Preceded by Richard Weston Name Edward Leigh Relations Henry Leigh (father) | Nationality English Succeeded by Seat vacant | |
Born 24 March 1602
Shawell, Leicestershire ( 1602-03-24 ) Died 2 June 1671(1671-06-02) (aged 69)
Rushall Hall, Rushall, Staffordshire Resting place Parish Church of St Michael, Rushall | ||
Edward Leigh (24 March 1602 – 2 June 1671) was a versatile English lay writer, known particularly for his works on religious topics, and a politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1645 to 1648. He fought for the Parliamentary army in the English Civil War
Contents
Life
Leigh was born at Shawell, Leicestershire, the son of Henry Leigh. He matriculated at Magdalen Hall, Oxford on 24 October 1617, and graduated B.A. in 1620, M.A. in 1623. Before leaving Oxford he entered the Middle Temple, and became a painstaking student of divinity, law, and history. During the plague of 1625 he spent six months in France, and busied himself in making a collection of French proverbs. He subsequently moved to Banbury, Oxfordshire, to be near William Wheatly, whose preaching he admired.
In the Civil War, Leigh became a colonel in the parliamentary army. On 30 September 1644 he presented to parliament a petition from Staffordshire parliamentarians complaining of cavalier oppression, and made a speech, which was printed. In 1645 he was elected Member of Parliament for Stafford in the Long Parliament as one of the replacements for the members who had been declared 'disabled to sit'. His theological attainments procured him a seat in the Westminster Assembly. His signature is affixed to the letter written in the name of the parliamentary committee which granted powers to the visitors of the university of Oxford in 1647. Having in December 1648 voted that the king's concessions were satisfactory, he was expelled from the house under Pride's Purge. From then he appears to have avoided public life.
Leigh died at Rushall Hall, Staffordshire, at the age of 69 and was buried in the church there.
Works
Leigh's writings are mostly compilations. His major works are
Both parts were published together as a third edition in 1650, (4th edit., 1662). These compilations were used by later lexicographers of the Old and New Testaments, and won Leigh the friendship of James Ussher. A Latin translation by Henricus à Middoch, accompanied with observations on all the Chaldee words of the Old Testament by J. Hesser, was issued at Amsterdam, 3rd edit., 1696; 5th edit, with appendix by J. C. Kesler, Gotha, 1706. There are also supplements by P. Stokkemark (1713) and M. C. Wolfburg (1717). The work was reconstructed by M. Tempestini for J. P. Migne's Encyclopédie Théologique (vol. vii. pt. ii.), 1846, &c.
Leigh wrote also:
With Henry Scudder Leigh edited William Whately's Prototypes . . . with Mr. Whatelye's Life and Death, 1640. He also published Christopher Cartwright's The Magistrate's Authority in matters of Religion, 1647, to which he prefixed a preface in defence of his conduct for sitting in the Westminster Assembly of divines and other clerical meetings. He assisted William Hinde in bringing out John Rainolds's The Prophesie of Haggai interpreted and applyed, 1649; and edited by himself Lancelot Andrewes's Discourse of Ceremonies, 1653.