Walter Devereux, 1st Baron Ferrers of Chartley

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Coat of arms of Walter Devereux, 1st Baron Ferrers of Chartley

Walter Devereux, 1st Baron Ferrers of Chartley KG (according to another count also 8th Baron Ferrers of Chartley ) (* around 1432, † August 22, 1485 near Bosworth ) was an English nobleman and military. During the Wars of the Roses he was a leading supporter of the House of York .

Origin and youth

Walter Deveraux was a son of the knight Walter Devereux from Herefordshire and Elizabeth Merbury († 1438). His father of the same name, with whom he is sometimes confused, had risen to become a wealthy country noble through the inheritance of his father-in-law, John Merbury . As a vassal of Richard of York , his father rose to be one of his most important supporters and confidants in the Welsh Marches . In 1446 the young Walter was married to Anne Ferrers (1438-1469), the young daughter of William Ferrers, 7th Baron Ferrers of Chartley from Staffordshire. As the only child she became his heir after the death of her father in 1450. Much of the Ferrers inheritance remained in her mother's administration until her mother's death in 1471, but in March 1453 his wife, who was only fifteen years old, was given the management of the Lincolnshire estates .

Supporters of the House of York in the Wars of the Roses

At the start of the Wars of the Roses, in 1456, young Walter tried to take advantage of disputes within the township of Hereford to win the city over to the Yorkists, while his father led a force to West Wales in the service of Richard of York. When the followers of King Henry VI. Once again regained power, Walter was therefore accused of treason. After his father's death in April 1459, Devereux inherited his estates in Herefordshire and Leicestershire. He remained a supporter of the House of York, but his brother-in-law William Herbert took over the leadership of the Yorkists in Herefordshire and South East Wales . Devereux was among the troops of York when the latter was defeated by the supporters of the king at Ludford Bridge in October 1459 . To save his life he submitted to the king. He was charged as a traitor during Parliament in Coventry . For a fine of 500 marks he got his possessions back and was pardoned in March 1460.

However, when the Yorkists were able to defeat the Lancastrians at the Battle of Northampton , Henry VI. captured and assumed rule, Devereux publicly rejoined Richard of York. He was appointed Justice of the Peace of Herefordshire and represented With William Herbert Herefordshire as Knight of the Shire during Parliament from 1460 to 1461. When Richard of York was killed in December 1460, Devereux was serving his widow Cecily as administrator of her property in Herefordshire. He probably already belonged to the army with which York's son Eduard won the battle of Mortimer's Cross in early February 1461 . At the latest on March 3rd, when Eduard was proclaimed king in Baynard's Castle in London, he was one of his entourage. Devereux fought in the Battle of Towton on March 29, 1461 and was defeated to Knight Bachelor after Edward's victory . On July 26th, the King called him to Parliament by Writ of Summons as Lord, under the title Baron Ferrers of Chartley , the title of his father-in-law. The new king rewarded him further by giving him lands in the Midlands and Welsh Marches in February 1462 that had been confiscated from defeated Lancastrians.

Rise to confidante and advisor to King Edward IV.

Together with his brother-in-law William Herbert, Ferrers secured the rule of the king in Wales and the Welsh Marches. They captured Pembroke Castle in September 1461 , but it was not until 1468 that Harlech Castle , the last Lancastrian bastion in Wales, fell. As early as June 1463, the King made Ferrers constable of Aberystwyth Castle in West Wales for life . In February 1462 Devereux thwarted the Earl of Oxford's revolt , and in the same year he accompanied the king as he moved to the north of England. Ferrers rose to be one of the king's leading advisors. When in 1469 the Earl of Warwick and the Duke of Clarence rebelled against the king and temporarily captured him, Ferrers stayed on the king's side. After William Herbert was executed by Warwick after the Battle of Edgecote Moor , Ferrers secured South Wales for the king in the fall of 1470. As early as July 1470 he had been appointed Sheriff of Caernarvonshire and lifelong forest manager of Snowdon , and in November 1470 the king rewarded him by handing him over the reigns of Brecon , Hay and Huntington during the minority of the Duke of Buckingham . After Herbert's death, he had offered refuge in Weobley to his sister Anne, her family and their wards, Henry Tudor and Henry Percy, 4th Earl of Northumberland . Presumably Henry Tudor stayed until the reinstatement of Henry VI. as king in Weobley in October 1470, before he was handed over to his uncle Jasper Tudor . Henry Percy, however, was taken to the Tower of London before he was released on the intercession of Ferrers after swearing allegiance to Edward IV.

Perhaps after the reinstatement of Henry VI Ferrers had. 1470 hand over several goods that he had received from Edward IV since 1462. He was also deposed as justice of the peace. When Edward IV won the throne back in April 1471, Ferrers rejoined him. He was one of the barons who recognized Prince Edward as heir to the throne on July 3 . The king then commissioned him to restore his rule in Wales. Together with his nephew William Herbert , he pursued Jasper Tudor and Henry Tudor in August until he learned in Carmarthen that the two had escaped to France. Ferrer's support for King Edward has been rewarded in many ways. In September 1471 the Duke of Clarence appointed him administrator of the Elfael reign , and in 1472 Ferrers was accepted into the Order of the Garter. To this end, the king appointed him on February 20, 1473 as tutor and counselor to the Prince of Wales , with which Ferrers took over numerous offices and duties in Wales. In July 1475 Ferrers took part in the failed French campaign of the king. He accepted petitions during Parliament in early 1478 condemning the Duke of Clarence, and in September 1478 the King asked him to investigate information about a suspected Yorkshire uprising . He worked again with Richard of Gloucester , the king's younger brother, whom he had met in Wales in 1470. The king thanked him by handing him over in January 1476 possessions in Leicestershire which had been confiscated by the Earl of Oxford and which Ferrers rounded off there.

Richard III supporter and death at Bosworth

After the death of Edward IV, Ferrers attended his funeral in Windsor in April 1483 and in July at the coronation of his brother Richard III. part. It is not known whether Ferrers approved of Richard's accession to the throne and the ousting of Edward's sons to whom he had sworn allegiance. However, when the Duke of Buckingham rebelled against Richard in October 1483, he wanted to gather troops at Ferrer's Weobley Estate. In a hideout near Weobley, Buckingham was finally arrested, taken to the king and executed. The King rewarded Ferrers with an annual pension of 100 marks and in August 1484 gave him the Cheshunt estate in Hertfordshire , which had previously belonged to Henry Tudor, for lifelong use . Ferrers continued to support Richard III. and fell at the Battle of Bosworth , in which he had supported the king with 20 men-at-arms and 200 archers. The victorious Henry Tudor, who had become the new king as Henry VII , had him posthumously accused of treason and expropriated during his first parliament in November .

Family and offspring

From his first marriage to Anne Ferrers, Ferrers had several children including:

  1. ⚭ Sir Richard Corbet
  2. ⚭ Sir Thomas Leighton

After the death of his first wife in 1469, Ferrers married Joan, the widow of Thomas Ilam, in 1482. His widow married Thomas Vaughan from Welsh after his death . Ferrer's heir was his son John, who was awarded his mother's estates in 1486, and in 1489 the inheritance of the Devereux and Merbury families and the title of Baron Ferrers of Chartley.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ William Arthur Shaw: The Knights of England. Volume 2, Sherratt and Hughes, London 1906, p. 13.
  2. ^ Glenn Foard, Anne Curry: Bosworth 1485. A battlefield rediscovered . Oxbow, Oxford 2013. ISBN 978-1-78297-180-1 , p. 30
personal data
SURNAME Devereux, Walter, 1st Baron Ferrers of Chartley
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Ferrers of Chartley, Walter de Devereux, 1st Baron; De Ferrers, De Devereux, Walter, 8th Baron Ferrers of Chartley
BRIEF DESCRIPTION English nobleman and military
DATE OF BIRTH around 1432
DATE OF DEATH August 22, 1485
Place of death Market Bosworth