Page:Devon and Cornwall Queries Vol 9 1917.djvu/105

Devon and Cornwall Notes and Queries. 79 ("At ray lodging in the White Friars, London, this 15th of August, 1597;" {ibid, p. 353). Yet it is especially at this moment to be recalled to his credit that in March, 1592-3, when the House of Commons drew up a hst of " the com- mittee for conference touching the relief of poor maimed soldiers and mariners, Edgcumbe was placed upon it in company with Drake, Raleigh, and Francis Bacon {Ibid, vol. iv, p. 295). The perpetually impecunious Piers Edgcumbe found in Sir Edward Denny, who would appear to be the father of the Knight Banneret of the same name mentioned by H.L.L.D. (the husband of Piers' daughter Margaret), one of like liability to owe money to the Crown. In March, 1599-1600, an agreement, witnessed by Edgcumbe, affecting Sir Edward's widow and children, came before Cecil, which mentioned inter alia *' iioo^, a debt due by Sir Edward Denny to Her Majesty, which he very carefully desired to have satis- fied," provision for which was made in the deed {ibid, vol. x, p. go). The grandson of this Piers Edgcumbe, another Piers, was member for Newport and Camelford in the time of Charles I. ; and though elected for the former borough (which in reality was a part of Launceston), in January, 1627-8, when only eighteen, he had his return confirmed by the House of Commons on April 14, after a debate on March 22, in which Sir John Eliot took a leading part (Robbins's Launceston, pp. 137-140). He died on Jan. 6, 1666-7, having been again chosen for Newport in January, 1662, at a contested by-election caused by the death of a younger Sir Francis Drake, which was ineffectually peti- tioned against ; and it was during the later years of his hfe that the last trace of a Gennys at Launceston has yet been noted (save Richard, Mayor in 1658, and Nicholas, Mayor in 1666, as above), this being of "John Gennys, gen.," for rates on property in the parish of St. Thomas the Apostle, in which Newport was situate {Peter, p. 380). The original query as to a particular family has thus developed lines of investigation which touch the far greater subject of the English settlement in Ireland ; and the inter- weaving of the strands promises, if the inquiry be now pursued on the additional information given, to furnish more interesting and valuable material. It might even be possible