Edward Windsor, 3rd Baron Windsor

Edward Windsor, 3rd Baron Windsor (1532 – 24 January 1574), was an English peer.

Early life Edward was born into a landowning family of Norman ancestry that had steadily increased its possessions through the Middle Ages, including estates in Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Hampshire, Middlesex and Surrey. They were hereditary wardens of Windsor Castle, from which they derived their name, and their close association with the monarchy temporarily lost them their lands on the defeat of Richard III in 1485. His grandfather, the first Lord Windsor was born Andrew Windsor and made Keeper of the wardrobe in 1506 - a position in the king's secret financial machinery which gave him control of a budget of thousands of pounds and great opportunities for profit. He was an important part of the network of his cousin, the notorious Edmund Dudley, but early knowledge of the king's death allowed him to side-step Dudley's fall and he kept his position until his death in 1543. On his accession in 1509, the new King Henry VIII signalled his acceptance of Sir Andrew into the inner circles of government by making him Knight of the Bath and he was ennobled 20 years later. In 1566, Queen Elizabeth visited Windsor at his seat of Bradenham, Buckinghamshire. A firm Roman Catholic, he lived many years on the continent of Europe.

Windsor was admitted to the bar as a member of the Middle Temple, the bench book of which records:

He died in Venice, where he is buried in the Basilica of San Giovanni & San Paolo. His monument there has been called "a sober, classical work attributed to Alessandro Vittoria".

Edward Windsor's sons by Katherine were Frederick Windsor (1559–1585), otherwise known as Ferdinand, and Henry Windsor (1562–1605), both of whom succeeded to their father's honours, becoming respectively the fourth and fifth Lord Windsor.