Richard Edgcumbe

Sir Richard Edgcumbe (1499 – 1 February 1562) was an English courtier and politician. Family Richard Edgcumbe was the eldest son of Sir Peter (or Piers) Edgcumbe (1477 – 14 August 1539) of Cotehele, Cornwall, and his first wife, Jane Derneford (d. before 1525), daughter and heir of James Derneford of Stonehouse, Devon, and widow of Charles Dynham of Nutwell, Devon. By his father's first marriage, Richard Edgcumbe had two brothers and three sisters. His mother, Jane, died before 1525, and his father married Catherine St John, the daughter of Sir John St John of Bletsoe, and widow of Sir Gruffudd ap Rhys of Carmarthen. Career Edgcumbe and his brother entered Lincoln's Inn on 2 February 1517. Edgcumbe's grandson, Richard Carew, says that he studied at Oxford, but of this there is no other record. He was among the knights created by Edward Seymour, 1st Earl of Hertford, 18 October 1537, and two years later he succeeded to his father's estates. On a portion of the Stonehouse property, which had come into the family through his mother, and which Sir Piers had already emparked, he built the house named by him Mount Edgcumbe, which was completed in 1553.