Robert Rolle (died 1660)

Arms of Rolle: Or, on a fesse dancetté between three billets azure each charged with a lion rampant of the first three bezants

Robert Rolle (c. 1622 – 1660) was an English politician who sat in the House of Commons at various times between 1654 and 1660.

Origins

Rolle was the son of Sir Samuel Rolle of Heanton Satchville, Petrockstowe, Devon, and his wife Margaret Wise daughter of Sir Thomas Wise.^[1]

Career

He was admitted for his legal training at the Inner Temple in 1640. He was appointed High Sheriff of Devon for 1649–50. In 1654 he was elected Member of Parliament for Devon in the First Protectorate Parliament and was re-elected MP for Devon in 1656 for the Second Protectorate Parliament and in 1659 for the Third Protectorate Parliament.^[2] In January 1660 he was appointed a member of the Rump Parliament's final Council of State but does not appear to have attended any meetings, likely due to the Council enforcing an oath abjuring the Stuart family and any Single Person or House of Lords.^[3] He was elected MP for the family's pocket borough of Callington in the Convention Parliament in 1660, but died in the same year.^[4]

Marriage & progeny

Rolle married Lady Arabella Clinton, the younger daughter of Theophilus Clinton, 4th Earl of Lincoln and 12th Baron Clinton (d.1667) and had a son:

• • Samuel Rolle (d.1719) who married Margaret Tuckfield ^[5] and had issue:
    • Margaret Rolle, 15th Baroness Clinton (d.1781). Margaret inherited the title Baroness Clinton from her cousin Hugh Fortescue, 14th Baron Clinton, 1st Baron Fortescue and 1st Earl Clinton (d.1751). She married firstly Robert Walpole, 2nd Earl of Orford (d.1751), by whom she had issue, and secondly Sewallis Shirley, son of Robert Shirley, 1st Earl Ferrers.^[6]

References

1. 'General history: Nobility', Magna Britannia: volume 6: Devonshire (1822), pp. LXXXIII-XCV. Date accessed: 2 July 2011
2. Willis, Browne (1750). Notitia Parliamentaria, Part II: A Series or Lists of the Representatives in the several Parliaments held from the Reformation 1541, to the Restoration 1660 ... London. pp. 229–239.
3. 'Table of Attendances of the Council of State. ', in Calendar of State Papers Domestic: Interregnum, 1659-60, ed. Mary Anne Everett Green (London, 1886), pp. xxiii-xxvii http://www.british-history.ac.uk/cal-state-papers/domestic/interregnum/1659-60/xxiii-xxvii [accessed 27 March 2015]
4. Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs – Constituencies beginning with "C" (part 1)
5. thepeerage.com
6. Eveline Cruickshanks, Stuart Handley The House of Commons: 1690-1715