FEUDAL BARONAGE 



THE HONOUR OF PLYMPTON AND THE EARLDOM OF 



DEVON 



yA LL the manors of tenants-in-chief and their knights which did not 

 / % belong to other honours in or out of the county, most of the manors 



/ % held by the king's military and household officers, and many of 

 those held by his English thanes, together with the majority of 

 the royal estates which had been granted out after the date of Domesday, and 

 a few manors taken from other honours, went to make up the great honour 

 of Plympton, second only in extent to that of Okehampton, and superior to it 

 by virtue of its connexion with the earldom, it having been bestowed on the 

 Redvers family in the twelfth century, together with the earldom of Devon. 

 It consisted of eighty-nine fees,^ and was held of the crown for two and a half 

 fees.** It is usually stated that Henry I created the earldom of Devon in 

 favour of Richard de Redvers, lord of Nehou, when he bestowed upon him 

 the castles of Plympton and Tiverton,* but Mr. Round, not without reason, 

 asserts that Richard's son Baldwin was the first earl of Devon, and was 

 advanced to the honour by the Empress Maud shortly before June, 1141,* 

 being previously styled (as in 11 23 ^) Baldwin de Redvers simply. Baldwin's 

 son Richard, who succeeded him in 1155, married Hawise, daughter 

 of Reginald, earl of Cornwall, but died in 1162,° when his father-in-law 

 was put into possession,^ probably as guardian of his own grandson 

 Baldwin. From this Baldwin it passed to his brother Richard, and from 

 Richard to his uncle, William de Vernon, When William died, on 

 10 September, 12 17, it came to his grandson, another Baldwin, and on 

 his death, in 1244,* to his infant son Baldwin, born in 1235, who died 

 28 August, 1262. His sister, Isabella de Fortibus, countess of Albemarle, 

 was then found to be his next heir," and succeeded as such. She survived her 

 husband and all her children, and died in 1293, when Hugh Courteney, the 

 second of that name, great-grandson of Mary, daughter of William de Vernon, 

 obtained the honour, and in 1335 was authorized to assume the title of earl 

 of Devon,^" as the heir of the de Redvers family, and in possession of their 



' Testa de Nevill (Rec. Com.), p. 187^ in Trans. Devon. Assoc, xxix. 500. A list will be found in Testa de 

 Nevill{Ktc. Com.), p. liia, also in Inq. p.m. I Ric. II, No. 12, and i Hen. VI, No. 63. See also Cal. ' 

 Inp Hen. Ill, pp. 175-6. 



' Trans. Devon. Assoc, xxxii, 540. 



' Trans. Devon. Assoc, xxix, 457, 540; xix, SS^ ; vii, 363 ; Dugdale, Baronage, i, 255 ; Risdon's 

 Notebook, 56. 



* Geoffrey de Mandevtlle, 271-2. ° Feudal England, 486. 



" Pipe R. 8 Hen. II, in Trans. Devon. Assoc, xxix, 478. 



' Pipe R. 14 Hen. II, ibid, xxxiii, 366. * Cal. Inq. Hen. Ill, No. 50. 



' Inq. p.m. 47, Han. Ill, No. 23. Cal. Inq. Hen. Ill, No. 564. See also, for her heirship, Round, 

 Genealogical Mag. i, 4. 



"• In 9 Edw. III. See case in the House of Lords, 1832. 



551 



