Cosin (the name is also written Cosyn), Edmund, Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge University, England. The dates of his birth and death are uncertain. He was born in Bedfordshire and entered King’s Hall, Cambridge, as a Bible clerk, receiving the degrees of B.A. early in 1535, M.A. in 1541, and B.D. in 1547. He held the living of Grendon, Northamptonshire, which was in the gift of King’s Hall, from 21 September, 1538, to November, 1541, and, successively, fellowships of King’s Hall, St. Catharine’s Hall, and of Trinity College. Early in Queen Mary’s reign he was elected Master of St. Catharine’s, which brought him as gifts from the Crown the Norfolk rectories of St. Edmund, North Lynn (1533), Fakenham (1555), and the Norfolk vicarages of Caistor Holy Trinity, and of Oxburgh (1554). He was presented to the rectory of Thorpland by Trinity College in the following year. He was also chaplain to Bishop Bonner of London and assistant to Michael Dunning, the Chancellor of the Diocese of Norwich. In 1558 he was elected Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge but being a Catholic he refused to conform to the Elizabethan heresies, and hence in 1560 was forced to resign all his preferments and went in 1564 to live in retirement in Caius College, Cambridge. Four years later, summoned to answer before the Lords of the Council to a charge of non-conformity, he went into exile rather than foreswear his faith. He was living on the Continent in 1576. but no further definite records of his career are available.
LEE in Dict. Nat. Biog., XII, s. v.; Srrypr, Memorials, III, i, 80; BLOMEFIELD, Norfolk.
Thomas F. Meehan.