Edmund Chilmead (1610 – 19 February 1654), wrongly called Edward in various sources, was an English writer and translator active in Oxford during the Civil War and early Commonwealth periods. He is remembered mainly for his scholarly works,M. Feingold, 'Chilmead, Edmund (1610-1654)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (OUP, 2004). including those relating to Byzantine history and to music, and also as a practical musician, a few of his songs surviving in notation.British Library, Add. MSS 29396 and 31429. Anthony à Wood described him as "a choice mathematician, a noted critic, and one that understood several tongues, especially the Greek, very well."'Edmund Chilmead', in A. à Wood, ed. P. Bliss, Athenae Oxonienses: an Exact History... with The Fasti, New Edition, 3 vols (F.C and J. Rivington (etc), London 1817), III, cols. 350–51 (Internet Archive). He was a "Critic" in the academic sense, one who was skilled in the study or analysis of texts. His edition of the Chronographia of John Malalas was his most lasting contribution to scholarship.
Life Chilmead of Stow on the Wold Edmund Chilmead was born the first son of Henry Chillmead, at the parsonage house of Stow-on-the-Wold, Gloucestershire, between 4 and 5 o'clock in the morning of 15 March 1609/10, and was baptized at St Edward's church, Stow on 25 March 1610: the extended entry stands out in this otherwise formulaic register."Register of Baptisms, Burials and Marriages, Stow on the Wold, 1558-1630." Gloucestershire Archives, Gloucestershire Church of England Parish Registers: Reference number P317 in 1/1. Microfilm image 42 (of 124), foot of page. This register is kept in a neat, curly hand from September 1601 to 1617. A brother, John (1611), and Grace Chilmead (1613/14), were baptized there soon afterwards."Register", Microfilm images 44 and 45. If Henry Chillmead was ever a clergyman there, the Liber cleri is silent;Church of England clergy database (CCED), Gloucester diocese; Location: Parish (Church): Stow-on-the-Wold, Location ID 9515, "Show all records", "+Evidence" (theclergydatabase.org.uk). but Stow historians have called him "rector".J. Stratford, Gloucestershire Biographical Notes ("The Journal", Gloucester 1887), p. 300 (Internet Archive), citing D. Royce, History and Antiquities of Stow (T. Clift, Stow on the Wold 1861). William Busted was presented to Stow rectory in 1603 by the lay patron Edmund Chamberlain (1560-1634)Church of England clergy database (CCED), Person ID 79829 (theclergydatabase.org.uk). "View Person Record for Busted, William". Appointment evidence record ID 315067. (manorial lord of Maugersbury, a hamlet of Stow),S. Rudder, A New History of Gloucestershire (Samuel Rudder, Cirencester 1779), pp. 704-07 (Internet archive). Edmund Chamberlaine's wife was Grace Strangeways.The Maugersbury manor house and estate were depicted by Jan Kip in an etching produced 1708-1715, see "Maugersbury, the Seat of Edmund Chamberlain, Esquire", in Britannia Illustrata, 2nd Edition, 4 vols (J. Smith, London 1724), II, Plate 39; and in R. Atkyns, The Ancient and Present State of Glostershire (W. Bowyer for Robert Gosling, London 1712) inserted at pp. 694-95 (Internet Archive). View at British Museum, Print, M,22.39 (Prints). who in that year purchased the reputed manor of Stow-on-the Wold, and had the advowson.'Stow-on-the-Wold: Church' in C.R. Elrington (ed.), A History of the County of Gloucestershire, Vol. VI (VCH, London 1965), pp. 142-65, at fn. 261, fn. 550 and at fn. 589 (British History Online), citing the "F.S. Hockaday Abstracts of ecclesiastical records" in Gloucestershire Archives. Busted's incumbency was interrupted at least once:See The National Archives (UK), Chamberlayne v Roberts (1604), Star Chamber proceedings, Ref: STAC 8/94/5, and Chamberlayne v Broughton (1604), Ref. STAC 8/113/26 (Discovery Catalogue). he was re-instituted under Crown patronage as vicar or rector of Stow in 1613. Other Chilmead baptisms at Stow include Henry (July 1622) and Sara (August 1624),"Register", Microfilm images 51 and 53. while Geoffry Chilmead, son of Henry, born at Maugersbury c. 1631, attended Stow school and entered Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge a sizar in 1653, aged 22, later becoming vicar of South Benfleet and curate of Bowers Gifford in Essex.J. Venn and J.A. Venn, Alumni Cantabrigienses: from the earliest times to 1751, Part I, vol. I (Cambridge University Press, 1922), p. 333 (Internet Archive).
More likely, Henry Chilmead was a bailiff to Edmund Chamberlaine. His children's names, Edmund, John and Grace (Chilmead), mirror Chamberlaine's children and wife. He acted with Simon Egerton (Chamberlaine's cousin, and overseer of his brother Sir John Chamberlaine's will, 1617)"Will of Sir John Chamberleyne of Prestbury" (P.C.C. 1617, Weldon quire). Edmund was a son of the diplomat Sir Thomas Chamberlayne of Prestbury (died 1580) by his second wife, Joan Machell (née Luddington), whose brother Nicholas Luddington (died 1595) was Egerton's grandfather. in a Chancery action concerning a bond.The National Archives (UK), Egerton v Lee, Ref. C 2/JasI/E2/17 (Discovery Catalogue). The manorial rights to the markets and rents at Stow, disputed by the town bailiffs and burgesses in 1606-07,M.C. Hill, 'The Borough of Stow on the Wold', Transactions of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society, LXV (1944), pp. 175-86 (Society's pdf). remained with Chamberlain:'Stow-on-the-Wold: Local government' in C.R. Elrington (ed.), A History of the County of Gloucestershire, Vol. VI (VCH, London 1965), pp. 142-65, at fn. 491-496 (British History Online), citing sources. View original Exchequer entries at Waalt (University of Houston). Search and follow links. through succeeding inquiries, Chilmead gave evidence in 1621 when Chamberlaine challenged the townsmen (including Richard Hill and William Busted).The National Archives (UK), Chamberlayn v Hill (1621), King's Remembrancer, Depositions, Ref. E 134/18Jas1/Hil8 (Discovery Catalogue). Between 1613 and 1621 Chamberlain himself (attended by his family and servants) was in debtor's prison in London, having been surety for the debts of his brother, Sir John, to some £14,000.A. Jessop (ed.), The Œconomy of the Fleete:, or, An Apologeticall Answeare of Alexander Harris, Camden Society, New Series vol. XXV (1879), p. 188, note to p. 26, line 26, citing pp. 120-27 (Google Books) - see also p. 62 and pp. 71-72 - and M.A.E. Green, Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series, James I: 1611-1618 (Longmans, Brown, Green, Longman and Roberts, London 1858), p. 561, item 51 (Google Books).
In November 1623 Henry Chilmead, yeoman of Stow-on-the-Wold, brought suit in Star Chamber against Richard Hill of Stow, yeoman, and Charles Townsend, a King's Bench attorney, for having procured Chilmead's arrest by making a false return to a warrant issued "on a bond given by him on behalf of his master, Edward Chamberleyn, Esq".The National Archives (UK), Chilmead v Townsend (1623), Star Chamber proceedings, Ref: STAC 8/86/5 (Discovery Catalogue). The Catalogue entry reads "Edward"; most likely an error for "Edmund", rather than a reference to Edmund's nephew Edward Chamberlayne of Gloucester (1616-1703). In 1631 Chamberlaine, endowing the marriage of his son John with his manors and estates, specifically excluded the messuage with two virgates of land (i.e. about 60 acres) in Maugersbury then in the tenure of Henry Chilmead, which he later sold privately.'Inquisitio post mortem: Edmund Chamberlain, esquire', in W.P.W. Phillimore and G.S. Fry (eds), Abstracts of Gloucestershire Inquisitiones Post Mortem returned into the court of Chancery in the reign of Charles I, Part I: 1625-1636, The Index Library (British Record Society Ltd, London 1893), pp. 208-11 (HathiTrust), abstracting WARD 7/87/299 (The National Archives, UK). Making his will in April 1634, Chamberlaine gave ten pounds to Stow church, five pounds to the poor, and ten pounds to Henry Chilmead, who, next after John Chamberlaine, witnessed the will."Will of Edmond Chamberleyne of Maugersbury, Gloucestershire" (P.C.C. 1634, Seager quire), proved May 1634. Abstract in 'Virginia Gleanings in England', The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, (Virginia Historical Society), Vol. 23, No. 2 (April 1915), pp. 156-161, at p. 157 (HathiTrust). In 1637 Henry Chilmeade was a bailiff to John Chamberlaine (died February 1667/68), Edmund's son and heir.Hill, 'The Borough of Stow on the Wold', pp. 175-86 (Society's pdf), at p. 186, note 15, citing Royce, History and Antiquities of Stow (1861), pp. 342-44.
The Grammar School at Stow was re-edified adjacent to the churchyard in 1594, and further endowed in 1604, by Richard Shepham, a Warden of the Merchant Taylors in London, and received its Charter in 1612.'Stow on the Wold Grammar School', in W. Page (ed.), The Victoria History of the County of Gloucester, Volume II (Archibald Constable and Company Limited, London 1907), at p. 420 (Internet Archive). Sir John Chamberlaine (Trinity College, Oxford) and his brother Edmund (Magdalen College, Oxford) had entered Oxford University together in 1578/79, and probably their younger half-brother Thomas (Gloucester Hall) in 1582.'Chamberlayne, Thomas, of co. Gloucester, 1582', and 'Chamberlayne, Edward, s. Thomas, of Oddington', in J. Foster (ed.), Alumni Oxonienses: The Members of the University of Oxford, 1500-1714, Early Series: Part I (Oxford 1891), pp. 257-58 (Internet Archive). Edmund's son, John Chamberlaine, matriculated from Magdalen College in 1624, and entered the Inner Temple in 1626.'Chamberlayn, Edward, of Gloucestershire, "mil. fil", 1578/79' [recte Edmund], 'Chamberlayn, (Sir) John, 1578/79', and 'Chamberlaine, John, 1 son Edmund, of Maugersbury, 1624', in J. Foster (ed.), Alumni Oxonienses: The Members of the University of Oxford, 1500-1714, Early Series: Part I (Oxford 1891), p. 257 (Internet Archive). There lay the path of example and influence which led Edmund and John Chilmead to Magdalen soon afterwards.
Oxford career