Sir Edmund Anderson (1530?-1605), Lord Chief Justice

Sitter associated with 4 portraits
Anderson entered the Inner Temple in June 1550. In 1577, having already acquired a substantial legal practice, he was made a judge, becoming Queen's Sergeant in 1578. In 1581 he was appointed as a judge on the Norfolk criminal circuit. During that year he tried and convicted the Catholic Edmund Campion and others charged with conspiring to dethrone Queen Elizabeth I. Following this success, in 1582 he was made Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas, an office he held until his death. As Chief Justice he played a prominent part in some of the leading political trials of Elizabeth's reign including the proceedings against Mary, Queen of Scots and Sir Walter Ralegh.