The Eden family probably settled in Sudbury the year 1516, when Thomas Eden's uncle was made vicar of two churches there. Thomas and Richard Eden were mentioned in the will of John Gardiner, which benefitted the Eden family. He might have followed Gardiner to Cambridge, but he soon transferred to Lincoln's Inn, and within three years began his lifelong tenure of the clerkship of the Star Chamber. His uncle Richard had filled the office since 1512, and the pair of them were to hold it jointly for nearly 20 years, and then Eden alone for as long again. The salary was 40 marks a year. The entry books which was the clerk's responsibility to keep have not survived.
about
1502
birthHe was the oldest son of Henry Eden. 1 Source ⇓ |
| 1502 • Portuguese navigator João da Nova discovers the uninhabited island of Saint Helena. |
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marriageGrissell Walgrave 2 Sources ⇓ |
1530
Age: 28y
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occupationHe was a clerk of the council of the Star Chamber until 1549. It was an English court of law that sat at the royal Palace of Westminster from the late 1400's to circa 1641. It was established to ensure the fair enforcement of laws against socially and politically prominent people so powerful that ordinary courts would likely hesitate to convict them of their crimes. Engraving from 1873, taken from an 1836 drawing of the Star Chamber. 2 Sources ⇓ |
| 1530 • Charles V is crowned in Bologna by Pope Clement VII. |
1554
Age: 52y
eventEarly in 1554 he was put on the Suffolk bench, and the following autumn he attended his only Parliament. It was to Gardiner that he owed his election. He sat with his kinsman by marriage Sir Edward Waldegrave, a Privy Councillor returned senior knight of the shire for Somerset, and he was not among the Members who absented themselves from the closing stages of the Parliament. Within a year of its dissolution he received the chancellor’s parting gift, a bequest of ten marks. 1 Source ⇓ |
| 1554 • Battle of Marciano: Senese–French forces are defeated by the Florentine–Imperial army. |
1565
Oct 1
Age: 63y
willEden made his will, and asked to be buried at Sudbury. At the Dissolution he had acquired several former monastic properties in London and Sudbury; he left a life interest in these and his other lands to his wife and bequeathed money and goods to his two sons and unmarried daughter. As executors he appointed his wife and sons. 1 Source ⇓ |
| 1565 • Ottoman troops land on the island of Malta, beginning the Siege of Malta. |
1568
Jul 25
Age: 66y
| 1568 • Huguenots besieged Chartres. |