The Estcotts were minor Devon gentry whose pedigree stretched back at least 200 years. Estcott’s father, Richard, took a Launceston woman as his first wife and, settling in that borough, became one of its leading merchants.
Although Estcott based much of his legal practice at Lincoln’s Inn, he evidently divided his time between London and Cornwall. Already serving as Glanville’s deputy at Launceston by 1625, he was appointed to a Cornish piracy commission in the following year. The combination of his professional responsibilities and his father’s local standing explains his repeated election to Parliament for Launceston and the neighbouring borough of Newport during the 1620s. Indeed, as a ‘viander’ of Newport in 1624, and as mayor of Launceston in 1628, Richard Estcott was twice able to exert direct influence over his son’s elections, since these positions required him to act as a returning officer.
As Estcott had a home in London, he was probably prepared to forgo parliamentary wages, which may help to explain his popularity as an electoral candidate. However, he seems not to have been a particularly assiduous Member. He left no mark on the proceedings of either the 1624 session or the following year’s Westminster sitting, and though he attended the Oxford sitting of 1625, obtaining permission on 2 Aug. to take his seat before receiving communion, he probably left early, as he was in Launceston by 15 August. During the 1626 Parliament he absented himself without leave at least three times, though he was presumably present on 10 June, when he was added to the committee for Lady Dale’s private bill; whether he was personally interested in this measure is unclear.
Apart from his interventions in 1628, Estcott has not been identified as an active adherent of Mohun and Bagg during the 1620s, and he possibly sought to remain aloof from Cornwall’s factional battles. In 1631 he acted on Grenville’s behalf in a land transaction with Bagg, and he may well also have been the ‘Mr. Escot’ who delivered correspondence from Grenville to the imprisoned Eliot at around the same time.
Estcott drew up his will on 12 July 1636, declaring himself to be ‘weak in body’. A year earlier he had inherited from his father some land in Cornwall, which he now designated for sale to provide maintenance and portions for his wife and infant children. However, he wished his books to be kept for whichever of his sons first took up the law. Estcott died in December 1636 at Ampthill, Bedfordshire, where he had acquired a small estate near a property owned by his brother-in-law Brett. None of his direct descendants sat in Parliament.