Richard Edgcumbe (politician, 1499)

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The Mount Edgcumbe House built by Richard Edgcumbe

Sir Richard Edgcumbe (also Edgecombe ) (* 1499 ; † February 1, 1562 ) was an English nobleman and politician who was elected at least twice as a member of the House of Commons .

Origin and youth

Richard Edgcumbe came from the Edgcumbe family . He was the eldest son of Sir Peter (Piers) Edgcumbe and his wife Jane Dynham. He allegedly studied at Oxford , but presumably left the university with his marriage in 1516. From February 2, 1517, he studied together with his younger brother John and his brother-in-law Thomas Arundell at Lincoln's Inn in London. He did not take his studies seriously, however, and often asked for excuses.

Assumption of first political office

From 1532 Edgcumbe took over the first offices in South West England. Until his death he was Justice of the Peace of Devon and Cornwall , from around 1539 he was a steward of Plymouth . After his father's death in 1539, he inherited his extensive estates in Cornwall and Devon. In addition, he received his mother's inheritance, which included Stonehouse in Devon and Rame in Cornwall. Despite the intercession of John Russel, 1st Baron Russell , a close political ally of his father, with Lord Chancellor Thomas Cromwell , however, Edgcumbe was not awarded his inheritance until almost a year later, after the fall and execution of Cromwell.

Rise to the influential country nobleman

Probably first in the 1542 general election, Edgcumbe was elected Knight of the Shire for Cornwall. He presumably had the support of his brother-in-law John Arundell , who was serving as sheriff at the time of the election . On the occasion of the opening of parliament, Edgcumbe was beaten to Knight Bachelor on January 16, 1542 . Although he was not re-elected as Knight of the Shire in the 1545 general election, but only in the 1547 election, he served as Sheriff of Devon from 1543 to 1544. In the 1540s he was responsible for the coastal defense of Cornwall and Devon, and he organized the construction of coastal fortifications to ward off pirates, but also against a feared French invasion. In 1548 he restored order in Borough Helston after a violent revolt . In contrast, he played no role in the suppression of the Prayer Book Rebellion in the following year, whose supporters were his brother-in-law Sir John Arundell. After the failure of the Prayer Book Rebellion, Edgcumbe was sheriff of Devon again from 1552 to 1553 and sheriff of Cornwall from 1555 to 1556, but he did not run again as Knight of the Shire in 1553 or in the following elections. Instead, as one of the largest landowners in South West England, he took on numerous local offices and responsibilities. In January 1554 he was supposed to arrest the conspirator Sir Peter Carew , who managed to escape. On the Rame peninsula, where his father had already created a deer park, he began building the new family residence , Mount Edgcumbe House , in 1547 , which was completed in 1553 and replaced the Cotehele House, which he had also expanded, as a family residence. On Mount Edgcumbe in July 1554 he hosted the English, Dutch and Spanish admirals who had escorted Philip of Spain , Queen Mary's bridegroom , to Southampton . After the conquest of Calais by France in 1558, he set up the Cornwall militia to ward off a feared French attack. After Elizabeth I ascended to the throne , he was a member of the committee that prepared the Queen's visit to the Diocese of Exeter in 1559.

Others

Edgcumbe was popular as a judge because of his justice, but also because of his piety and his generosity towards his servants and friends. According to his grandson Richard Carew , he was one of the most respected country nobles in south-west England and was called the good old man of the castle . Although none of his poems has survived, he was also considered a respected poet, and he wrote numerous letters on this. He apparently went into debt for the construction of Mount Edgcumbe, because in 1558 he had to sell his extensive rights to the Borough of Totnes .

He was buried in Maker's church.

family

Around 1516 Edgcumbe had married Elizabeth Arundell , a daughter of John Arundell († 1545) from Lanherne in Cornwall. The marriage remained childless. After the death of his wife in 1535 he married Elizabeth Tregian , daughter of John Tregian from Golden in Cornwall. With her he had four sons and four daughters, including:

In their third marriage, Edgcumbe married Winifred Essex , a daughter of Sir William Essex of Lambourn , Berkshire . The year of the marriage is not known, the marriage remained childless.

He was buried in Maker's church.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ William Arthur Shaw: The Knights of England. Volume 2, Sherratt and Hughes, London 1906, p. 53.
  2. ↑ Rachel Hunt: Cotehele, Cornwall. A souvenir guide . National Trust, Swindon, ISBN 978-1-84359-428-4 , p. 16
  3. ↑ Cynthia Gaskell Brown: Mount Edgcumbe House and Country Park: Guidebook , Mount Edgcumbe House and Country Park, Torpoint 2003, p. 16
  4. ^ Richard Carew: The Survey of Cornwall, London 1602 . Ed. By FE Halliday, Da Capo Press, Amsterdam 1969, p. 166
personal data
SURNAME Edgcumbe, Richard
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Edgecombe, Richard; Edgcumbe, Sir Richard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION English nobleman and politician
DATE OF BIRTH 1499
DATE OF DEATH February 1, 1562