Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 1.djvu/256

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [12 s. i. MAR, 25, 1916.

combe, esquire, and Edmund Edgcombe, gentylman " (Peter, p. 218). This Peter, or Piers, Edgcumbe, who was Knight of the Shire for Cornwall in various Parliaments of Elizabeth in 1585-92, and who died Jan. 4, 1607/8, was the son of Sir Richard Edg- cumbe (for whom see 3 S. xii. 9, 176) ; and he seems to have been the first of the family to establish a connexion with Ireland. There is in the Lansdowne MSS. (28, art. 8) a grant of 1579 to " P. Edgcombe, Esquire, to" work and enjoy part of the product of some Mines in Ireland " ; while (ib-id., 29, art. 1) on June 15 of that year " Mr. P. Edgcombe shows to Lord Burghley that he has formed a scheme for improving Irish Mines." No trace appears in the voluminous collection of Cecil MSS. of the issue of this transaction ; but it is not difficult to associate it with the alienation of the Launceston property four years later, for Piers Edgcumbe was a per- sistent speculator, and as persistently " hard up." In April, 1594, Burghley's younger brother, Sir Robert Cecil (afterwards Earl of Salisbury), gave directions under his own hand for the payment of " all such moneys as are due by Edgcumbe or any other, for the time of his or their leases " of Cornish copper mines (Cecil MSS., vol. iv. p. 519). From that time there are not infrequent appeals from Piers Edgcumbe to Cecil for time to pay what was owing on his leases of the mines royal of Cornwall and Merionethshire, as well as on Crown properties at Keswick, with pathetic descriptions of endeavours to raise money from among his friends, for

" in the shires of Devon and Cornwall are many gentlemen and others of good wealth and account but I could find no man willing, much less de sirous, to adventure any money with me, in such a desperate and forlorn hope the case of those mines do stand so far ; but, in my poor opinion, the mines in themselves do not deserve this slander." (" Fron my house at Mount Edgcumb the 4th of June 1597 " : ibid., vol. vii. p. 233.)

It does not at all surprise to find this

importunate, but always optimistic, debtor

submitting to the statesman only two

months later a suggestion that by enforcing

the Statute of Usury, " the same not in

tended to extend generally for England bu

only for one city," 20,OOOZ. might be gainec

for the Queen, and offering to explain furthe

if required ("At my lodging in the Whit

Friars, London, this 15th of August, 1597 "

ibid., pj 353). Yet it is especially at thi

moment to be recalled to his credit that i

March, 1592/3, when the House of Common

drew up a list of " the committee for con

f erence touching the relief of poor maime

soldiers and mariners," Edgcumbe was placed

pon it in company with Drake, Raleigh, and

rancis Bacon (ibid., vol. iv. p. 295).

The perpetually impecunious Piers Edg-

umbe found in Sir Edward Denny, who

ould appear to be the father of the Knight

lanneret of the same name mentioned by

[. L. L. D. (the husband of Piers's daughter

targaret), one of like liability to owe money

o the Crown. In March, 1599/1600, an

greement, witnessed by Edgcumbe, affecting

ir Edward's widow and children, came

efore Cecil, which mentioned inter alia

1,1 OOZ., a debt due by Sir Edward Denny to

er Majesty, which he very carefully desired

o have satisfied," provision for which

as made in the deed (ibid., vol. x. p. 90).

The grandson of this Piers Edgcumbe,

.nother Piers, was member for Newport

,nd Camelford in the time of Charles I. ;

,nd, though elected for the former borough

which in reality was a part of Launceston)

n January, 1627/8, when only 18, he had

lis return confirmed by the House of

Commons on April 14, after a debate on

March 22, in which Sir John Eliot took a

wading part (Robbins's ' Launceston,' pp. 137-

40). He died on Jan. 6, 1666/7, having

Deen again chosen for Newport in January,

1662, at a contested by-election caused by

,he death of a younger Sir Francis Drake,

which was ineffectually petitioned against ;

and it was during the later years of his life

hat the last trace of a Gennys at Launceston

ms yet been noted (save Richard, Mayor

in 1658, and Nicholas. Mayor in 1666, as

above), this being of " John Gennys, gen.,"

or rates on property in the parish of

St. Thomas-the-Apostle, in which Newport

was situate (Peter, p. 380).

The original query as to a particular family has thus developed lines of investiga- tion which touch the far greater subject of the English settlement in Ireland ; and the interweaving of the strands promises, if the inquiry be now pursued on the additional information given, to furnish more interesting and valuable material. It might even be possible to link therewith an inquiry as to whether the Hiberno-Cornubian association thus established assists in any way to dispel a mystery in the representation of Newport, which I endeavoured to get solved just half- a-dozen years since by a contribution to ' N. & Q.' (11 S. i. 262). On May 10, 1647, there was an election for Newport for the vacancies caused by John Maynard, the famous Serjeant Maynard of parliamentary and constitutional history (who had elected to serve for Totnes, which, with Newport, had sent him to the Long Parliament six