BOSCAWEN, Edward (1628-85), of Worthevale Minster, Cornw.

Edward Boscawen, the youngest brother of Hugh Boscawen of Tregothnan, was barely in his teens at the outbreak of the civil war in 1642, and naturally took no part in the conflict. He was apprenticed to a Grocer in 1648, and then entered the service of his cousin, John Rolle*, a member of the Levant Company.1London Apprenticeship Abstracts.; PROB11/272/171 (John Rolle). During the 1650s he acquired the manors of Worthevale and Roscarrock in Cornwall, and he may have given up trade in favour of life as a landed gentleman by 1659, although he was still described as ‘Edward Boscawen, merchant’ in that year.2HP Commons 1660-1690; C219/46/29.

He was elected for Tregony on 11 January 1659 on the interest of his family, who had owned the lordship since 1626.3C219/46/29; Maclean, Trigg Minor, iii. 72. During Parliament he played second fiddle to his more prominent elder brother, and it is unlikely that any of the references to a ‘Mr Boscawen’ in the Journal refer to him. In March 1660 he was appointed to the Cornish militia commission.4A. and O. In May 1660 Boscawen was elected for Truro, and he continued to represent that borough until 1681. In his will, drafted in 1685, he urged his children to be tolerant, and ‘not to be prejudiced against any that truly fear God and keep his commandments, for the tree is known by his fruits, so are men by their lives and conversations’, and appointed his brothers Hugh and Charles as trustees for his only son, Hugh, alongside Lord Godolphin and Sir William Godolphin of Godolphin.5PROB11/383/130. Despite appearing ‘a healthy, vigorous man’, Boscawen died ‘upon a very little sickness’ in October of the same year.6Morrice Entring Bk. iii. 46. His son, Hugh†, who sat for various Cornish seats and inherited Tregothnan and the patrimonial lands from his uncle in 1701, was created Viscount Falmouth in 1720.7HP Commons 1660-1690.