Family and Education

b. 23 July 1616, 1st s. of Charles Roscarrock of Roscarrock, St. Endellion, by Dorothy, da. of Sir John Thynne^† of Longleat, Wilts. m. settlement 10 Oct. 1638, Margaret, da. of Sir Reynold Mohun, 1st Bt. of Boconnoc, Cornw. and coh. to her bro. Reynold Mohun, 1s. d.v.p. 6da. suc. fa. 1626.1

Offices Held

Capt. (royalist) 1643, lt-col. by 1645-6.2

J.p. Cornw. July l660-d., commr. for assessment Aug. 1660-d.; stannator of Foymore 1663.3

Biography

Roscarrock’s ancestors, Cornish landowners since at least the 12th century, first provided a knight of the shire in 1348. Roscarrock himself acquired Trevenna, four miles from Camelford, by marriage. A Cavalier during the Civil War, he was one of the Cornish representatives at the Bridgwater conference in April 1645. He petitioned to compound on the Truro articles in 1646, paying a fine of £100 in 1649 for his own estates and a further £145 in 1651 in conjunction with Sir Henry Carew of Bickleigh, who had married his wife’s sister Dorothy. He was ‘ready for new action’ as a royalist conspirator in 1651, and further implicated in plans for royalist uprisings in 1655 and 1657; but he seems to have escaped arrest.4

Roscarrock was involved in a double return at Camelford in the general election of 1661. Although he finished at the bottom of the poll, he was allowed to sit on the merits of the return, and no further proceedings followed. He was recommended for the order of the Royal Oak, with an income estimated at £800 p.a. An inactive Member of the Cavalier Parliament, though presumably a court supporter, he claimed privilege for his servant on 23 Nov. 1661, and was given leave to go into the country on 28 Feb. 1662. He was added to the committees to inspect the excise revenue (2 May 1663) and to consider the bill for partition of lands (2 May 1664), and he was twice appointed to the committee of elections and privileges. He was buried at Egloshayle on 10 Oct. 1665. His brother Chamond sold Roscarrock in 1673 and no later member of the family entered Parliament.5

Ref Volumes: 1660-1690

Author: Paula Watson

Notes

• 1. Vivian, Vis. Cornw. 401; SP23/213/77.
• 2. Bellum Civile (Som. Rec. Soc. xviii), 40; HMC Portland, i. 588; List of Officers Claiming (1663), 8.
• 3. Duchy of Cornw. recs.
• 4. J. Maclean, Trigg Minor, i. 556, 559-60; Clarendon, Rebellion, iv. 20-21; Cal. Comm. Comp. 1506, 1981; HMC Portland, i. 588; CSP Dom. 1655. p. 237; Thurloe, i. 713-15.
• 5. CJ, viii. 250; Maclean, 560, 562.