NameGertrude DENNYS
Birthabt 1535, Of Holcombe Burnell, Dev.
Spouses
Birthabt 1533, Of Trerice,CON
Death15 Sep 1580, Trerice Cornwall
FatherSir John ARUNDELL (1495-1561)
MotherJuliana ERISY (~1500-)
ChildrenJohn (1558-)
 John (1576-?1656)
 Thomas (1577-)
 Ann (<1580-)
 Catherine (<1580-)
Notes for Sir John (Spouse 1)
Was the 4th baronet. he built the present Trerice.
Sir John Arundell was the 1V of Trerice. The present Trerice was built in 1573, by him, on the site of an earlier house. He inherited the property from his father and with it the means to rebuild the house. His father, also Sir John, had a successful and lucrative career in the service of the Crown. He was knighted after the battle of the Spurs, was Esquire of the Body to Henry VIII and also served under Edward VI and Queen Mary.The Arundell family supported the Crown during the Civil War with some loss but recovered their position after the Restoration. The house escaped alteration during the 18th and 19th centuries, probably because its owners chose to live elsewhere.
Trerice remained in the ownership of the Arundells for over 400 years but in 1802 it passed to the Acland family of Killerton in Devon. The property was sold in 1915 and changed hands several times before it was purchased by the National Trust in 1953.


Sir John Arundell
(died 15 September 1580), of Trerice in Cornwall, was an English landowner and Member of Parliament. Sir John was a retiring figure for much of his life, and less celebrated than either his father (nicknamed "Tilbury Jack") or son and heir (nicknamed "Jack for the King"), both also called Sir John Arundell of Trerice. He was Member of Parliament for Mitchell in the Parliaments of 1555 and 1558, and High Sheriff of Cornwall in 1573-4. He married twice, and had at least eight children.

Son of Sir John Arundell of Trerice by his second wife, Juliana, dau. of James Erisey of Erisey in Grade and Ruan Major, widow of one Gourlyn.
Arundell married firstly, 1562, Catherine, dau. and heiress of John Cosworth of Cosworth in Colan, w. of Alan Hill, by whom he had four daughters; and secondly, settlement 1 Mar 1573, Gertrude, dau. of Sir Robert Denys of Holcombe Burnell, Devon, by whom he had two sons and two daughters. Suc. nephew John Arundell AFT 1561. Sheriff, Cornw. 1573-4; j.p.q. 1579.
A junior branch of the ancient Cornish family of Arundell had been seated at Trerice since Edward III's reign. Sir John Arundell, who had been a courtier, died in 1561 leaving as his heir his three year-old grandson John: this boy was not to enjoy his inheritance for long, and on his death the family property passed to his uncle and namesake. This John Arundell had been a favourite son, and that partiality doubtless contributed to Arundell's two appearances at Westminster during his father's lifetime, although neither occurred while Sir John Arundell was sheriff in 1554. Mitchell was owned by Arundell's kinsmen, the powerful Arundells of Lanherne, and until the accession of Elizabeth that family's support was a pre-requisite for election there. In 1555 Arundell's prospects were improved by a combination of circumstances: his namesake of Lanherne was returned for Preston, Sir John Arundell of Lanherne was sheriff, and a cousin Richard Chamond was elected knight of the shire for Cornwall. Three years later John Arundell of Lanherne was to sit for the shire, and his promotion made way for Arundell's re-election for Mitchell. The Catholicism of the Arundells of Lanherne was distasteful to Elizabeth, and after 1558 their authority in Cornwall waned. It was perhaps for this reason, as much as for his being ‘a somewhat inarticulate man ... who preferred to stay at home and superintend the building of Trerice’, that Arundell did not reappear in Parliament.
In view of his retiring nature it is not surprising that Arundell played little part in the public life of Cornwall. As sheriff in 1574 he was of some assistance to the 2nd Earl of Bedford when he came to Cornwall as lord lieutenant; in 1580 he was asked to help with the survey of coastal defences and with the apprehension of escaped pirates. Arundell died not long after receiving these instructions; he made his will on 14 Sep and on 3 Nov an inquisition post mortem was held at Bodmin. He entrusted much of his property to feoffees, who were to pay his debts, look after his children and transfer the estate to his heir when he came of age. He left £400 each to his two unmarried daughters and named as supervisors Sir John Arundell of Lanherne, Sir John Chichester, Thomas Cosworth, Sir Richard Grenville, Francis Godolphin and Thomas St. Aubyn.
One of the feoffees appointed to administer Arundell's property was his son-in-law Richard Carew, who left this description of him:
'Private respects ever with him gave place to the common good; as for frank, well-ordered and continual hospitality, he outwent all show of competence; spare but discreet of speech: better conceiving than delivering ... Briefly, so accomplished in virtue, that those who for many years together waited in nearest place about him, and by his example learned to hate untruth, have often deeply protested how no curious observation of theirs could ever descry in him any one notorious vice'.
Notes for Richard (Spouse 2)
2nd husband
Last Modified 28 Jul 2010Created 12 Apr 2016 using Reunion for Macintosh