Sofia Trevanion

2017

Lord Byron’s grandmother. Her father, Richard Trevanion (d. 1426/7), a Cornish knight of the shire in 1407, established the manor of Caerhays Castle as his principal seat. His descendant, Sir William Trevanion of Caerhays Castle (d. 1518), was the first to marry into the Edward I bloodline when he took to wife Anne, a daughter of the acclaimed Cornish knight Sir Richard Edgcumbe of Cotehele (c.1443-1489). By the late sixteenth century, their descendants emerged as one of the county’s leading families. Sophia Trevanion was an amiable, educated, and celebrated beauty. She was the first of the siblings to marry, having fallen in love with her dashing first cousin (their mothers were sisters). Both of their fathers dead, their mothers allowed the young cousins to wed in a private chapel in Caerhays Castle in 1748, with Sophia age 18 and Byron age 25.