John Cole I (abt. 1300)

Born about 1300 in Tamer, Devon, England

Ancestors

Descendants

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Biography

"ROGER was heir to his father Roger, and lived in the reign of Edward II. ; his son and heir was John Cole, of the counties of Devon and Cornwall, who, in 1324, was described as "John Cole de Tamer, Man-at-Arms, and returned by the Sheriff of the county of Devon, pursuant to Writ tested at Westminster, 9 May, as summoned by proclamation to attend the Great Council at Westminster, on Wednesday after Ascension Day, 30 May, 17 Edward 11." In the 9th of Edward III (1335) he had free warren in Tamer, Lydeston, Hokesbere, and Hutenesleigh in the county of Devon, and in Rispernatt; and it appears by a Fine of 15 Edward III. (1341) that he was possessed of the manors of Respnel in the county of Cornwall, Launceston, and Stokley, and of the manor of Uptamer, Nytheway, and Hutenesleigh, the third part of the manor of Winston, and divers other lands in the county of Devon.

"He left a son and heir, Sir John Cole, knight, of Nythway, in the parish of Brixham, who, on 25th July, 4 Richard 11. (1380) was "knighted (before the castle of Ardres) in Fraunce...^[1]

There is a problem here: a man who was probably born shortly before 1360 (knighted in 1380; men were usually knighted in the early 20s) is shown as being the son of a man born around 1300 (summoned to Westminster in 1324, probably to be knighted). It would seem that there is a generation missing here, and that John Cole of the 1324 summons was grandfather, not father, of Sir John Cole who was knighted in 1380.

Sources

1. ↑ James Edwin-Cole, Genealogy of the Family of Cole, in Devon (1867), pp. 3-4.

• The extended Cole pedigree in Joseph Jackson Howard's Miscellanea Genealogica et Heraldrica, vol. 2 (1876), starting on page 234.