Edgcumbe

EDGCUMBE: THE COTEHELE CONNECTION

The name, Edgcumbe first appeared in the thirteenth century at Milton Abbot on the Devon side of the Tamar, between Launceston and Tavistock.
Milton Abbot marks the site of the mill of the Abbot of Tavistock.
(Tavistock Abbey was founded in the 970s: see the ‘Aelfrida’s Confession’, a story written in adolescence and reproduced as an appendix at the end.)

Often it was marriage that catalysed the promotion of prominent families rather than any more extraordinary act. An old phrase, “the curse of the Cornish,” refers to many of the old families having no male heirs, explaining how the names of those holding the estates changed from time to time.

On the wooded Cornish bend of the Tamar, downstream from Calstock, Cotehele is known around the world today as a most beautiful National Trust house and gardens, visited by many thousands every year.

Until the twentieth century stewardship of the National Trust, Cotehele had been owned by the Edgcumbes since the marriage of William Edgcumbe to Hilaria de Cotehele in 1353. She had inherited it on the death of her brother Ralph, whose wife was Joane Brendon, daughter of Maude de Cotehele and John Brendon, whose father, Radulphus, held the neighbouring manor of Calstock in 1296. Thus another old saying, “all Cornish are cousins.”

William and Hilaria’s grandson, Peter/Piers, in his turn made another advantageous marriage for future Edgcumbe descendants by marrying the Durnford heiress. She brought with her the lands of East Stonehouse, a dozen miles downstream where the Tamar meets the sea at Plymouth. Over the centuries this magnificent and strategic site became their stately seat of Mount Edgcumbe. William Edgcumbe had also been granted custody of the lead and silver mines in Devon by Henry V.

The most famous leap in the family’s story was made by Peter’s son, Richard (1443 - 1489). The royal houses of York and Lancaster, the White Rose and the Red Rose, maintained 25 years of conflict for the throne through ghastly civil war. Although no major battles took place in Cornwall during the Wars of the Roses, there must have been tension and allegiances made for political power. The Cornish folk song, “I Love the White Rose in its Splendour,” more than hints at a line held. Peter Edgcumbe had supported Henry VI and his son, Richard had held the office of escheater of Cornwall for the Yorkist monarch, Edward IV.

Acting for his king, Edward IV’s brother and successor, Richard III, the wild Cornishman, Sir Henry Bodruggen, pursued Richard Edgcumbe to the red roses beside the Tamar at Cotehele. Hidden in the undergrowth, Edgcumbe threw a stone with his hat into the river, somewhere near where the chapel of St George now stands. Hearing the splash and seeing the hat floating on the water, Bodruggen and his men assumed Richard had drowned. He had tricked them and escaped across the Channel to Henry Tudor in Brittany.

He returned to England to fight at the Battle of Bosworth, which marked the end of the Middle Ages. On the battle field where Richard III offered his “kingdom for a horse” and perished, Richard Edgcumbe was knighted. Henry Tudor was crowned Henry VII and for his loyalty Sir Richard was given the Bodruggen estates. Now it was Sir Henry’s turn to be hunted. Ironically, he also escaped by jumping off a low cliff from his estate on the south Cornish coast to a waiting boat at ‘Bodruggen’s Leap’ and sailed away to Ireland where he died.

Under Tudor patronage, Sir Richard Edgcumbe successively held the positions of Constable of Launceston, Controller of the Household and Ambassador to Scotland where he negotiated a seven year peace with James III. He had become a national figure and was sent to Ireland with 500 men. He also acted as mediator between Charles VIII of France and Francis II Duke of Brittany, Cornwall’s sister Celtic nation. Sir Richard died and was entombed at Morlaix.

His grandson, another Richard, went on to build Mount Edgcumbe down stream near Torpoint at the mouth of the Tamar. As the generations rolled on, the family married into the prosperous and prominent families of the West Country and beyond. They took their seats in Parliament, held political positions and rose to the peerage in 1742. Ironically, like an echo from the time of the Roses, as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, Lord George Edgcumbe was created an earl in 1789.

So much for the nobility: To pick up the story of our small corner on St Stephens Hill, we turn again to the time of William Edgcumbe, who married Hilaria de Cotehele in 1353. William’s elder brother, John, outlived him by 23 years, dying in 1403, presumably at Milton Abbot where the family had lived as yeomen for generations. The spread of John’s descendants are recorded in numerous places across West Devon and East Cornwall. One, Roger, who died in 1667, appeared as the founder of the Tregeare line of Edgcumbes, being associated with the Arundles of Trerice. Tregeare lies a few miles to the north of Launceston near Egloskerry, best reached quietly along the leafy lane that runs up the Kensey valley. The time of the Edgcumbe’s of Tregeare pre-dates the fine eighteenth century house that stands there today.

WHO WAS SUSANNAH?

Focus turns now to two of Roger’s Edgucombe’s great grand children - Alexander (born 1692) and his youngest brother, Parmenas (born 1700). To quote on block from the essay “The End of the Tregeare Branch,” written by the Edgcumbe family historian, Alan Taylor.

“The third son, Alexander, was married by 1713......his wife is not named at the baptism of their three children, therefore her identity is unknown. Their eldest son was Thomas, baptised 4 Oct 1713 at St Stephens, Elizabeth on 8 May 1715 and John on 19 July 1719.

“Alexander was left one guinea in 1725 in the will of his father, and each of his children received half a guinea. This suggests not so much parental displeasure as that his father had already laid out to settle Alexander in trade. He was a tanner in the borough of Newport but had left by the 1740s.......”

Research in the County Records Office in Truro unearthed a field plan dating from the 1740s and accompanying notes. St Stephens Hill was then called High Street. Much of the property in the area belonged to the Morice family of Werrington from whom the Duke of Northumberland later took the estate. Legend has it, that the Morice’s demolished the chapel at Werrington to make a bowling green and were immediately cursed by the loss of their property as a result. St Aubyn, Molesworth and the Duke of Bedford each appeared to have had interests in the properties of Newport in the 1740s.

However, the freehold where Susannah Edgcumbe lived, and the orchard below stretching to the river, belonged to Thomas Edgcumbe, Alexander’s eldest son. The building is shown being beyond today’s front garden wall, covering part of the pavement. Next door, where No.13 now stands, there was also a large house. On the other side, No.9 was noted as formally being called “Sign of the Bell”....... reinforcing notion for the medieval use of the area by the Priory.