This book has been written with the expectation that it will be read by many people who are not related to the Cotehele, Edgcumbe or Brendon families, of Cornwall: but who will be interested in reading this fascinating 14th century history, which is mainly about the heiress Hillaria de Cotehele. Can there be another ward-ship such as the ward-ship of Hillaria de Cotehele which was seized by two Royal Princes: by Sir John de Eitham the Earl of Cornwall and fifteen years later by Edward the Black Prince the Duke of Cornwall, then sold three times? The history tells the reader about the deaths of Maud de Brendon and one of her wards - Ralph de Cotehele, brother of Hillaria de Cotehele, in June 1349 when the Black Death entered the Brendon House and the five subsequent Court hearings over a dispute about the ward-ship and marriage of Hillaria de Cotehele. The reader will see that the Court of Edward the Black Prince, granted the benefit of the Cotehele Estate to John de Brendon, who could have retained the ownership of the Cotehele Estate, had the Court not ordered an inquisition and found a seventeen year old Letters Patent.
This Letters Patent was the first of several discoveries, which as they unfold, clearly point to the Romantic Suggestion that many members of the worldwide Edgcumbe Family are descended from John de Eitham the Earl of Cornwall, the son of Edward II, 1307 - 1327. The publication of this book was stopped in early 2013, as the author Tom Brendon decided to have his DNA taken to try and find the surname of his ancestors. Whilst waiting to receive the DNA results, he started to look through a copy of Debrett's Peerage & Baronetage and by accident discovered that he could be descended from the daughter of a great Norman landowner, Robert de Ferrers, the 6th Earl of Derby whose descendants owned Baddesley Clinton in Warwickshire for nearly five hundred years. For nearly ten years Tom Brendon has been working as a National Trust Volunteer Room Guide at Baddesley Clinton. What a coincidence - it really is a small world.