Walter Cope

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For the Anglican bishop in Ireland, see
Cope & Stewardson
.

Arms of Cope of Hanwell: Argent, on a chevron azure between 3 roses gules slipped proper 3 fleurs-de-lys or[1]

Sir Walter Cope (c. 1553 – 30 July 1614) of

Member of Parliament for Westminster
.

Origins

Walter Cope, probably born at Hardwick Manor near

Lady Burghley.[2][3][4]

Career

In 1570 he entered Gray's Inn as a law student. He became a Gentleman Usher to William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley, and in 1574 was appointed as feodary for Oxfordshire for the Court of Wards and Liveries. By 1593 he had become Burghley's secretary and the trusted friend of Sir Sir Robert Cecil, Burghley's son. In 1601 he was also appointed feodary for the City of London and Middlesex.

In 1603 Cope travelled to

James I of England and was subsequently knighted at Worksop. On 2 September 1603 Cope organised a demonstration of a canoe paddled on the Thames near Cecil House by three Virginian Indians from Tsenacommacah.[5] In January 1605, he planned a revival of William Shakespeare's play Love's Labour's Lost by Cuthbert Burbage's theatre company at Cecil House to entertain James' consort, Anne of Denmark.[4][6]

In 1604 Cope was elected a

Cope Castle, in Kensington, near London, subsequently inherited by his daughter, Isabel, Countess of Holland, and later known as Holland House
.

He was made a

Gentleman Usher of the Privy Chamber for life by 1607. In 1608 he was given a life position of Chamberlain of the Exchequer and in October of that year was granted one-sixth of all fines received by the king for the following twenty-one years. In 1611 or 1612, he was appointed the public Registrar-General of Commerce and together with Cecil, joint-keeper of Hyde Park
, a royal park near his home at Kensington.

Following the death of James' eldest son

Frederick V, Elector Palatine
. Shortly afterwards the king appointed Cope as Master of the Court of Wards.

During the Addled Parliament of 1614, Sir Thomas Parry, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, was found to have fraudulently altered an elector's return after his nominees, including Cope (to whom he had offered one of the Stockbridge seats), had been refused; Cope's election was subsequently annulled.

Marriage and children

Arms of Grenville of Buckinghamshire: Vert, on a cross argent five torteaux

Cope married Dorothy Grenville, a daughter of Richard Grenville[7] (1527-1604) of Wotton Underwood, Buckinghamshire[8] but left no sons, only a daughter and sole heiress:

Death and burial

In 1614 occurred the death of Cope's elder brother Sir Anthony Cope, 1st Baronet, who had been made a baronet in 1611. Within a month of his brother's death, Cope became unwell, and died at Cope Castle on 30 July 1614. He was buried in the parish church of Kensington. Chamberlain later speculated that Cope's heart had been broken by the loss of his brother and by his heavy debts, supposedly over £26,000,[9][10] and by the prospect of losing the Mastership of the Wards.

Notes

  1. ^ John Burke, Bernard Burke, General Armory of England, Scotland, and Ireland
  2. ^ Barnett 1969, pp. 50–1.
  3. ^ Allen 2004a.
  4. ^ a b Allen 2004b.
  5. ^ Alden T. Vaughan, Transatlantic Encounters: American Indians in Britain, 1500-1776 (Cambridge, 2006), p. 43: David B. Quinn, 'Virginians on the Thames in 1603', Terrae Incognitae: Journal of the Society for the History of Discoveries 2:1 (1970), pp. 7-14.
  6. ^ Londré 1997, p. 43.
  7. ^ "COPE, Walter (D.1614), of the Strand, London and Kensington, MDX. | History of Parliament Online".
  8. ^ "Person Page".
  9. ^ £26,000, equivalent to approximately £3.3m in 2007
  10. ^ "Measuring Worth:Purchasing Power of British Pounds from 1264 to 2007". Retrieved 1 June 2009.

References

External links
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