Edurand Waller, an English poet, born at Coleshill, Hertfordshire, March 3, 1605, died at Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire, Oct. 21, 1687. He was educated at Eton and Cambridge, and when only 18 years old was elected to parliament, of which he was a member for most of his life except between 1643 and 1661, holding a seat at the time of his death. In 1630 he married Miss Anna Banks, a London heiress. After the battle of Edgehill (1642) Waller was one of the commissioners who negotiated with the king at Oxford. On the exposure soon after of what is known as Waller's plot, understood to have been a design to seize the government and capture the leaders of the parliamentary party, he made a confession on the strength of which three of his associates were hanged; but he belittled his own share in the plot, begged piteously before parliament for his life, and was let off with a fine of £10,000 and imprisonment for a year. He then went to France, but was permitted to return in 1653. The first edition of his poems appeared in 1645. In 1655 he addressed to Cromwell a poem entitled "A Panegyric to my Lord Protector, of the present Greatness and joint Interest of his Highness and this Nation." This was followed by a poem "On a War with Spain." On the death of Cromwell Waller wrote a poem bewailing that event, which in his works is immediately followed by a congratulatory ode to Charles II. He became a favorite in court and parliament, and was noted for his wit.

A new edition of his poems appeared in 1664, and in 1690 a supplementary volume was published.