[nb 1] He was a Dorset-born London lawyer who in 1507 became Keeper of the Records of the Court of Common Pleas and was elected as a Member of Parliament for Barnstaple in 1542 and 1545.

Not only was he the founder of his own great Devonshire landowning dynasty but he was also an ancestor of others almost as great, including the Acland baronets of Killerton,[2] the Wrey Baronets[3] of Tawstock and the Trefusis family of Trefusis in Cornwall now of Heanton Satchville, Huish, later Baron Clinton, heirs both of Rolle of Heanton Satchville, Petrockstowe and of Rolle of Stevenstone.

[1] He gained many prominent private clients including Arthur Plantagenet, 1st Viscount Lisle (died 1542) whom he served until the latter's death,[1] and whose wife Honor Grenville was from North Devon and whose Devonshire home was at Umberleigh (the seat of her first husband Sir John Basset (1462–1529)) not far from Stevenstone.

He recruited to Lisle's assistance, especially in his purchase of Frithelstock Priory, Richard Pollard (died 1542), General Surveyor of the Court of Augmentations, his fellow North Devonian lawyer and speculator in monastic lands.

[7] He wrote from London to Lady Lisle on 22 December 1536:[8] "I have sued with your...servant Husee, who right diligently doth apply your business here, to the Chancellor of Augmentations with whom I have often been about the same, and have at this day appointed you the best and most profitable lands belonging to the said late priory, with much pain and suit, wherein we have found Mr Chancellor of Augmentations and Mr Onley both good, which have both deserved your thanks".He had just received his wish from the Lisles of being appointed their surveyor and receiver of the lands of Frithelstock Priory, which required him to collect rent money from all the tenants on their behalves.

His letter to Lady Lisle dated 25 July 1534 includes the line "Madame, also your ladyship doth know that I bought your images and scripture for Mr Basset and for that I am now paid", which refers to the still surviving monumental brasses on the tomb of her first husband in Atherington Church.

[13] Thirteen letters written by George Rolle survive in the Lisle Letters of which the following to Lady Lisle dated 28 February 1539 is an example, mainly dealing with the disputed Beaumont-Basset inheritance:[14] "Right honourable and my singular good lady, my duty remembered, I have me humbly recommended unto your good ladyship and to my good Lord Lyle advertising your ladyship that I received your ladyship's letter by which ye willed me to speak with my Lady Coffyn for her title in East Haggynton in the county of Devon who had one estate in tail to him and to his heirs of her body begotten; and now he is dead without issue of his body so that the reversion should revert to Mr John Basset and to his heirs so there be no let nor discontinuance of the same made by Sir William Coffyn in his life.

became bounden to him, the said George Rolle, and to Harry Dacres, merchant of London, and others, now deceased, on condition that the said Sir John Pakington, cause to be made 'to Edmund Knightley, serjeant at law, the said George Rolle, and others, a sufficient estate of, and in manors, lands, &c. in the shires of Worcester, Hereford, Stafford, Salop, and Middlesex, or any of them, to the clear yearly value of 120/.