George Rolle

Origins

Career

Work for Viscount Lisle

Surviving correspondence

Lands and assets acquired

• Stevenstone in the parish of St Giles in the Wood near the town of Great Torrington in Devon, which he made his principal seat, and which long remained that of his descendants. Rolle's contemporary the antiquarian John Leland noted at this place his "fair brick building", uncommon at the time in Devon. Rolle's work in the Court of Common Pleas brought him into contact with Sir Lewis Pollard, lord of the manor of King's Nympton in Devon, a Justice of the Common Pleas from 1514 to 1526 and Member of Parliament for Totnes in 1491. The Pollard family were first established in Devon before the 13th century at the manor of Way in the parish of St Giles in the Wood, where Sir Lewis Pollard's father had been born and where his senior first cousin still lived. It was Pollard's eldest son, Sir Hugh Pollard, of King's Nympton, Sheriff of Devon in 1535/6, who in his capacity as Recorder of Barnstaple in 1545, nominated Rolle to one of the parliamentary seats of the Borough of Barnstaple. Stevenstone eventually at the start of the 20th century became the caput of "the largest estate Devon had ever seen", when held by the eventual heir of the two main branches of the Rolle family, Charles John Robert Hepburn-Stuart-Forbes-Trefusis, 21st Baron Clinton, today managed by the Clinton Devon Estates company.
• Buckland Brewer, which manor, termed a "barony" although not generally recognised as having been an ancient feudal barony, he purchased in 1544.
• In 1545 in partnership with Nicholas Adams, MP, of Combe, Dartmouth, one of the Commissioners for the suppression of chantries in Devon. and whose wife Cicely Fulford was 1st cousin of Sir John Chichester of Raleigh, Pilton, he purchased lands in south Devon worth £720, including the manor of Townstall, later the seat of Adams.
• Pilton Priory, near Barnstaple, of which he acquired a large part after the Dissolution. On 6 August 1544 in partnership with the Lincoln's Inn lawyer George Haydon, co-MP with Rolle for Barnstaple in 1545, he acquired the Priory's agricultural estates in the parishes of Parracombe, Ilfracombe, Ashford, Pilton, Marwood, North Molton, Goodleigh and Okeford, amounting in total annual value to £9 6s 9d and 26 capons. On 28 September 1545 in partnership with Nicholas Adams he acquired properties formerly leased from the Crown by Richard Duke, the first post-Dissolution holder, comprising several small tenements, cottages and plots of land of Pilton Priory, to a total annual value of £16 6s 0d. He disposed of parts immediately in 1545, at much inflated prices, including Littabourne, mostly to the occupying tenants. Adams was one of the Commissioners for the suppression of the chantries in Devon and Cornwall established in 1546 and Haydon was a member of the same body re-founded in 1548.
• Wardship in 1526 of the minor Hugh Culme of Molland-Champson
• Wardship of Margaret Marrys, daughter and sole heiress of William Marrys of "Marrys", i.e. Marhayes Manor, Week St Mary, Cornwall, whose marriage he bequeathed in his will to his son George Rolle.
• Properties in Borough of Barnstaple.
• Buckfast Place, Cathedral Close, in the parish of St Martin, Exeter. His townhouse, where he died, comprising "messuage, garden and curtilage". It was held from the crown in burgage, worth 30 shillings. This house, later known as the "Abbot's Lodge", was destroyed in 1942 during World War II bombing. It had been the townhouse of the Abbot of Buckfast Abbey, which Abbey and much of its lands, apparently excluding the Abbot's Lodge, had been acquired following the Dissolution of the Monasteries by Sir Thomas Denys of Holcombe Burnell, whose eventual heir was the Rolle family. In 1545 following the Dissolution of the Monasteries George Rolle had acquired "Buckfast House", later known as the Abbot's Lodge, where he died in 1552. The house remained the Rolle townhouse until its sale in 1737. Sir Henry Rolle of Stevenstone made alterations to the Abbot's Lodge and added decorative heraldic plaster escutcheons dated 1602, one of which showed Rolle impaling Watts of six quarters the other Rolle impaling Fortescue, for his first and second wives respectively. In 1669 Sir John Rolle entertained the Grand Duke of Tuscany at the Abbot's Lodge.

  Marriages

• Elizabeth Ashton, of unknown origin, who died before 1522.
• Eleanor Dacres, second daughter of Henry Dacres, Merchant Taylor and Alderman of London, whom he married sometime before 1522, and by whom he had six sons and five daughters. Eleanor's sister Anne Dacres was the wife of Sir John Pakington, MP, of Hampton Lovett, Worcestershire, and her other sister Alice Dacres was the wife of Robert Cheseman, MP for Middlesex. Henry Dacres' monumental brass exists in St Dunstan's Church in the West, City of London, showing two brass kneeling figures, male and female, with labels protruding from their mouths. Beneath them is the following inscription: "Here lyeth buryed the body of Henry Dacres, Cetezen and Marchant Taylor and sumtyme Alderman of London, and Elizabeth his wyffe, the whych Henry decessed the ? day of ? the yere of our Lord God ? and the said Elizabeth decessed the xxiii day of Apryll the yere of our Lord God Mdc and xxx."
• Margery, of unknown family, whom he married before 23 June 1551 as her third husband, the widow of Henry Brinklow and Stephen Vaughan, both of London. Margery remarried to Sir Leonard Chamberlain, MP for Oxfordshire in 1554.

  Children

• John Rolle of Stevenstone, eldest son, who married Margaret Ford, daughter of John Ford of Ashburton. His small monumental brass survives now affixed by modern screws into the floor of the south aisle of St Giles in the Wood parish Church, beneath the separate brass figure of his wife, but formerly affixed to his two and a half foot high chest tomb situated in the chancel of that church as recorded by Prince |Prince] in his 1710 work "Worthies of Devon". It is inscribed in Latin thus: "Hic jacet Johes Rolle, Ar, quonda domins de Stevinstone qui obiit 12.o die Augusti Anno Dni 1570". The arms show Rolle impaling Party per fesse argent and sable, in chief a greyhound current in base an owl within a bordure engrailed all counter-changed"
• George Rolle, married Margaret Marrys, daughter and sole heir of William Marrys of "Marrys", i.e. Marhayes Manor, Week St Mary, Cornwall. The wardship of Margaret Marrys had been acquired by George Rolle who in his will left her wardship to his son George, who therefore chose to marry her himself. Margaret Marrys' mother was Margery Basset, a daughter of Sir John Basset by his first wife Elizabeth Denys, and was thus Lady Lisle's step-daughter. The manor of Marrys was adjacent to the Basset manor of Femarshall, part of which Margery had as her dower. George Rolle named one of his daughters Honor, apparently after Lady Lisle, as his elder brother John Rolle had done for one of his daughters also.
• Henry Rolle, who married Margaret Yeo, daughter and sole heiress of Robert Yeo of Heanton Satchville, Petrockstowe by his wife Mary Fortescue, daughter of Bartholomew Fortescue of Filleigh.
• Maurice Rolle, who married Margaret Brier. They were the great-great grandparents of Edward Rolle.
• Jacquetta Rolle, who married Richard Gilbert. She received a grant of her late father's goods after the death of her brother George in 1573.
• Elizabeth Rolle, who married twice: firstly to Robert Mallet, of Woolleigh near Great Torrington. Her daughter and the eventual heiress of Woolleigh was Eleanor Mallet, the mother of Sir John Acland, 1st Baronet of Acland, Landkey and of Columb John, which family went on to become one of the greatest landowning dynasties in Devon and the Southwest, almost equalling the Rolles. Secondly, as his first wife, she married Sir John Acland of Columb John, Broadclyst, Devon, whose great nephew and heir was Sir John Acland, 1st Baronet. A small kneeling figure representing Elizabeth Rolle survives on the monument with effigy to her 2nd husband in St John's Church, Broadclyst.
• Maria Rolle, died childless. She married James Dalton, MP.

  Death and burial

Will

"He therein bequeaths his soul to the Holy Trinity, and all the holy company of saints, and his body to be buried in such place, where he shall depart this miserable life, in such manner as shall please Margery his wife, whom he makes his sole executrix. He bequeaths to Jackit Rolle, Besse Rolle, and Mary Rolle, his daughters, 600 marks each, to be received and paid by his trusty servants and friends, John Wychalf, Geffery Tuthyll, Richard Staveley, and John Thore, or any two of them, out of all his manors, lands, etc. in the counties of Devon, Somerset and Cornwall, accounting to his wife once in the year whilst she lives, within one month after the feast of St. Michael. He grants and bequeaths to George, his son, the wardship and marriage of Margaret Marrys, daughter and sole heir to Edmund Marrys, of the parish of St Mary Wyke in the county of Cornwall, in as ample manner as he had of the gift and grant of the said Edmund Marrys, paying yearly to the said Edmund £ ? during his life. The residue of his goods, etc., he bequeaths to Margery his wife, his sole executrix. He bequeaths to his daughter, Mary Rolle, two tenements in Wandsworth, with the appurtenances; and if she die unmarried, then to his daughter, Elizabeth Rolle, and her heirs. He also bequeathed to his daughter Mary, a basin and ewer, engraved with her mother's arms; and if she died unmarried, then to his daughter, Elizabeth Rolle. And whereas his late brother-in-law, Sir John Pakington, by the name of John Pakington, of Hampton-Lovet in the county of Worcester, Esq. by writing obligatory, dated February 15th, in 28 Hen. VIII. became bounden to him, the said George Rolle, and to Harry Dacres, merchant of London, and others, now deceased, on condition that the said Sir John Pakington, cause to be made 'to Edmund Knightley, serjeant at law, the said George Rolle, and others, a sufficient estate of, and in manors, lands, &c. in the shires of Worcester, Hereford, Stafford, Salop, and Middlesex, or any of them, to the clear yearly value of 120/. over and above all charges, &c. whereof the manor of Chadsley Corbet, with the appurtenances, in Worcestershire, should be parcel; to hold to the said John Pakington, and Anne, for term of the life of the said Anne, and to the heir male of the body of the said Sir John Pakington. His will is, that William Sheldon, of the county of Worcester, Esq. and John Prydyaux, Gent, shall be his executors for the said writing, and be governed in all and every suit, for the recovery of the debt contained in the said obligation, by his dear and well-beloved sister-in law, dame Anne Pakington, widow, for whose security the said obligation was made".