EDEN, Dr Thomas (by 1579-1645), of Trinity Hall, Cambridge and Doctors’ Commons, London

By 1640 Thomas Eden, master of Trinity Hall, Cambridge, was one of the preeminent civil lawyers in England. He had begun his career almost half a century earlier as a protégé of John Cowell, an earlier master of Trinity Hall, who was reputed to have observed that Eden had ‘a happy name, which commends to a favourite that might be easily pronounced’.39D. Lloyd, Memoires (1668), 594. He had since fully lived up to his early promise. Thomas Fuller thought him ‘a singular good advocate’ and one of the elegies published after Eden’s death stated that

So pure, so flowing could his language be,
As if the world in his delivery
Had melted and dissolv’d. He did appear

A constellation of our hemisphere.40T. Fuller, Hist. of the Worthies of England ed. P.A. Nuttall (1840), i. 522; Lansd. 98, f. 195.

He accumulated numerous offices. As well as serving as a college head, he was professor of civil law at Gresham College, commissary of the archdeaconry of Sudbury, chancellor of the diocese of Ely, one of the judges of the court of admiralty and a commissioner of the court of high commission. As commissary, he assisted Sir Simonds D’Ewes* in his research into the history of the abbey of Bury St Edmunds.41Harl. 376, f. 57; Sloane 970, f. 1; T. Tanner, Notitia Monastica (1744), 505; A.G. Watson, The Library of Sir Simonds D’Ewes (1966), 27, 116, 315-16. He was also already very experienced in parliamentary business. He had regularly acted as messenger between the Lords and the Commons in the 1625 Parliament before going on to sit as one of the MPs for Cambridge University in the two following Parliaments.

Eden’s various offices placed him at the forefront of the religious controversies of the 1630s. The royalist writer David Lloyd later said of him as master of Trinity Hall that he had ‘always concurred with the old Protestants in his votes; (in censuring extravagant sermons, &c.)’.42Lloyd, Memoires, 593. This does not entirely square with Eden’s undoubted role in the enforcement of Laud’s policies, most notably from December 1633 as one of the commissioners of the court of high commission, a post which occupied much of his time.43CSP Dom. 1633-4, p. 327. Only a month after this, in January 1634, Eden made the first of his donations to his college – lands on the Cambridgeshire-Suffolk border for which he paid £504. His intention was that the £28 a year these lands yielded should be used to fund a commemoration service each year on 17 December, at which a Latin oration was to be given in praise of the college’s benefactors and of the glories of Roman and canon law. He also specified that some of the money should be used to keep the college chapel supplied with candles.44Warren’s Book ed. A.W.W. Dale (Cambridge, 1911), 149, 280-4; Howard, Vis. Suff. i. 14; Fuller, Worthies, i. 522; Ward, Lives, 242; E. Carter, Hist. of the University of Cambridge (1753), 101. Here were benefactions to gladden Laud’s heart. Meanwhile, in the midst of many other cases, in 1634 Eden was among those commissioners who sat in judgement on John Bastwick, finding him guilty of scandalous libel.45CSP Dom. 1640-1, p. 479.

His existing judicial responsibilities in both Cambridgeshire and Suffolk, where the local ecclesiastical courts were themselves under pressure to produce results, were by themselves taxing. The dispute in 1635 over whether Laud, as archbishop of Canterbury, could order an episcopal visitation of Cambridge University placed Eden in an especially difficult position. He seems to have resolved the dilemma by playing a double game. In December 1635 he was among heads of house who wrote to Laud arguing that the university had the invariable right to claim exemption from such visitations.46The Works of the Most Reverand Father in God, William Laud ed. J. Bliss (Oxford, 1847-60), v. 557, 562. However, by February 1636 Eden was sending Laud’s vicar-general, Sir John Lambe, references from the Ely diocesan records which he believed would show that the archbishop and the bishop of Ely did have the right to conduct visitations of the university.47CSP Dom. 1635-6, p. 215. The same month Matthew Wren, perhaps Laud’s most enthusiastic supporter on the bench of bishops, pressed ahead with a visitation of the diocese of Norwich, choosing Eden, as commissary of Sudbury, as one of his commissioners.48Bodl. Tanner 68, ff. 20-22, 52. Everywhere they went the commissioners loyally imposed Wren’s programme of reform. At Ipswich in April 1636 their proceedings began with a riot and concluded with the suspension of three local clergymen. Eden later acted as counsel in one of the cases arising from this dispute, and in this context complained to Wren that ‘when any of our profession be at any such meeting, with any of the king’s common law counsel, they do so overbear all as we stand but for ciphers’.49Bodl. Tanner 68, f. 202. Eden kept Wren informed of his success in using his courts to further the bishop’s policies.50Bodl. Tanner 68, ff. 200, 202, 223, 226. In early 1638, when Wren announced another visitation, Eden personally overruled the complaints by the registrar of the Sudbury archdeaconry that it was too soon since the previous one.51CSP Dom. 1637-8, pp. 316-17; Add. 1625-49, p. 574.

Even before 1638, when Wren was translated to the bishopric of Ely, Eden was using his chancellorship of that diocese to implement Laudian policies. In 1636 he led the way in enforcing the installation of east-end communion tables and rails throughout Ely diocese.52The 1638 Vis. of Bishop Matthew Wren ed. W.M. Palmer and H.W. Saunders (1926), 41. In 1639, on Wren’s move to Ely, Eden headed the commission for his primary episcopal visitation, which Wren later assured Laud had been carried out ‘very carefully’.53LPL, MS 943, p. 615. A petition from some of the inhabitants of Cambridgeshire against their new bishop included the allegation that Eden was charging excessive fees in the church courts ‘whereby he hath advanced himself to a vast estate’.54Episcopal Vis. Returns for Cambs. ed. W.M. Palmer (Cambridge, 1930), 74. Eden’s name had by now become synonymous with Laudianism throughout a large swathe of East Anglia.

This reputation seems not to have disadvantaged Eden in the 1640 parliamentary elections. His place in the Short Parliament was secured in a three-way contest at Cambridge involving Henry Lucas and his old friend, Sir John Lambe. It was perhaps only in such company that Eden could appear as the compromise candidate, given that Lambe was one of the few individuals even more implicated in the Laudian innovations. John Cosin, the arch-Arminian master of Peterhouse who as vice-chancellor presided over the election, probably hoped to get both Eden and Lambe elected. He was only partly successful. Eden’s past services as the university’s MP helped him obtain the senior place unopposed, while Lucas (the secretary to the chancellor of the university, Henry Rich, 1st earl of Holland) defeated Lambe to gain the other place.55Camb. Univ. Trans. ii. 558; M.B. Rex, Univ. Representation in England 1604-1690 (1954), 121.

The Short Parliament’s pursuit of an agenda of religious reform left Eden with little choice but to become heavily involved in its proceedings: few other MPs were his equal as an expert on ecclesiastical law. During the fourth week of April 1640 he was nominated to committees on various religious grievances.56CJ ii. 8a, 9b, 10a, 12a. This cannot have been a comfortable experience. Closely associated with many of the policies being criticised, he soon spoke out against those who lacked his understanding of the legal niceties involved. His first intervention on 29 April seems to have corrected Sir Walter Erle* as to when crosses could be erected in college chapels. He went on to discuss an equally abstruse point regarding divinity disputations at Cambridge, defending John Cosin against what Eden viewed as the ignorance of John Pym*.57Aston’s Diary, 89, 95. His support three days later for the master of St John’s, William Beale, was more guarded. On that occasion Pym’s complaint centred on Beale’s notorious sermon arguing that the king could make laws without reference to Parliament. Eden made no attempt to defend Beale’s remarks, but he probably pointed out that Convocation would take offence if the Commons tried to summon one of its number before them.58Aston’s Diary, 113. Earlier that day Eden had argued against Richard King’s bill to reform the ecclesiastical courts, telling the Commons that the existing laws on excommunications did not need to be changed. This did not prevent him being second-named to the committee to consider the bill. He again defended established practice against King’s proposals the following day when he maintained that there was nothing wrong in church officials making deductions for pious uses as part of usual probate procedure. He went so far as to assert that these payments ‘were never better employed than of late’.59Aston’s Diary, 110, 120; CJ ii. 17b. Eden had not tried to mount a general defence of the king’s religious policies. He had instead concentrated his efforts on those particular matters in which he or his constituents had a direct interest and he clearly preferred to confine himself to technical legal questions. He was to continue these tactics during the early years of the next Parliament.

Eden’s election to the Long Parliament was not a foregone conclusion. This time he and Lucas faced challenges from Sir Henry Spelman† and Henry Hopkins for the Cambridge seats. Of the two, Eden thought that Spelman (who had earlier endowed the university’s chair in Anglo-Saxon) was the greater threat. He lost no time in mobilising his support. Rumours were spread around Cambridge by Eden’s supporters that Spelman had withdrawn and Eden himself then threatened to withdraw. Bishop Wren intervened in the contest on Eden’s behalf by disingenuously arguing that a seat in the Commons was an insufficient honour for the great Spelman. These tactics proved effective. In the poll was Eden secured 154 votes, which was 26 fewer than Lucas but comfortably ahead of Hopkins (89) and Spelman (70).60Bodl. Tanner 65, f. 164; Orig. Lttrs. of Eminent Literary Men ed. H. Ellis (Cam. Soc. xxiii), 163-4; Cooper, Annals Camb. iii. 304; Camb. Univ. Trans. ii. 558; Rex, Univ. Representation, 146-8.

For Eden this Parliament began much where the last had left off. When the Commons resumed its attack on Cosin on 21 November 1640, Eden resurrected a version of the argument he had used to defend Beale the previous May, advising that it should be Cosin’s colleagues in Convocation, rather than Parliament, who should instigate his excommunication.61Procs. LP i. 227, 232, 234, 236. Eden was not just being pedantic: Cosin was probably one of his personal friends. Three days later Eden spoke on behalf of Cosin after a hostile witness had appeared at the bar of the House to give evidence against him. Eden was sceptical of the claim that Cosin had used Richard Nichols to win over converts to Catholicism among the students at Cambridge, even though he conceded that the latter was ‘a dangerous man’. The charge that Cosin had defended a sermon by one of the other fellows of Peterhouse, William Norwitch, may have been more difficult to deny, but Eden tried to uphold the honour of his colleagues by telling the Commons that Cambridge University had already taken action against Norwitch.62Procs. LP i. 268. This was, at best, a half-truth as Eden had helped Cosin block the attempts by some of the heads of house to condemn Norwitch.63Harl. 7019, f. 61. Within days Eden and Sir William Pennyman* put up the bail which allowed Cosin to be released from prison.64Oxinden Lttrs. ed. Gardiner, 189.

Eden’s personal concerns similarly prevented him fully endorsing the moves against the court of the earl marshal (23 Nov.). He regularly appeared as a counsel before it and, on occasion, had been employed by the earl marshal, Thomas Howard, 21st earl of Arundel, to act as his assessor. Placed on the committee to investigate the court’s work, he offered justification of Arundel’s conduct.65Reps. of Heraldic Cases in the Ct. of Chivalry 1623-1732 ed. G.D. Squibb (Harl. Soc. cvii), 7-10, 12, 17, 21, 23-5, 28, 36, 44; CUL, Dd.III.64, f. 40; CJ ii. 34b; Procs. LP i. 249, 258; Rushworth, Hist. Collns. iii. 1056; G.D. Squibb, The High Court of Chivalry (Oxford, 1997), 55, 266. His interests as a civil lawyer also caused him to back to the unpopular proposal by the comptroller of the Household, Sir Thomas Jermyn*, that martial law should be used to impose discipline on the army (31 Dec.).66Procs. LP ii. 78.

Discussion of the revised set of Canons approved by Convocation the previous May quickly caused problems for Eden. His speech on 9 December was perhaps the most important attempt by any MP to defend them. While he took care to deny that he had been involved in their preparation,, on the basis of a detailed discussion of the terms of the 1536 statute for the submission of the clergy, he concluded that the laity had a duty to accept them.67Procs. LP i. 525, 529-30, 537, 538. A week later Baptist Noel* evidently received much vocal support when he proposed that the few MPs like Eden or George Parry* who were diocesan chancellors should be disabled from sitting as MPs for having administered the so-called etcetera oath. Speaker William Lenthall blocked this move by claiming the sudden onset of illness to justify a pre-emptory adjournment.68CJ ii. 52a; Procs. LP i. 624, 625-6. But this issue again caused trouble the following February when the Commons discussed the petition from the ministers of Kent (1 Feb.). This time Henry Marten* argued that, having taken the oath, Eden and Parry could not be trusted to consider the petition in fair manner, although he wanted them to withdraw only for the duration of that particular debate. The best that Eden and Parry could do was to argue that they should be allowed to remain in the chamber to give their expert opinions on any of the matters raised. However, they did not lack supporters and the House rapidly became bogged down in a largely sterile argument about whether they should be ordered to leave. An exasperated Pym eventually proposed that they move on to the more important matter of the Kentish petition itself, while suggesting that the two doctors should withdraw temporarily as a matter of politeness. This broke the deadlock and, rather than create a scene, Eden and Parry complied with Pym’s advice.69Procs. LP ii. 332-4, 336; Two Diaries of Long Parl. 81.

Reasons for the Commons to distrust Eden were steadily accumulating. Several petitions presented at the beginning of the session were from individuals whom he had excommunicated for resisting Laudian policies.70Procs. LP i. 157. In December 1640 Sir Robert Howard revived complaints about his imprisonment by high commission and it was probably this matter for which Eden asked permission from the Commons on 18 December to put his case to the Lords.71LJ iv. 106a, 113b-114a; CJ ii. 53b; Rushworth, Hist. Collns. iv. 121. Eden found himself implicated in attacks on Laud and Wren. For example, his name surfaced in complaints concerning Wren brought by the town of Ipswich in January 1641, which centred on the 1636 visitation and which prompted the Commons to begin its impeachment proceedings against the bishop.72Bodl. Tanner 220, ff. 7-43; Procs. LP ii. 145-6, 401. Furthermore, Bastwick’s campaign to clear his name resulted in the Commons declaring that, in sentencing him, Eden and nine other members of high commission had acted illegally. These commissioners were then ordered to pay damages to Bastwick.73CJ ii. 90a; CSP Dom. 1640-1, p. 479. The committee of religion soon set up its own sub-committee to gather evidence on Eden and on 26 February the Commons agreed that this should be upgraded to a full committee with powers to receive petitions.74CJ ii. 93a; Procs. LP ii. 568. At least one petition survives complaining about the insensitive manner in which Eden had enforced ecclesiastical discipline and this was probably presented to Parliament at about this time.75Bodl. Tanner 65, ff. 4-5.

These investigations came to nothing. It no doubt helped Eden’s position that he responded to the request on 4 March 1641 for MPs to lend money secured on the subsidies by offering £500 immediately, with a further £500 to follow.76Procs. LP ii. 628, 629; CJ ii. 96b. He also had the sense to take the Protestation on 3 May, which, with its promise to defend ‘the true, reformed Protestant religion’ undid some of the damage to him from the fuss about the etcetera oath.77CJ ii. 133a. Both Houses were still receiving a steady flow of complaints seeking to overturn judgements by high commission, but there is nothing to suggest that the Commons still thought of him as a case which required particular attention.78CSP Dom. 1641-3, pp. 3-4, 34. What evidence the committee investigating him did turn up was probably laid to one side for use against Laud and Wren.

From early 1641 onwards there is almost no evidence of mutual suspicion between Eden and the Commons. The appointment of Eden and Parry in July 1641 to exhort their colleagues at Doctors’ Commons to pay in their outstanding tax assessments was simple expediency but later that month Eden was permitted to appear as a counsel in one of the cases before the House of Lords.79CJ ii. 199a; Bodl. Rawl. D.1099, f. 114v; Harl. 479, ff. 32, 104; Harl. 163, f. 416. By the end of that year Eden was, if anything, working to support the Commons’ programme of religious reform. On 27 October 1641 the Commons did nothing when D’Ewes reminded it that Eden and Parry were still sitting as MPs.80D’Ewes (C), 40-1. Two days later Eden was one of the 18 MPs appointed to persuade the Lords to accept the Commons’ proposal that the king be advised against proceeding with the appointments of five new bishops.81CJ ii. 298b. The following day Eden submitted a certificate from the rector of Trinity Church, Cambridge, declaring that the order of 8 September 1641 undoing Laudian innovations had been obeyed.82D’Ewes (C), 59; CJ ii. 283a. This suggests that Eden had complied with the requirement that all MPs publicise this order, even though it negated his previous work.

This burst of activity was not sustained, and it was not until the early months of 1642, when relations between king and Parliament were clearly deteriorating, that Eden once more became visible at Westminster. He was named to a series of committees on religious matters, including those on the pluralities bill (14 Feb.), the bill against liturgical innovations (12 Mar.) and on the implementation of the resolutions concerning church government (25 Apr.).83CJ ii. 431b, 476b, 517a, 541b. Meanwhile, he co-operated in the efforts by Parliament to interfere in the affairs of Cambridge University. In March he presented the Commons with the certificate from the vice-chancellor detailing which members of the university had taken the Protestation. The following week he was asked to inform the university that Thomas Shawbery, who had insulted Pym, should not be allowed to receive his degree.84PJ ii. 1, 42-3; CJ ii. 478b. Moreover, his professional advice was evidently considered vital when the treaty of pacification with the Scots was being prepared in July, for he was added to the committee which was drafting it. All the other lawyers in the House were then also added as an afterthought.85CJ ii. 681b. Thereafter he was probably too ill to be of much direct assistance. In September it was reported that he had ‘been long sick of an ague’ and he may well have spent much of the latter half of 1642 away from Westminster.86CJ ii. 757a.

What Eden could do was to provide money, for he was now a very wealthy man. The 1641 subsidy assessment for Cambridge suggests that he was by far the largest private property owner in the town.87W.M. Palmer, ‘A list of the Cambs. subsidy rolls, 1250-1695’, East Anglian, n.s. ix. 271. He soon proved himself to be both able and willing to respond generously to Parliament’s increasing appeals for money. On top of the loans he had promised in March 1641, in April 1642 he invested £600 in the Irish Adventure.88CSP Ire. Adv. 1642-59, p. 81; Bottigheimer, Eng. Money and Irish Land, 181; Rushworth, Hist. Collns. iv. 564. Alone, this was a comparatively modest stake, but it would seem to have been just a fraction of his total payments. A statement on 7 September 1642 by Speaker Lenthall that Eden was prepared to lend £200 reveals that he had already lent £5,000, over and above the payment to the Adventurers.89CJ ii. 757a; PJ iii. 477. On 31 December 1642 he promised a further £50.90Add. 18777, f. 109v. He seems by then to have been back at Westminster, for three days later he was among those appointed to prepare an oath to help in the detection of Catholics. On 12 January 1643 he was given the delicate job of transporting to London the money raised in Cambridgeshire for the Irish campaign.91CJ ii. 913a, 924a.

At this point doubts about Eden’s commitment to Parliament briefly re-surfaced. The interception of a letter from the chancellor of the diocese of London, Arthur Ducke*, who was then with the court at Oxford, revealed ‘matters of suspicion’ which might reflect on Eden and Robert Aylett, both of whom had got to know Ducke well through their work for high commission. Eden was immediately summoned back to London to explain himself and the order of 12 January was revoked, with Oliver Cromwell* being appointed to collect the money instead.92CJ ii. 932b. Eden’s position was not helped by the king’s decision to include him on his commission to hear causes in chancery, intended as a test of the loyalty of leading lawyers.93Docquets of Letters Patent ed. Black, 2, 276-7. But undeterred by the fact that he was again under investigation, Eden displayed his moderate credentials by speaking in the debate on 11 February on whether disbandment should precede negotiations with the king. He not only supported the minority view that the negotiations should proceed regardless, but also argued for acceptance of the king’s demand that his forts and ships be handed over as proof of Parliament’s good intentions.94Add. 18777, f. 151v. This risky speech did Eden no harm. Sixteen days later the Commons re-imposed the order of 12 January and nothing more was heard of Duck’s letter.95CJ ii. 982b. Eden’s rehabilitation suggests that he had made it clear that he had no intention of either serving on the king’s chancery commission or joining him at Oxford. In the following months Eden sat on several committees concerning the Irish supplies and attended meetings of the select Committee for Irish Affairs, which praised him for having been ‘very serviceable’ in collecting the contributions in Cambridgeshire.96CJ iii. 53b, 142a; SP16/539/127, ff. 25, 29v, 38, 40v; CSP Ire. 1633-47, p. 386.

Given his clear interest in the subject, Eden’s participation in the proceedings of the Commons in matters of religion during 1643 and 1644 was comparatively modest. He seems to have had little difficulty working with the Assembly of Divines, for he was among MPs appointed in August 1643 to study the list of objectionable books it submitted for condemnation, while the anti-episcopalian sentiments contained in the Covenant did not prevent him taking it in February 1644.97CJ iii. 201a, 410b. In May 1644 he and John Maynard were given the responsibility to draft the bill for the reform of probate, a matter hitherto the preserve of the ecclesiastical courts.98CJ iii. 490b-491a. He was also appointed to the committee which met in July 1644 to examine a bill to enforce the recusancy laws.99Harl. 166, f. 61; CJ iii. 550b. The Commons considered calling him as a witness at Laud’s trial, but this may have been because he was associated with the archbishop’s misdemeanours rather than because he necessarily supported the impeachment.100CJ iii. 422a. To all appearances Eden was prepared to go along with the Presbyterian programme but without any great enthusiasm. Thomas Fuller was being partisan when he claimed that Eden was one of the four heads of house at Cambridge who escaped the purge of the university by Edward Montagu†, 2nd earl of Manchester, ‘by the especial favours of their friends and their own wary compliance’.101T. Fuller, The Church-History of Britain (1655), pt. vi. 170. Nevertheless, Eden’s influence with the Presbyterians may have been sufficient to ensure that Trinity Hall became the only college to survive entirely unscathed.102Cooper, Annals Camb. iii. 376; J. Walker, An Attempt towards Recovering an Account of the Numbers and Sufferings of the Clergy (1714), pt. i. 114; pt. ii. 160.

Mentions of Eden in connection with military affairs were even rarer. Sometimes his legal experience explains his involvement, as with his service on the commission for court martials which sat during the latter half of 1644.103CJ iii. 562b; A. and O. This could be viewed as simply a continuation of his earlier work for the court of the earl marshal. In September 1644 he was probably one of those who recommended to the Commons that they should send the king the set of peace proposals already prepared by the Committee of Both Kingdoms. However, Eden’s role in the decision may have been confined to advice on whether or not to object to wording adopted by the king which implied that he was no longer addressing a legitimate Parliament.104CJ iii. 629a, 630b. He was among all lawyers present added on 7 December 1644 to the committee investigating whether Denzil Holles* had infringed the House’s privileges when he had told the Commons of the criticisms of Oliver Cromwell* made by the earl of Manchester.105CJ iii. 717b. As a Cambridge man, Eden was more likely than not to have been sympathetic to the Eastern Association’s request, referred to committee (8 Oct. 1644), that they be allowed to retain their revenues in order to pay their soldiers.106CJ iii. 655b. But he would not have been happy with the nascent plans which resulted in the creation of the New Model army.

One subject in connection with which Eden’s name regularly figured during these years was that of shipping. This was something in which his interest was probably legal rather than financial. In September 1643 he was directed by the Commons to inform the court of admiralty about the messenger to be sent by the Merchant Adventurers to the Danish court. It seems likely that the declaration on Parliament’s naval blockade of foreign trade by ports in royalist hands in May 1644 was largely his work, informed by his civil law training.107CJ iii. 230b, 465b, 501a, 534a. From July 1644 Eden and Giles Grene* were the two men particularly employed by the Commons to smooth over resulting difficulties with the Dutch.108Supra, ‘Committee for Foreign Affairs’; CJ iii. 568a, 593a, 629a; LJ vi. 675a. Soon Eden was regularly drafting messages to be sent to their ambassadors. In December 1644 he helped prepare the reply to the Dutch offer of conciliation and drew up a legal brief on the question of free trade to be used in Anglo-Dutch negotiations.109CJ iii. 713b; LJ vii. 95b. The following month he was asked by the Commons to compile the list of complaints concerning Dutch attacks on English ships to be used to counter the Dutch protests about English attacks on their ships.110CJ iv. 26a.

It was this record which qualified Eden for membership of the Committee for the Admiralty and Cinque Ports, which was set up by Parliament in April 1645 in the wake of the 2nd earl of Warwick’s resignation as lord high admiral under the terms of the Self-Denying Ordinance.111CJ iv. 112a; LJ vii. 327a; A. and O.; Rushworth, Hist. Collns. vi. 143. That he failed to attend any of its meetings cannot be explained entirely by ill health.112Bodl. Rawl. C.416, ff. 1-62. On 2 May the Commons considered Eden fit enough to be added temporarily (with John Selden* who, as the author of Mare Clausum, was another acknowledged expert on maritime law) to the Navy Committee to give advice on a bill to appoint a consul for Flanders. Three weeks later Eden, Grene and Selden were asked to draft a declaration on the continuing problem of Dutch reprisals on English shipping.113CJ iv. 129b, 152b.

Yet Eden’s health was failing and he died in London on 18 July. His embalmed body was transported back to Cambridge, where a public oration in his memory was given by Thomas Exton, a fellow of Trinity Hall, on 24 July.114Howard, Vis. Suff. i. 16; Ward, Lives, 241; CUL, Mm.1.49, pp. 255-7; Bodl. Tanner 60, f. 237. One of the other tributes penned at this time thought it odd that this ‘great guardian of all civil rights’ should have delayed so long his departure from ‘this stupid age’ in which warfare endangered law and justice.115Lansd. 98, f. 196. Eden was buried in the chapel of Trinity Hall in early August at the precise spot he had selected near the altar.116Howard, Vis. Suff. i. 13, 16; Ward, Lives, 242. In the early eighteenth century the college erected the monument above the grave which commemorates his public career and his benefactions to the college.117Howard, Vis. Suff. i. 16; Warren’s Book, 80-1, plate opp. p. 78; Add. 6209, ff. 125-126; Lansd. 985, f. 44; Ward, Lives, 242; F. Blomefield, Collectanea Cantabrigiensia (Norwich, 1750), 107; RCHM City of Cambridge (1959), ii. 248-9.

Those benefactions had been laid out in the will Eden had prepared in January 1644.118PROB11/193/443; Howard, Vis. Suff. i. 13-15. The main bequest, the gift of a further £504 to augment the estates he had formerly presented to the college, was used to buy an estate at Bures worth £30 a year. In accordance with his instructions, these rents were used to buy an arras (depicting a Roman triumph) to hang above high table and a silver tankard, both of which remain in the college’s collections.119Warren’s Book, 70, 95, 106, 149, 285; E.A. Jones, The Old Plate of the Cambridge Colleges (Cambridge, 1910), 34; R. Willis and J.W. Clark, The Architectural Hist. of the University of Cambridge (Cambridge, 1886), i. 233; N. Pevsner, Cambs. (1970), 182. Some of Eden’s money was also used, as he wished, to pay for the annual college feast. His lands and properties were left to his nearest surviving male relative, his nephew Thomas Eden, while his two nieces, Phillippa and Anne, received £4,000 each.120PROB11/193/443; Howard, Vis. Suff. i. 13-15. Evidently his extensive legal practice had left him a very wealthy man and William Sancroft (the future archbishop) was of the view that Eden’s fortune was ‘bottomless’.121Bodl. Tanner 60, f. 237. Eden’s choice of James Bunce, a prominent London Presbyterian, to be his executor was justified in terms of the testator’s experience of ‘his true care and fidelity in discharging and really performing trusts of this kind’.122PROB11/193/443; Howard, Vis. Suff. i. 15; Lloyd, Memoires, 593-4; Fuller, Worthies, i. 522-3; Ward, Lives, 243. After Bunce’s death, control of the estate passed to the guardian of Eden’s nephew.123PROB11/193/443. Eden is known to have left several legal treatises in manuscript, but as early as 1720 these were reported to have been lost.124Textus Roffensis, ed. T. Hearne (Oxford, 1720), 403; Ward, Lives, 243. His book collection was probably dispersed.125F. Korsten, A Catalogue of the Library of Thomas Baker (Cambridge, 1990), 83.

The mastership of Trinity Hall became the subject a protracted dispute between the college and Parliament. The fellows’ first choice to succeed Eden was Selden, who turned down the offer. They then elected one of their number, Robert King, whose legal career Eden had enthusiastically promoted, only for the Commons to block that appointment. Recognising that they must chose someone who would be acceptable to Parliament, the fellows finally settled on John Bond*, who had in the meantime been recruited as MP for Weymouth and Melcombe Regis, and it was Bond who held the mastership until the Restoration.126LJ vii. 521a, 600a-601a, 630a, 678b; CJ iv. 228b, 229a, 303b, 308b, 488a-b; Bodl. Tanner 60, f. 237; Carter, University of Cambridge, 109; Oxford DNB, ‘Robert King (1600-1676)’.