Background
His mother married, after his father"s death, Sir Thomas Peneystone of Cornwall, Oxfordshire.
His mother married, after his father"s death, Sir Thomas Peneystone of Cornwall, Oxfordshire.
Baptised at Cogges, near Witney, 16 December 1622, the eldest of the three sons of Sir William Pope, knt. (1596–1624), by Elizabeth, sole heiress of Sir Thomas Watson, knt., of Halstead, Kent. The young Earl was brought up at the house of his guardian, John Dutton of Sherborne.
When the First English Civil War broke out, Downe raised a troop of horse, and was in Oxford with the king in 1643.
Charles I slept at his wife"s house at Cubberley, Gloucestershire, on 6 September 1643 and 12 July 1644. In 1645, his estate being valued at £2,202 per annum, he was fined £5,000 by the committee for compounding.
He took the oath and covenant before 24 October 1645, but had difficulty in raising money for his fine, and in 1648 his other debts amounted to £11,000. Downe left England, and travelled in France and Italy.
He died at the royalist coffeehouse of Arthur Tilliard in Oxford, 28 December 1660.
His body was buried among his ancestors at Wroxton 11 January 1661, with an inscribed floor-slab in the chancel. Lucy, Countess of Downe died 6 April 1656, and was buried at Cubberley. Her second husband was Robert Bertie, 3rd Earl of Lindsey.
And the Enstone property descended through her to the Viscounts Dillon.