Thomas de Courtenay, 5th Earl of Devon

Courtenays of Devon family coat of arms

Thomas de Courtenay, 5th Earl of Devon (* 1414 ; † February 3, 1458 in Abingdon Abbey ) was an English nobleman and magnate .

Life

He belonged to the Courtenay family and was the only surviving son of Hugh de Courtenay, 4th Earl of Devon (1389-1422) and Anne Talbot (around 1393-1441). His mother was a daughter of Richard Talbot, 4th Baron Talbot and sister of John Talbot, 1st Earl of Shrewsbury .

Around 1421 he was married to Lady Margaret Beaufort, daughter of John Beaufort, 1st Earl of Somerset . This established a connection with the Beaufort family , which in turn was related to the English royal family. He was eight years old when his father died on June 16, 1422 and he inherited his title of nobility as 5th Earl of Devon . In the following years he was under the tutelage of his brother-in-law Thomas Beaufort, 1st Duke of Exeter († 1426). On May 19, 1426 King Heinrich VI beat him . of England as a knight . On December 16, 1431 he was one of the 300 English nobles who were crowned King Henry VI. attended in Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris to the King of France .

Since his family's ancestral home , Tiverton Castle , including a significant portion of the adjoining land, had remained in the possession of his widowed mother. Courtenay therefore resided at Colcombe Castle until his mother's death in 1441 and had only a relatively low income until then. The dominant position of the Earl of Devon in Devonshire was challenged from the 1430s by some families of the gentry there. So he got into rivalry with his cousin Sir Philip Courtenay of Powderham and then in particular with the husband of his aunt Sir William Bonville of Shute . The conflict with Bonville escalated into violence in the summer of 1439 when Courtenay attacked his property, Shute House . King Henry then called Courtenay to order and summoned him to his court in London . The king appointed Courtenay steward of the Duchy of Cornwall in 1441 , a position almost identical to that of Royal Steward for Cornwall , which Sir William Bonville had been granted for life in 1437. A week later, in May 1441, Courtenay was allowed to return to Devon, where the feud between Courtenay and Bonville immediately flared up again. In December 1441 both were summoned again before the king and publicly reconciled. However, tensions remained. Eventually the king decided to pacify the situation in Devonshire by appointing both rivals to serve in the Hundred Years War in France, Bonville as Seneschal of Gascony from 1442 to 1446 and Courtenay as Governor of Pont-l'Évêque in Normandy in 1446 . Presumably thanks to the intercession of his brother-in-law John Beaufort, 1st Duke of Somerset , King Courtenay canceled his debts around 1444 and gave him credit for good behavior.

Because of his marriage, Courtenay was initially close to the Beaufort court party at the royal court. With the decline of de Beaufort's power, Courtenay increasingly approached the party of Richard Plantagenet, 3rd Duke of York . When the Duke of York sought the support of Courtenay's arch-enemies, the Bonville family, Courtenay fell out of favor with him. When the Wars of the Roses broke out, he was on the side of the Queen's party, Margaret of Anjou . He fought on the Lancastrian side and was wounded in the First Battle of St Albans in 1455 . Courtenay is believed to have promoted a reconciliation between the Lancastrian and Yorkist parties, but he died suddenly in 1458.

progeny

From his marriage to Lady Margaret Beaufort he had at least five children:

• Joan Courtenay, ⚭ 1) Sir Roger Clifford, ⚭ 2) Sir William Knyvett of Buckenham;
• Elizabeth Courtenay, ⚭ Sir Hugh Conwy;
• Thomas Courtenay, 6th Earl of Devon (1432-1461);
• Sir Henry Courtenay († 1466);
• John Courtenay, 7th Earl of Devon (around 1435-1471).

literature

• Martin Cherry: Courtenay, Thomas, thirteenth earl of Devon (1414-1458). In: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography . Oxford University Press, 2004 ( online ).
• Charles Mosley (Ed.): Burke's Peerage, Baronetage & Knightage . Volume 1, Burke's Peerage (Genealogical Books) Ltd, Wilmington 2003, p. 1123.
• Ralph Alan Griffiths: The Reign of King Henry VI. The Exercise of Royal Authority, 1422-1461. University of California Press, Berkeley 1981, ISBN 0520043723 .

Web links

• Thomas Courtenay, 5th Earl of Devon on thepeerage.com

References and comments

1. ↑ According to an alternative interpretation, he is also counted as the 13th Earl of Devon → see main article Earl of Devon .
2. ↑ George Edward Cokayne , Vicary Gibbs (Ed.): The Complete Peerage . Volume 4, St. Catherine Press, London 1916, p. 326.
3. ^ Alison Weir: Britain's Royal Families. The Complete Genealogy. The Bodley Head, London 1999, p. 106 f.

predecessor	Office	successor
Hugh de Courtenay	Earl of Devon 1422-1458	Thomas Courtenay