Thomas Courtenay, 6th/14th Earl of Devon

Arms of Thomas de Courtenay, The Earl of Devon: Arms: Quarterly, 1st and 4th, azure label or three torteaux (for Courtenay); 2nd and 3rd, or a lion rampant azure (for Redvers)

Ruins of Tiverton Castle, seat of the Earls of Devon

Thomas Courtenay, 6th/14th Earl of Devon (1432 – 3 April 1461), was the eldest son of Thomas de Courtenay, 5th/13th Earl of Devon, by his wife Margaret Beaufort, the daughter of John Beaufort, 1st Earl of Somerset, and Margaret Holland, daughter of Thomas Holland, 2nd Earl of Kent. Through his mother he was a great-grandson of King Edward III. The ordinal number given to the early Courtenay Earls of Devon depends on whether the earldom is deemed a new creation by the letters patent granted 22 February 1334/5 or whether it is deemed a restitution of the old dignity of the de Redvers family. Authorities differ in their opinions,^[1] and thus alternative ordinal numbers exist, given here.

Family

Courtenay was born in 1432, the eldest son and heir of Thomas Courtenay, 13th Earl of Devon, by Margaret Beaufort. He had two brothers and five sisters:^[2]

• Henry Courtenay (d. 17 January 1469), esquire, of West Coker, Somerset, de jure 7th Earl of Devon, beheaded for treason in the market place at Salisbury, Wiltshire on 17 January 1469.

• Sir John Courtenay, (1435 - 3 May 1471, slain at the Battle of Tewkesbury on 4 May 1471.

• Joan Courtenay (born c. 1447), who married firstly, Sir Roger Clifford, second son of Thomas Clifford, 8th Baron de Clifford, beheaded after Bosworth in 1485. She married secondly, Sir William Knyvet of Buckenham, Norfolk.

• Elizabeth Courtenay (born c. 1449), who married, before March 1490, Sir Hugh Conway.

• Anne Courtenay.

• Eleanor Courtenay.

• Maud Courtenay.

Career

Courtenay was 26 years of age when his father died on 3 February 1458^[3] during the first phase of the Wars of the Roses. On 19 December 1459 he was appointed Keeper of Exmoor Forest,^[4] as his father had been before him. The Courtenay family held extensive lands throughout Devon, and were one of the greatest landowners in the south-west, comparable only to the Paulet family, the later Earls of Winchester. Thomas was a staunch adherent of the House of Lancaster,^[4] as was the family tradition until his father's feud with William Bonville, 1st Baron Bonville, which culminated in 1455 at the Battle of Clyst Heath. Thomas was a leading exponent of violent conflagration, leading the raid on the house at Upcott, and subsequent murder of the respected lawyer, Nicholas Radford.^[5] He took, with his brother, internecine warfare to new levels of brutality.^[6] His subsequent adherence to Queen Margaret's affinity was his undoing. Devon's decision was advised by his dislike of Bonville, who sought Warwick's patronage. He was fighting alongside Henry Beaufort, 3rd Duke of Somerset, in the northern army and was defeated at the Battle of Towton, 'bloodiest battle on English soil', where he was taken prisoner.^[7]

Courtenay was beheaded at York^[7] on 3 April 1461, and attainted by Parliament in November of that year, by which the earldom and barony of Courtenay and the family estates were forfeited. Courtenay's younger brother, Henry, had been granted several manors by King Edward IV on 27 July 1461, including Topsham, and these manors were also forfeited by his elder brother's attainder. Henry himself was beheaded at Salisbury on 17 January 1469.^[8]

Marriage

Courtenay married, at Coventry, Warwickshire, shortly after 9 September 1456, Mary of Anjou, illegitimate daughter of Charles, Count of Maine. There were no issue of the marriage. She is thought to have been the 'Countess of Devonshire' who was captured with King Henry VI's Queen, Margaret of Anjou, after the Battle of Tewkesbury on 4 May 1471.^[8]

Footnotes

1. Watson, GEC Peerage, IV, p.324 & footnote (c): "This would appear more like a restitution of the old dignity than the creation of a new earldom"; Debrett's Peerage however gives the ordinal numbers as if a new earldom had been created. (Montague-Smith, P.W. (ed.), Debrett's Peerage, Baronetage, Knightage and Companionage, Kelly's Directories Ltd, Kingston-upon-Thames, 1968, p.353)
2. Richardson I 2011, p. 547; Richardson IV 2011, pp. 38–43.
3. Cokayne 1916, p. 327.
4. Cokayne 1916, p. 327; Richardson IV 2011, p. 41.
5. Charles Ross Edward IV Eyre and Methuen 194 p.390
6. Ross p.390
7. Anthony Goodman, The Wars of the Roses, (Dorset Press, 1981), 51-52.
8. Richardson IV 2011, p. 41.

References

• Cokayne, George Edward (1916). The Complete Peerage, edited by Vicary Gibbs IV. London: St. Catherine Press.
• Davis, Norman, ed. (1976). 'The Paston Letters and Papers of Fifteenth century'. 2 vols. Oxford University Press.
• Fiorato, V., A.; Boylston, C. Knüsel (2007). Blood Red Roses (2nd ed.). Oxford: Oxbow Books.
• The Nobility of Later Medieval England. London: Oxford University Press. 1973.
• Richardson, Douglas (2011). Magna Carta Ancestry: A Study in Colonial and Medieval Families, ed. Kimball G. Everingham I (2nd ed.). Salt Lake City. ISBN 1449966373
• Richardson, Douglas (2011). Magna Carta Ancestry: A Study in Colonial and Medieval Families, ed. Kimball G. Everingham IV (2nd ed.). Salt Lake City. ISBN 1460992709
• Wars of the Roses. London: Thames and Hudson. 1986.
• Seward, Desmond (1995). Wars of the Roses; and the lives of five men and women in the fifteenth century. London: Constable.
• Warrington, John, ed (1956). 'The Paston Letters'. vol.1. New York: E.P. Dutton.