George Rolle (c. 1486 – 20 November 1552) of Stevenstone in the parish of St Giles in the Wood near Great Torrington in Devon, was the founder of the wealthy, influential and widespread Rolle family of Devon, who by 1842 had become the largest landowners in Devon with about 55,000 acres according to the Return of Owners of Land, 1873 in the person of Hon. Mark Rolle (died 1907), the adoptive heir of John Rolle, 1st Baron Rolle (died 1842). He was a Dorset-born London lawyer who in 1507 became Keeper of the Records of the Court of Common Pleas and was elected as a Member of Parliament for Barnstaple in 1542 and 1545. He became the steward of Dunkeswell Abbey in Devon, and following the Dissolution of the Monasteries he purchased much ex-monastic land in Devon. Not only was he the founder of his own great Devonshire landowning dynasty but he was also an ancestor of others almost as great, including the Acland baronets of Killerton, the Wrey Baronets of Tawstock and the Trefusis family of Trefusis in Cornwall now of Heanton Satchville, Huish, later Baron Clinton, heirs both of Rolle of Heanton Satchville, Petrockstowe and of Rolle of Stevenstone.
Origins George Rolle's place of birth is unknown, but he is known to have been related to Thomas Rolle (died 1525) who had been born at Wimborne Minster in Dorset and whose uncle was William Rolle, parson of Witchampton in Dorset.Proceedings of Dorset Natural History & Antiquarian Field Club, Vol.35, First Summer meeting, Valley of the Win or Allen, visit to Witchampton on Thursday, 5 June 1913. Both George Rolle and William Rolle were joint-remaindermen in the will of Thomas Rolle (died 1525).
Career
The place of his education and legal training is unknown, but by 1507 he had become Keeper of the Records of the Court of Common Pleas, of which office in 1523 by means of an act of Parliament, the (14 & 15 Hen. 8. c. 35), which mentioned his "long, good and perfect knowledge and experience" he acquired a life tenure.Act of Parliament 14 & 15 Henry VIII (1523), c.35 His patron during his early legal career appears to have been Sir Robert Brudenell (1461–1531), Chief Justice of the Common Pleas from 1521. In 1545 he became a JP for Devon and the bailiff of the Hundred of Stratton in Cornwall, part of the Duchy of Cornwall.
Work for Viscount Lisle
He gained many prominent private clients including Arthur Plantagenet, 1st Viscount Lisle (died 1542) whom he served until the latter's death, and whose wife Honor Grenville was from North Devon and whose Devonshire home was at Umberleigh (the seat of her first husband Sir John Basset (1462–1529)) not far from Stevenstone. He recruited to Lisle's assistance, especially in his purchase of Frithelstock Priory, Richard Pollard (died 1542), General Surveyor of the Court of Augmentations, his fellow North Devonian lawyer and speculator in monastic lands.Byrne, Muriel St. Clare, (ed.) The Lisle Letters, 6 vols, University of Chicago Press, Chicago & London, 1981, vol.5, p.151 He wrote from London to Lady Lisle on 22 December 1536:Byrne (1981), vol.3, letter 812, pp. 575–6
He had just received his wish from the Lisles of being appointed their surveyor and receiver of the lands of Frithelstock Priory, which required him to collect rent money from all the tenants on their behalves. The Rolle family's voracious appetite and great skill for amassing Devon property later saw Frithelstock Priory become one of their own estates.Risdon, Tristram (died 1640), Survey of Devon, 1811 edition, London, 1811, with 1810 Additions, p.422 He was much involved in the legal affairs of Lisle's wife's dower manor of Umberleigh and in the protracted legal struggle to obtain the Beaumont inheritance due to her eldest son John Basset (1518–1541), by her first husband John Basset (1462–1528) of Umberleigh. His letter to Lady Lisle dated 25 July 1534 includes the line "Madame, also your ladyship doth know that I bought your images and scripture for Mr Basset and for that I am now paid", which refers to the still surviving monumental brasses on the tomb of her first husband in Atherington Church.Byrne, vol. 2, letter 239, pp. 223–4 Thirteen of Rolle's autograph letters survive in the Lisle Letters,Byrne, Muriel St. Clare, (ed.) The Lisle Letters, 6 vols, University of Chicago Press, Chicago & London, 1981, vol.1, p.328 some written from London and a few signed "from my poor house of Stevenstone". Two of Rolle's granddaughters were named Honor, apparently after Lady LisleByrne, vol.2, p.212; Vivian, pp.653,656 and his second son George Rolle married the daughter of Lady Lisle's step-daughter Margery Marrys, (née Basset).Byrne, vol.2, p.212
Surviving correspondence
Thirteen letters written by George Rolle survive in the Lisle Letters of which the following to Lady Lisle dated 28 February 1539 is an example, mainly dealing with the disputed Beaumont-Basset inheritance:Byrne, vol.5, letter 1359, pp. 408–9, facsimile p.764
Lands and assets acquired The following lands in Devon were amongst those acquired by George Rolle: 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 (died 1552) noted at this place his "fair brick building",Leland, Itineraries, ed. Smith, vol i. pp.173,300 uncommon at the time in Devon. Rolle's work in the Court of Common Pleas brought him into contact with Sir Lewis Pollard (c. 1465 – 1526), lord of the manor of King's Nympton in Devon, a Justice of the Common Pleas from 1514 to 1526Hoskins, W.G., A New Survey of England: Devon, London, 1959 (first published 1954), p.337 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.Vivian, p.597 It was Pollard's eldest son, Sir Hugh Pollard (fl.1535,1545), 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.History of Parliament, George Rolle 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 (1863–1957),Lauder, Rosemary, Devon Families, Tiverton, 2002, p.73 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.Rogers, W. H. (2000) . "Buckland Brewer", Snetzler, M.F. (Ed.) Barcott, Buckland Brewer. In 1545 in partnership with Nicholas Adams (died 1557/84), MP, of Combe, Dartmouth, one of the Commissioners for the suppression of chantries in Devon.Reed, Margaret A. (1977). Pilton: its Past and its People, Barnstaple. p. 66. and whose wife Cicely Fulford was 1st cousin of Sir John Chichester (died 1569) of Raleigh, Pilton,Vivian, Lt.Col. J.L., (Ed.) The Visitations of the County of Devon: Comprising the Heralds' Visitations of 1531, 1564 & 1620, Exeter, 1895. Vivian, Visitations. p. 107. 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 (c. 1517 – 1558), 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.Reed, Margaret A. (1977). Pilton: its Past and its People, Barnstaple. p.50. On 28 September 1545 in partnership with Nicholas Adams (died 1557/84) he acquired properties formerly leased from the Crown by Richard Duke (died 1572), 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.Reed, Margaret A. (1977). Pilton: its Past and its People, Barnstaple. He disposed of parts immediately in 1545, at much inflated prices, including Littabourne, mostly to the occupying tenants.Reed, Margaret A. (1977). Pilton: its Past and its People, Barnstaple. p.143 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 (died 1545) of Molland-ChampsonBiography of John Culme (died 1512/26). History of Parliament. Wardship of Margaret Marrys, daughter and sole heiress of WilliamIncorrectly called "Edmund" Marrys in the will of George Rolle, called William Marrys 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.Barnstaple Borough. B1. Covering 1150-1950.] The National Archives. Buckfast Place (alias the "Abbot's Lodge"), 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.Details of Buckfast Place from his inquisition post mortem quoted in Byrne, Muriel St. Clare, (ed.) The Lisle Letters, 6 vols, University of Chicago Press, Chicago & London, 1981, vol.1, Appendix 25, p.414 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 (c. 1477 – 1561) 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 (1545–1625) 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.Devon Notes & Queries, Vol.9, 1916-17, pp. 97–9: Armorial Bearings at the Abbot's Lodge, The Close, Exeter In 1669 Sir John Rolle (1626–1706) entertained the Grand Duke of Tuscany at the Abbot's Lodge.
Marriages George Rolle married three times: Elizabeth Ashton, of unknown origin, who died before 1522. Eleanor Dacres, second daughter of Henry Dacres, Merchant Taylor and Alderman of London,Will of Henry Dacres. National Archives PROB 11/27 folio 224 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 (died 1551), MP, of Hampton Lovett, Worcestershire, and her other sister Alice Dacres was the wife of Robert Cheseman (died 1547), 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.""London City Churches," The Topographer and Genealogist, John Gough Nichols editor, Vol. 3.