Edward Grimston (Ipswich MP)

Edward Grimston (ca. 1508-1600), of Rishangles, Suffolk, was an English politician and comptroller of Calais.

He was a Member of Parliament (MP) for Ipswich in 1563, 1571 and 1572, Eye in 1589 and Orford in 1593.

He was the son of Edward Grimston, by his wife Anne, daughter of John Garnish of Kenton, Suffolk. His grandfather was the diplomat Edward Grimston (d. 1478), subject of the well-known portrait of 1446 by Petrus Christus (on long-term loan to the National Gallery from his descendent the Earl of Verulam). For a while he studied at Gonville Hall, Cambridge, but did not graduate. He was a commissioner in 1552 for the sale of church goods in Ipswich.

On 28 August 1552 he was appointed comptroller of Calais and the marches, by a patent dated 16 April 1553. In 1557 he purchased from the crown the manor of Rishangles, Suffolk, subject to the life estate of Robert Chichester. He is said to have frequently warned his superiors about the condition of Calais. When it was taken by Francis, Duke of Guise on 7 January 1558 he was made a prisoner and sent to the Bastille in Paris. He lost an estate purchased about Calais, and his ransom was set high. On 2 July 1558 he, Thomas Wentworth, 2nd Baron Wentworth, and others were indicted in London for high treason for a private agreement with the king of the French to surrender Calais. In October 1559 he was still a prisoner in the Bastille. He was lodged at the top of the building, but, with a file and a rope, changed his clothes with his servant, and escaped. He cut his beard with a pair of scissors supplied by his servant, managed to pass for a Scot, and got to England about the middle of November. / Grimston surrendered himself to the indictment against him, and was confined, first in Sir John Mason's house, and then in the Tower of London. On 28 November a special commission was issued for his trial. He was arraigned at the Guildhall, London, on 1 December. The jury acquitted him, and he was forthwith discharged.

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