• General Notes

  Robert D'Oyly, Esq. of Lincoln's Inn, Counsellor at Law, and of Ogbeare, co. Cornwall,[516] only son and heir, was born about 1580, and following in his father's footsteps was entered of Lincoln's Inn; became a Counsellor at Law; and soon evinced as much ability, energy, activity, and litigious spirit, as his father could boast the possession of. In 1609-10, while of Lincoln's Inn, he had a Chancery suit with one Richard Lucas, a money-lender in the Strand;[517] but the subject is unimportant.— By his first marriage, which took place about this time, Robert D'Oyly acquired large estates in Devonshire and Cornwall, though succeeded by endless litigation with the heirs male of his wife's family to establish her title to the property. This lady was Julian, widow of William Goddard, Esq. and sole daughter and heiress (by death s.p. of her brother Thomas) of Thomas Loveis, Esq. sen. of Ogbeare, co. Cornwall, eldest son and heir of Leonard Loveis, Esq. by Jane his wife, daughter and sole heiress of Richard Upcott, Gent.; Julian's mother being a Pinfold of Exeter.[518] After his marriage, Robert D'Oyly took up his abode on his wife's chief estate, Ogbeare, co. Cornwall, and then commenced, or rather continued, a course of litigation which (had begun in 1588. 30th Eliz. and) did not terminate till 1623. There were hostile proceedings, first in one court, then in another; Chancery suits, actions of ejectment, suits in the Court of Wards; first, the D'Oylys plaintiffs, then the Loveis family,— contention without end. To trace the inheritance through the whole of these ponderous and voluminous proceedings, would be wearisome and interminable. Let it suffice to show the cause of the contention, and to relate its termination. — Leonard Loveis (Mrs. D'Oyly's grandfather) married Jane Upcott, a wealthy heiress, who possessed the manors of Wilsworthy, Rallaton, Pengelly, and various estates in Ogbeare, Grayhouse, Carlton, Norton, Debston, Treconye, Saltashe, Travena, Estmenhennets,  and a long list of other places in Cornwall, as well as various lands and manors in Devonshire, and within the county of the city of Exeter; and at her death, which occurred in her husband's lifetime, these estates descended to Thomas Loveis, her eldest son and heir. But Thomas Loveis was soon induced, early in Elizabeth's reign, to re-convey the estates to his father (as it appears no tenancy by the courtesy had vested,) intentionally for his father's life, but through informality in the deed, to him and his heirs male for ever. Thomas Loveis marries, and has issue Thomas (who died s.p.), and the said Julian, wife successively of Goddard and D'Oyly, and dies; his father Leonard has three younger sons, of whom William Loveis was the eldest; and this William and his issue were they who contested the ownership of the estates with Goddard and D'Oyly, claiming as heirs male.[519]—After a Chancery suit in 1614,[520] which terminated in favour of the D'Oylys, Leonard Loveis, son and heir of William, and then heir male of the family, as a last hope, turns his case into the Court of Wards, having been a minor at his father's death (which occurred in 1600,) and contrives to sue out a writ of mandamus, to inquire regarding his father's death, so long after as 1623; in consequence of which a jury sat at Bodmin, co. Cornwall, in January, 20 Jac. I., and found that his father William Loveis died in April 1600, seised of Estmenhennets and various other lands mentioned by the record, which were part of Julian's inheritance, and were held in capite, and that he, Leonard, was his son and heir, and being only 19 years of age the June following his father's death, the Sovereign's ward. Upon pretext of this ridiculous inquisition and verdict, Leonard Loveis, then between forty and fifty years of age, commenced a suit in the Court of Wards, 21st Jac. I. on the grounds of having properly been one of its wards twenty-three years before. However, it availed him nothing, for the Court being informed by the D’Oylys’ counsel respecting the lengthy previous proceedings, all which had terminated in their favour, the Court decreed in Michaelmas Term, 21 Jac. I. that the lands should remain as heretofore with the D’Oylys, and that no other writ should be awarded to inquire after William Loveis's death without special order of the Court.[521] Such was the result of the last attempt of the Loveis family to recover the inheritance; and this decree settled the matter for ever.—The Loveis's had lost considerable property in this lengthy litigation; they recorded their pedigree and arms of "Or, a chevron engrailed gules between three ducks sable, breasted argent," in the midst of the contention, at the Cornwall visitation, 1620; but such was their animosity to the D'Oylys, that they altogether omit Julian and her husbands from the record.[522] They were then a numerous house, and losing their manors by the heir female, and squandering the little property that remained in fruitless litigation to recover their estates, they soon sank to a lowly station ; and when Lysons wrote his Devonshire, they had not recovered their position, the representative of the family being then but a yeoman.[523] — Nor were the D’Oylys wholly exempt from the expenses of litigation ; Robert D'Oyly mortgaged the manor of Wilsworthy to his kinsman Sir Cope D'Oyly, to obtain pecuniary means of prosecuting the suit, and lost his equity of redemption; whereby Wilsworthy absolutely vested in the Chislehampton D'Oylys.[524] But nothing could ever reconcile the Loveis family to the D'Oylys. The whole tribe seem to have bound themselves to malign, scandalize, injure, cheat, torment, and if possible, ruin those whom they conceived had robbed them of their inheritance; as the sequel will show.—Before or about the close of James I.'s reign, the said Julian died, and Robert D'Oyly then married, secondly, Dame Bridget Wolveridge,[525] relict of Sir James Wolveridge, of Odiham, co. Hants, Knt. a Master of the High Court of Chancery, widow previously of Edward Skeggs, of London, and daughter of William Draper, of Bedenwell, in Erith, co. Kent, the descendant of William Kelome, who married the daughter and heiress of John Draper, Esq. of Bedenwell and Hartley, co. Kent, and changed his name to Draper at his father-in-law's desire, which Draper family bore, "Argent, on a fesse between three annulets gules, a mullet argent, between 2 covered cups or.''[526] This lady had a pretty jointure, consisting of Sturton's manor in Odiham, which Sir James Wolveridge had purchased with many other lands; but like every other marriage in this branch of the D'Oyly family, Chancery suits only resulted from the acquisition. Robert D'Oyly and Lady Wolveridge were married in May, 2d Car. I. (1626); their marriage settlement, dated 29th April, 2nd Car. I. giving her absolute power in the disposal of her own property.[527] Robert D'Oyly was then of Lincoln's Inn, but soon removed to his wife's jointure house at Odiham, and was resident there in Oct. 1637, when he had a Chancery suit with a person named Gates, respecting her jointure.[528] But this was a minor evil. Sir James Wolveridge had died owing his brother John Wolveridge 300l. which, on his marriage, Robert D'Oyly undertook to repay, under a penalty of 600l. This at length engendered a Chancery suit, exceeded by none in bitterness and animosity, between D'Oyly's son and the Wolveridge family; for Robert D'Oyly died about Dec. 1643, having never repaid the money; by his will appointing his son Robert executor. Lady Wolveridge survived him, made her will entirely in favour of her own family the Wolveridges (to whom she was related through the Drapers, as well as having married one), and died in Sept. 1644.[529] By her Robert D'Oyly had no issue; but his former wife, the heiress of Loveis, bore him a son and a daughter.[530]

Details of Robert's family with Julian Loveis