Edmund Ashfield

Who was Edmund Ashfield?

Edmund Ashfield was an English Catholic from Tattenhoe in Buckinghamshire. He was educated at St Mary Hall, Oxford. In 1599 he travelled to Edinburgh to meet James VI of Scotland. The resident English diplomat organised his kidnap and rendition apparently in the belief that Ashfield was an agent of James VI and working to further his succession to the English throne. In 1606, Ashfield was involved in the rebuilding of Ashridge Priory for Sir Thomas Egerton. In 1612, the author Henry Peacham dedicated his Graphice, or the Auncient Arte of Drawing and Limning to Ashfield, by then Deputy-Lieutenant of Buckinghamshire. An aunt or cousin Cecily Ashfield was married to the Lord Chancellor Sir John Fortescue of Salden. Edmund's uncle Thomas Ashfield was a bailiff for the Earl of Oxford in 1571, and Edmund was Thomas's heir in 1609.