Page:Devon and Cornwall Queries Vol 9 1917.djvu/104

78 Devon and Cornwall Notes and Queries. 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 Edgecumbe (for whom see 3 S. xii, 9, 176) ; and he seems to have been the first of the family to establish a connection 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 Ire- land ; while {ihid, 29, art. i), 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 difBcult to associate it with the alienation of the Launceston property four years later, for Piers Edgcumbe was a persistent speculator, and as per- sistently "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 in- frequent 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 gentle- men and others of good wealth and account, but I could find no man willing, much less desirous, 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." (" From my house at Mount Edgcumbe, the 4th of June, 1597;" Ihid, 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 intended to extend generally for England, but only for one city," ;^2o,ooo might be gained for the Queen, and offering to explain further if required.