aw, it is not strange he was
chosen a Member of that which was called the Long Parliament, wherein
he became a very leading man; for, striking in with the prevailing
party of those times (though he never joined with them in setting upon
the life of his Sovereign), he grew up to great wealth and dignity. He
was made Commissioner of the Great Seal [1643. Rushworth, vol. iii. p.
242.], worth 1500l. a-year and by ordinance of Parliament practised
within the bar as one of the king's counsel, worth 5000l. per annum.
After that he was Attorney General, _worth what he pleased to make it_
[!!], and then _Postmaster General_ ... from all which rich employments
he acquired a great estate, and among other things purchased the _Abbey
of Ford_, lying in the Parish of Thorncombe, in Devonshire, where he
built a noble new house out of the ruins of the old," &c.

Prideaux cannot be called the inventor of the Post-office, although to him
may be attributed the extension of the system. The first inland letter
office, which, however, extended to some of the principal roads only, was
established by Charles I. in 1635, under the direction of Thomas
Witherings, who was superseded in 1640. On the breaking out of the civil
war, great confusion was occasioned in the conduct of the office, and about
that time Prideaux's plan seems to have been conceived. {268} He was
chairman of a committee in 1642 for considering the rates upon inland
letters; and afterwards (1644) appointed Postmaster, in the execution of
which office he first established a weekly conveyance of letters into all
parts of the nation. Prior to this, letters were sent by special
messengers, or postmasters, whose duty it was to supply relays of horses at
a certain mileage. (_Blackstone_, book i. c. 8. s. 3.)

I am unable to discover when Edmund Prideaux died; but it appears that
either he, or one of his descendants, took part in the rising of the Duke
of Monmouth in the West of England, upon which occasion the "great estate"
was found of great service in providing a bribe for Lord Jeffreys. In the
Life of Lord Jeffreys, annexed to the _Western Martyrology; or, Bloody
Assizes_ (5th ed. 266. London, 1705), it is said that "A western
gentleman's purchase came to fifteen or sixteen hundred guineas, which my
Lord Chancellor had." And Rapin, vol. ii. p. 270., upon the authority of
Echard, iii. p. 775., states that in 1685 one Mr. Prideaux, of