Family and Education

o.s. of Walter Langdon of Keverell by Joanna, da. of John Roscarrock of Roscarrock, St. Endellion, wid. of William Prideaux of Gurlyn, St. Erth. m. Rhoda, da. of William Martin of Lindridge Bishop’s Teignton, Devon, and coh. to her bro. William, 1da.1

Offices Held

Commr. for assessment, Cornw. 1663-74; stannator of Foymore 1663; j.p. Cornw. 1670-d.; freeman, East Looe 1672; sub-commr. of prizes, Plymouth 1672-4; commr. for recusants, Cornw. 1675.2

Biography

Langdon’s ancestor John, who sat for Truro in 1419, married the heiress of Keverell. They were not a regular parliamentary family, but Langdon’s grandfather was first sent for in custody by the Commons, and then knighted by the King, for his efforts to impede the return of the country candidates at the county election of 1628. His father acted as commissioner of array and went into exile at the end of the Civil War, leaving the care of his family and estate, valued at £700 p.a., to a parliamentarian uncle. He returned in 1652, and his fine was reduced to £441, doubtless through the influence of Francis Langdon, a Baptist who represented Cornwall in the Barebones Parliament. After the Restoration he received £966 as royal bounty to compensate him for his losses.3

Langdon himself married the sister-in-law of Thomas Clifford, who obtained for him a post in the local prize office during the third Dutch war at a salary of £400 p.a. He was returned to the Cavalier Parliament for East Looe as a court supporter at a by-election in 1673, and set out for London shortly afterwards. But his only committee was on the bill to enable Sir Francis Drake, 3rd Bt., to settle a jointure on his wife and make provision for his younger children (31 Jan. 1674). After Clifford’s fall he was assigned to the management of (Sir) Joseph Williamson on Danby’s working lists, and received the government whip for the autumn session of 1675; but according to Sir Richard Wiseman he failed to attend. He predeceased his father by a few months on 16 Feb. 1677 and was buried at St. Martin’s-by-Looe as ‘the last of the male line of that loyal, ancient and honourable family’. The estate was sold by his widow to John Buller for £6,000.4

Ref Volumes: 1660-1690

Author: Paula Watson

Notes

• 1. Vivian, Vis. Cornw. 275; Soc. of Genealogists, Exeter mar. lic., 30 Mar. 1635; J. Maclean, Trigg Minor, i. 563; ii. 224.
• 2. A. L. Browne, Corp. Chrons. 190; CSP Dom. 1673, p. 7; Cal. Treas. Bks. iii. 1246.
• 3. T. Bond, Sketches of Looe, 184; M. Coate, Cornw. in Gt. Civil War, 31, 371, 379; Cal. Comm. Comp. 2244, 3298; CSP Dom. 1661-2, p. 544; 1663-4, pp. 45, 368, 456; Baptist Quarterly, xxviii. 252.
• 4. CSP Dom. 1673, p. 7; Bond, 21; C7/42/54.