 He was the eldest son of Dennis Rolle (1638-1671) of Great Torrington, a lawyer of the Inner Temple, a younger son of Sir Samuel Rolle (died 1647), of Heanton Satchville in the parish of Petrockstowe, Devon, MP, one of three distinguished grandsons (his brothers were Henry Rolle (died 1656) Chief Justice of the King's Bench & John Rolle (died 1648), MP) of Henry Rolle of Heanton Satchville, 4th son of the founder of the Devonshire Rolles, the Tudor lawyer and property speculator George Rolle (died 1552), MP, who purchased Stevenstone.The mother of Samuel I Rolle of Hudscott is stated by Vivian (1895) and by his biographer Cruickshanks to have been Jane Lovering "of Hudscott" which appears to place her as a daughter of John I Lovering (died 1675) by his wife Dorcas Doddridge and seems therefore to suggest that Samuel I Rolle's wife Dorothy Lovering (1675-1735) was his first cousin.Indeed by the time of Samuel's marriage to Dorothy in 1700 it was known that she was a co-heiress to Hudscott, her father having died in 1686 and her brothers before then.