William Cole (abt. 1160)

Born about 1160 in Cornwall, England

Husband of Ysabella (Unknown) Cole — married 1180 in Cornwall, England

Descendants

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Celtic and Saxon Origins

The old Cole genealogy suggests that the name Cole is "likely to be a contraction of Agricola, a tiller of the soil, as Cola occurs in the Domesday Survey as the holder of much land in the counties of Hants, Devon, Wilts, etc., in the reign of King Edward the Confessor."^[1] The agricultural image of the Latin word "agricola" is reinforced by dominant symbol in the coat of arms adopted by the Cole family, a bull.

Regarding the earliest Coles, the old Cole genealogy states:

"It hath been asserted that this family derives its origin from Coel, the founder of Colchester, one of the Kings of Britain. Yet without claiming as its patriarch either this renowned descendant of Caractacus, or the Justice Cole, who lived in the reign of King Alfred, or the valiant General Cola, who, in command of the united forces of Devon, Somerset, and Dorset, defeated at Pinhoe, in 1001, Sweyne, the savage Chieftain of the Danes, its high antiquity and rank amongst the magnates of the land in Saxon times are attested by Domesday Book, and, by" a 1070 deed of King William the Conqueror to Bishop Walkelin, written in the Saxon language, and translated into English in 1587, in which "'William, King, greetes Walkesein, Bishop, and Hugon de Port, and Edward Knighte, Steward, and Algesime and Symon and Allfus, Porveiour, and Cole and Arderne and all the Barons in Hampshire and Wiltshire..."^[2]

As noted above, the Domesday Book lists "Cola" as holding land in both Wiltshire and Devon. It is this Cola whom the author of the old Cole genealogy takes to be the progenitor of the Cole family that appears on Devon's border with Cornwall in the early thirteenth century.

Biography

William's birth year is just a guess.

William Cole and wife Ysabella appear in a record in Cornwall in 1201. This is the only thing known about them. Then a Roger Cole (presumably William's son) appears in Devon in 1212 and 1219.^[3]

In the absence of any other records, it seems likely that this Roger was the father of William Cole of Hittensleigh (living in 1243), who named his son Roger.

Sources

1. ↑ James Edwin-Cole, Genealogy of the Family of Cole, in Devon (1867), Introduction.
2. ↑ James Edwin-Cole, Genealogy of the Family of Cole, in Devon (1867), Introduction.
3. ↑ "William Cole and Ysabella his wife are named in Assize Roll of the County of Cornwall, in the third year of King John (anno domini 1201). In the fourteenth year of King John (1212) Roger Cole granted to Edith, late wife of Ralph Burdeville, a capital messuage and lands in Hoke, in the county of Devon, to be held of him for the term of her life, with remainder to himself and his heirs ; and in 1219 mention is made of Roger Cole in a Fine roll relating to a third part of one knight's fee in Hardwinesleigh, in the same county." See James Edwin-Cole, Genealogy of the Family of Cole, in Devon (1867), pp. 2-3.

• Page 5: He and his wife Ysabella are named in Assize Roll of the County of Cornwall in the third year of King John (1201)

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