Edmund Anderson

Sir Edmund Anderson (15301 August 1605), Chief Justice of the Common Pleas under Elizabeth I, sat as judge at the trial of Mary, Queen of Scots.

Life The Anderson family originated in Scotland and then came to Northumberland. They settled in Lincolnshire in the 14th century and became a prominent family there.

Sir Edmund Anderson, son of Edward Anderson, was born in Flixborough in Lincolnshire c. 1530. He received the first part of his education in the country and then spent a brief period at Lincoln College, Oxford, before entering the Inner Temple in June 1550. He is recorded to have matriculated at St John's College, Cambridge, in 1549.

In 1577, Anderson was created Serjeant-at-Law and in 1578 he was appointed Queen's Sergeant. In 1581 he was appointed Justice of Assize on the Norfolk circuit and tried Edmund Campion and others for high treason in November 1581, securing an unexpected conviction. This set the pattern for the rest of his career: as a judge, he was notorious for severity to Catholics and non-conformists, markedly so in the cases of John Perrot and John Udall, the puritan minister.