Edmund Ashfield (Catholic agent)
Edmund Ashfield (1576ca. 1620) was an English Catholic from Tattenhoe in Buckinghamshire. In 1599 he travelled to Edinburgh to meet James VI of Scotland. An English diplomat organised his kidnap and rendition in the belief that Ashfield was an agent of James VI and working to further his succession to the English throne. Background Ashfield was a grandson of Christopher Ashfield of Chesham, who was a brother of Sir Edmund Ashfield (1480-1558). He was educated at St Mary Hall, Oxford. He married Clara Hoord or Whorde in 1588. An aunt or cousin Cecily Ashfield was married to the Lord Chancellor Sir John Fortescue of Salden. Edmund's uncle Thomas Ashfield was a bailiff for the Earl of Oxford in 1571, and Edmund was Thomas's heir in 1609. In 1606, Ashfield was involved in the rebuilding of Ashridge Priory for Sir Thomas Egerton. Ashfield was a friend of the writing-master John Davies of Hereford. In 1612, Henry Peacham dedicated his Graphice, or the Auncient Arte of Drawing and Limning to Ashfield, by then Deputy-Lieutenant of Buckinghamshire. Mission to Scotland Edmund Ashfield wrote to James VI offering the advice that he ought to publish books setting forth his claim to the succession to