The Noble and Gentle Men of England / or, notes touching the arms and descents of the ancient knightly and gentle houses of England, arranged in their respective counties.

by Evelyn Philip Shirley

Present Representative, Sir Arthur Chichester, 8th Baronet.

Fortescue of Castle Hill, Earl Fortescue 1789.

Like the Chichesters, an ancient and wide-spreading family, settled at Wymodeston, now called Winston, in the parish of Modbury, in the year 1209. "This was," writes Sir William Pole, "the most ancient seat of the Fortescues, in whose possession it continued from the days of King John to the Reign of Queen Elizabeth."

There are many younger branches of this family, both in England and Ireland, "to rank which in their seniority, and by delineating the descent to give every man his dew place, surpasseth, I freely confesse, my ability at the present." (Westcote's MSS. quoted by The Topographer, i. 178.) The great glory of this house is Sir John Fortescue, Lord Chief Justice of England in the reign of Henry VI. and the author of' the work "Of absolute and limited Monarchy."

Among the principal younger branches were the Fortescues of Buckland Filleigh and Fortescue of Fallopit in this county, both extinct in the male line, and the Fortescues of the county of Louth in Ireland, represented by the Barons Clermont.

See Westcote's Devonshire Pedigrees, 498, 625, &c.; Prince's Worthies, ed. 1701, 304; Brydges's Collins, v. 335; Lysons, lxxxv.

Arms.—Azure, a bend engrailed argent cotised or.

Present Representative, Hugh Fortescue, 3rd Earl Fortescue.

Cary of Torr-Abbey, in the parish of Tor-Mohun.