiel in the same elections. Prideaux played little part in Richard Cromwell’s* Parliament, so it is difficult to judge his political affiliations. He made no recorded speeches, and his only committee appointment (on 13 Apr.) was to the committee on the petition of the heirs of the Scottish financier, Sir William Dick.26CJ vii. 637b.
In the last days of December 1659 Prideaux joined Francis Buller I*, Walter Moyle and other Cornish gentlemen in signing a declaration of support for the restoration of the Rump.27Publick Intelligencer (2-9 Jan. 1660), 998 (E.773.41); Coate, Cornw. 307-8. Prideaux was named to the new assessment commission appointed in January 1660 and to the militia commission in March.28A. and O. As the Restoration became inevitable, William Morice (who was kinsman of General George Monck*) kept Prideaux informed of events in the capital, telling him on 17 May 1660 that he was about to set sail for the Netherlands to wait on the exiled king, ‘who will arrive hither towards the end of the week’.29Coate, Cornw. 315. After the king’s return, Prideaux made his peace with the new regime, no doubt encouraged to do so by Morice, who had been appointed secretary of state on Monck’s nomination. In December 1660 Prideaux put in a tentative request for possession of three small tenements of duchy lands, although the result of this is not known.30CTB i. 45. In November 1661 he contributed the relatively large sum of £20 to the ‘free and voluntary present’ to Charles II.31Cornw. Hearth Tax, 255. His official pardon for his activities in former decades was issued on 15 February 1662.32Cornw. RO, PB/3/45. In the same year the new earl of Bath (Morice’s friend, Sir John Granville) appointed Prideaux as one the deputy lieutenants for Cornwall, and in November 1663 Prideaux was made sheriff of the county.33Cornw. RO, PB/3/3, PB/3/23. When Morice retired in 1668, Prideaux gave up any hope of preferment, although he was still involved in local government, being named as a commissioner for recusants in Cornwall in March 1675.34CTB iv. 695. Throughout this period Prideaux followed national affairs with great interest. Morice sent him regular news bulletins from London, telling him, among other events, of the Oxford elections (in 1668) and of Monck’s intrigues (in 1670).35Cornw. RO, PB/9, ff. 30, 32. After Morice’s death in 1676, Prideaux remained interested in politics, and was happy to pass on news to others, for example telling his daughter in October 1678 that the Popish Plot ‘appears every day worse and worse, exceeding the Gunpowder Treason’ and warning that they could hope for nothing except ‘the worst of times’ in the future.36HMC 5th Rep. 371.
Prideaux died in October 1683 and was buried at Padstow. He was succeeded by his eldest son, John. His second son, Edmund, was a wealthy Smyrna merchant, and a third son, Humphrey, a celebrated dean of Norwich Cathedral.37Vivian, Vis. Cornw. 611; Oxford DNB.