Memorials of Old Devonshire

by Unknown

Many a Devonshire Courtenay sat as Knight of the Shire for his native County; others of the family filled the office of Sheriff; and thus for 340 years this branch of the house did its duty punctually and well, earning fresh honours and new titles in the place of those which lay in abeyance.

On the death of Edward, eighth Earl, in 1556, at Padua, the Courtenays of Powderham were represented by Sir William Courtenay, who died at the siege of St. Quintin, a few months after the decease of his noble kinsman, his son and successor, also called William, being but four years old at the time.

It may be that the tidings of the death of the head of the house were long in travelling from Italy to distant Devonshire. It may be that none of the living members of the family were cognizant of the facts of the case; but whatever the reasons, for 260 years the Earldom of Devon was regarded as lapsed, and no successor claimed its honour and dignity, though some indications may, indeed, be found, both in written records and the behaviour of individuals, of a belief that the title, though latent, was not extinct.

Gibbon, who himself has conferred a great and undying honour on the family by devoting, in his monumental work, a whole chapter to the history of the Courtenays, uses this significant expression: “His personal honours as if they had been legally extinct”; and in 1660, when Charles II. offered the dignity of a Baronetcy to the then Sir William Courtenay, it was, as Cleveland relates, refused, “he not affecting that title because he thought greater of right belonged to him. Indeed, the patent of Baronetcy was never taken out, although his successors were always styled as such.”

It is possible, however, that this refusal may have been due to the natural irritation felt by the head of a great family at seeing his hereditary and ancestral honours conferred on others; for in 1602, James I. created Charles Blunt, Lord Mountjoy, Earl of Devonshire, and on his decease, six years later, gave the same title to William Cavendish, in whose line it remained until changed to a Dukedom.

In the reign of William III., an offer of an English Barony was made to the head of the Courtenays, and again refused; but in 1762, the many services of Sir William Courtenay, eighth of the name, merited a higher honour, and he, accepting a Peerage, took his seat in the House of Lords as Viscount Courtenay of Powderham Castle.

Only surviving his elevation some six months, he was succeeded by his son, who, marrying a lady of less exalted lineage than himself, became the parent of one son and thirteen daughters.

This only son and heir, the tenth in thirteen generations who successively bore the name of William, on the advice, it is said, of that distinguished lawyer, Mr. Pepys, afterwards Lord Chancellor and first Earl of Cottenham, in 1830 asserted, by petition to Parliament, his right to the ancient Earldom of Devon. The grounds of the claim were as follows: When, in the year 1553, Sir Edward Courtenay, son of Henry, Marquis of Exeter and Earl of Devonshire, attainted and executed by Henry VIII., after having suffered a long confinement in the Tower, obtained from Queen Mary his release, she annulled the attainder, and created him, by special patent, “to hold the title and dignity of Earl of Devon with the said honours and pre-eminence thereunto belonging, to the aforesaid Edward and his heir male for ever” (“prefato Edwardo et heredibus suis masculis imperpetuum”). And this phrase is again repeated later: “Do grant to the aforesaid now Earl that he and his heirs male may enjoy ... the same pre-eminence as any of the ancestors of the said Earl being heretofore Earl of Devon may have enjoyed.”

With great lucidity and deep knowledge of the subject, Mr. Pepys maintained that, whereas in the majority of patents it was usual to restrict the title to the recipient and his direct descendants (heirs male of his body), in this instance, as shown by the wording of the deed, the Sovereign deliberately intended to restore the Earldom to the heir male of Hugh, second Earl of Devon, which position was undoubtedly occupied by the claimant, William, Viscount Courtenay.

Certain cases were cited in support of this contention, especially the charter given by Richard II. creating William le Scrope Earl of Wiltshire, and special reference was made to a patent of Charles I. appointing Lewis Boyle Baron of Bandon Bridge, which contained a declaration explaining the express intention of words absolutely similar to those used in the deed concerning the Earldom of Devon. The claim was tried before the Committee of Privileges of the House of Lords, consisting of the Lord Chancellor (Lord Brougham) and Lord Wynford, who himself, as Sir W. Draper-Best, had lately been raised to the peerage, for the reason, as Greville, in his Memoirs, amusingly remarks, “that he is to assist the Chancellor in deciding Scotch causes of which he knows nothing whatever; as the Chancellor knows nothing either, the Scotch law is likely to be strangely administered.” The decision in this case which related to an English peerage, however, was eminently just, and the House resolved and adjudged: “That William, Viscount Courtenay, hath made out his claim to the title, honour, and dignity of Earl of Devon.”