When in that incomparable romance, Les Trois Mousquetaires, the source and parent of every historical novel of to-day, the author, Alexandre Dumas, wished to impute to the leader of his trinity of heroes the possession of a high and exalted chivalry, he called him Athos.

Probably the intention was to institute a comparison between the lofty attributes of the character and the altitude of the celebrated Greek mountain. Possibly, however, the talented Frenchman may have bestowed this title on the chief personage of his story because he, the author, conceived that no more fitting designation could be given to the embodiment of distinguished and aristocratic qualities than the actual name borne by the founder of one of the most illustrious families that has adorned the brilliant roll of French nobility, has given Emperors to the East, and subsequently established in this land of Devon a noble house which is inseparably connected with the traditions and history of the county.

In the continuation of Aimon’s History of France, an ancient chronicle of the thirteenth century, it is stated that the Châtelain of Chateau Renard had a son, named Athos, who rendered himself famous by his deeds of daring, and, in the reign of King Robert of France—A.D. 1020—fortified the town of Courtenay.

From this castle, situated on a hill in the rich and wooded country which stretches over that district anciently called L’Isle de France, the descendants of Athos took their title. The name of his wife, the mother of the race, is nowhere recorded, although Bouchet, the historian of the French branch of the Courtenay family, states that she was “une dame de condition”; and the truth of this statement is verified by the fact that in those days, when the prerogatives of birth were universally acknowledged, her progeny were considered fitting mates for the noblest in the kingdom.

Jocelyn de Courtenay, the son of Athos and his unnamed wife, married twice: first, in the year 1060, Hildegarde, daughter of Geoffrey de Ferole, Comte de Gastinois; second, Elizabeth, daughter of Guy, Seigneur de Montlehery, by whom he had three sons—Milo, Jocelyn, and Geoffry.

At this period of history, the countries of Europe were undergoing one of those strange religious convulsions which frequently occurred in the Middle Ages. The passionate pilgrimage of Peter the Hermit drew motley crowds of so-called Christians to the Holy Land. Wherever the small, mean monk of Picardy, seated on his ass, “pusillus, persona contemptibilis et sponte fluens ei non deerat eloquium,” as William of Tyre describes him, preached the holiness of the Cause and the shame to Christendom that the Sepulchre of the Saviour should remain in infidel hands, his earnestness and enthusiasm, if not his eloquence, made thousands of fervid converts.

In those days of lawlessness and violence, few men of rank but had the stain of blood-guiltiness upon their souls. The richer hoped to buy salvation and release from their wrongdoings by founding abbeys and bestowing, out of their abundance, generous grants of land to maintain the same; the poorer went pilgrimages, and purchased the promise of as much future happiness as their possessions would afford.

But to the fighting noble of the day, whatever means he may already have taken to obtain the pardon of the Church, the call to arms by Pope Urban for the defence of the Holy Land, proclaimed, as it was, with all the authority of the Head of Christendom, endowed with all the plenitude of Papal indulgence, necessarily possessed a special attraction, for it promised him not only remission of his sins, but also the hope that the remission would be gained by exercising those very same deeds of violence and rapine, the commission of which in his daily life had probably brought him to believe that eternal punishment was his just doom.

Small wonder, therefore, that knights and nobles in large numbers endeavoured thus to gain everlasting advantages. Among the French nobility who passed over to La Terre Sainte, Jocelyn II. de Courtenay is numbered.

The principality of Edessa, a province so situated as not only to be divided by the Euphrates, but by its position specially exposed to enemies who surrounded it on all sides, was then held by Baldwin de Bruges, a renowned knight, cousin to Godfrey de Bouillon. Baldwin’s mother and the wife of Jocelyn, son of Athos, were sisters, their children consequently being cousins.

According to the Archbishop of Tyre, the elder warrior gladly welcomed his young kinsman, yielding to his charge those territories which lay farthest from the enemy, but retaining under his personal supervision the frontier, on which largely depended the safety of the Christian dominions.

Blessed with all the advantages a good administration can bestow, and protected from an unwearying enemy, to a certain extent, by the river, the country ruled by Jocelyn de Courtenay acquired such prosperity and opulence as to excite the envy of the neighbouring Christian Princes. Indeed, as all chroniclers show, when the overpowering personality of Godfrey de Bouillon was withdrawn, the promiscuous host which he led, rent by great diversity of interests, composed of many nations, lost the little cohesion it had once possessed, and rapidly fell apart.

Baldwin succeeding to the throne of Jerusalem, his cousin held undivided sway over the whole province. For thirty years did the gallant Frenchman defend his domains against the ever-returning infidel hordes, with varying success—at times a conqueror, at times a captive, dying in a manner befitting his life, for in his old age, weak with sickness, broken with wounds, he caused himself to be carried before his troops as he led them to succour their fellow-countrymen besieged by the Sultan of Iconium.

On his advance, the terror his prowess inspired sufficed to force the enemy to retire, news of which reaching the ears of the dying warrior, he gave thanks to God that the last moments of his life should be illumined with victory, and then immediately expired.

He was succeeded by Jocelyn, third of the name, the only son of his first wife, a sister of Levon, an Armenian notable.

It is to be suspected that the wisdom, energy, and endurance which so strongly characterized the father, and by which the little state, threatened with innumerable enemies, could alone be preserved, were, to some extent, deficient in the son, the deterioration probably being caused by the mixture of Asiatic blood in his veins.

In all contemporary records, the Pullani or Poulaines, progeny of Frank Crusaders and Syrian mothers, are spoken of with contempt and disdain, and although no lack of valour or even military qualities can be attributed to Jocelyn II., yet it is plain that the Eastern strain in his descent rendered him unduly disposed towards the seductions of a luxurious life; leading him to prefer the pleasures and ease of residence in the agreeable city of Turbessel to the constant care and hardships inseparable from an habitation in his fortified capital, Edessa.

This lack of vigilance on his own part naturally re-acted on his subordinates, and led, as a logical consequence, to a serious diminution in the military spirit and power of the country. In addition, an embittered feud with Raynald, Prince of Antioch, deprived him of the only ally who could, if well disposed, afford prompt and efficient aid.

Therefore, when Zenghi, or Sanguine, as the name has been corrupted by the Latin writers, leader of the Atabeks, with a vast host invaded the city of Edessa, it fell into his hands before either the ruler or the neighbouring Christian Princes were prepared to march to its assistance.

Defeated so often as to be without the means of efficient resistance to the powerful invader, Jocelyn himself before long became the prisoner of some wandering hordes. Carried a captive to Aleppo, he soon died, crushed by the misery of his position and the unwholesomeness of his surroundings, leaving one son, called by the same name as himself, and two daughters.

Beatrice, his widow, for a while, with ability and courage, defended Turbessel against the attacks of Zenghi’s successor, Noureddin, but receiving inadequate support from the King of Jerusalem, she yielded the task of holding the country to the effeminate Greeks, and they proving incapable of the effort, the whole province, which from the time of the Apostles had been the home and refuge of Christianity in the East, was irretrievably overrun by the infidel.

Jocelyn III., with his mother and sister, took refuge in Jerusalem, where, for more than twenty years, he led the existence inseparable from the lot of those who supported the waning dominion of the Christians—one constant struggle, not for supremacy, but for life. His fate is unknown: history has no record of him after the siege of Jerusalem, so it may well be surmised that he shared the fate of the slain when the Holy City fell to the assault of the great Sultan Saladin.

Two daughters were the sole descendants of Jocelyn; consequently, with him ended the House of the Courtenays of Edessa.

But while one branch of the parent stem had thus died off in less than ninety years, the family tree itself flourished exceedingly, giving great promise of that luxuriance which, in after generations, blossomed into Royal magnificence.

The fall of Edessa, the bulwark of Christianity in the East, caused the Second Crusade. Again in the roll of those who took the Cross is to be found the name of Courtenay, for among the followers of King Louis le Jeune were numbered William and Reginald of that name, and also Peter de France, the King’s brother.

When Jocelyn of Edessa, together with his younger brother, Geoffrey Courtenay, surnamed de Chapalu, sailed, in the year 1101, for La Terre Sainte, the eldest son of the house, Milo de Courtenay, remained in France, succeeding, on the death of his father, to the family domains. He married Ermengarde, daughter of Renaud, Comte de Nevers, and by her had three sons—William, Reginald, and Jocelyn. Of the last, nothing is known but the name. William, who as aforesaid took part in the Crusade, died in the Holy Land, leaving, on the extinction of the Counts of Edessa and the death of Geoffrey de Chapalu, his uncle, Reginald, his younger brother, sole heir to the name and possessions of his forefathers.

In those days, when transit was difficult and the social barriers between the noble and the roturier almost insurmountable, it was the custom, well known to all who plunge into the intricacies of French genealogy, and reasonable enough, considering the circumstances of the times, for the males of a family of rank to marry, hardly without exception, the daughters of their neighbours of like degree.

Life was a very precarious commodity to a man of the eleventh and twelfth centuries. He lived in an atmosphere of continuous warfare, and if by nature, mental or physical, he was disinclined for this turbulent existence, the only refuge open to him lay in the celibate seclusion of the cloister. It frequently occurred, therefore, that females inherited paternal estates.

To this cause may well be attributed the fact that the possessions of the Courtenays had become largely augmented, for Reginald is described as Seigneur of Montargis, Chateau Renard, Champignelle, Tanlay, Charny, Chantecoq, and several other seigneuries, all situated in the Pays de Gastinois and the country round Sens, many of which, in the time of his progenitors, were unmistakably the property of neighbouring families.

The possession of great wealth, at all periods of the world’s history, has been held as a claim to consideration; and when such opulence is combined with high rank and birth, the fortunate owner may well cherish lofty ambitions.

In the early part of what we call the Middle Ages, the coat armour borne by a warrior surely denoted his lineage and descent, for, unless assumed for purposes of disguise, heraldic insignia were used as a means of showing to which family an individual belonged—not, as now-a-days, to which family an individual wishes the world to think he belongs.

In addition to those claims to nobility which are known to be possessed by Athos, the fact is also acknowledged that he and his descendants used the arms attributed to the ancient counts of Boulogne—three torteaux or, on a field gules—arms which were undoubtedly borne by Eustace de Bouillon, when he and his illustrious brother Godfrey journeyed on the Crusade.

It may, therefore, well be believed that the ancestors of the Courtenays came from the same stock as the even more ancient house of Boulogne; and it is easy to understand that the only daughter and heir female of Reginald de Courtenay was considered a fitting mate for Peter de France, seventh son of King Louis le Gros.

Indeed, the relations between the Crown and the great nobles of the kingdom rested far more on a basis of equality than the pretensions of the monarch cared to allow.

Sismondi declares that the real domains of Louis VI. consisted only of five towns, including Paris and Orleans, together with estates, probably large, in the immediate vicinity; the remainder of the country being divided among the great nobles, some of whom possessed equal, if not more, extensive territories than their titular Sovereigns.

The young Prince Peter having but little estate left him by his father, and no title—for he is always styled the “King’s son” or “the King’s brother”—took to himself the name of Courtenay, and from him and his wife, Elizabeth, sprung that branch of the family which flourished in France for more than six hundred years. Five sons and six daughters issued from this union, the eldest daughter, Alix, marrying, as her second husband, Aimar, Comte d’Angouleme, by whom she had one daughter, Elizabeth, who, in her turn, became the wife of John, and the mother of Henry III., both Kings of England.

That portion of the Eastern Empire which, having been conquered by the Latin knights errant remained in their power, for twelve years had been ruled by Baldwin of Flanders and his brother, Henry, a wise and politic prince, upon whose death, in 1217, the male line of the House of Flanders became extinct.

From respect to the laws of succession, the crown was thereupon offered to Peter de Courtenay, son of Elizabeth de Courtenay and Peter of France, who had married Yolande, daughter of the Count of Hainault, and sister to both the late Emperors, Baldwin and Henry. The proffered honour, doubtless, was great, yet the accession to the Imperial purple proved the precursor of heavy calamities to the unfortunate Emperor and his descendants. Peter de Courtenay, it is true, bore the reputation of a valorous knight and a courageous warrior. He served with distinction in the Crusade against the Albigenses, prompted, perhaps, by a desire to merit the forgiveness of the Church, whose servants in his own domain he had, if the chroniclers are to be believed, treated with the haughty intolerance characteristic of the arrogant seigneur of the period.

But at that critical time in the history of the Eastern Empire, the wearer of the Imperial Crown required not only courage, but talents and diplomacy of the highest degree, such as Peter neither possessed nor found opportunity of acquiring.

Arriving at Rome in company with his wife, Yolande, and his children, Pope Honorius, after some pressure, was induced to crown him and his consort; but, as Gibbon hints, performed the ceremony in the Church of St. Lawrence, without the walls, lest by the act itself any right of sovereignty over the ancient city should be bestowed or implied.

In pursuance of a promise to the Venetians, the Emperor Peter, having first sent his wife and children by sea to Constantinople, directed his forces against the Kingdom of Epirus, then under the rule of Theodore Comnenus. Failing in his object, he fell, either by force or fraud, into the hands of the Greek despot, and died, by assassination or in prison, without having entered his Imperial dominions.

With a discretion rare, indeed, in those days, Philip, his eldest son, refused the honour of the purple, contenting himself with the Marquisate of Namur, his paternal fief; whereupon Robert, the younger brother, accepted the burden of the crown, and having, with due precaution, journeyed to Constantinople, was there crowned by the Patriarch Matthew, with all pomp and circumstance, in the Cathedral of Saint Sophia.

But in the grandeur of his coronation consisted the only splendour of his reign. All historians combine in representing Robert as deficient in every quality requisite for the high station he occupied and the necessity of the realm he had been chosen to rule; even Bouchet, self-appointed laureate to La Maison Royale de Courtenay, after describing the death of the Emperor on his return journey from Rome, whither he had gone to solicit against his own rebellious subjects the thunders of the Pope, is constrained to admit that to the weakness of this ruler may justly be attributed the disgraces which occurred in the reign of his successor.

Robert dying childless, the crown descended to his brother, Baldwin, the infant son of Yolande, born during his father’s captivity. The impossibility of an empire in the throes of dissolution being governed by a child of seven years, compelled the barons of the realm to invite John of Brienne, the old King of Jerusalem, to bring his wisdom and experience to their aid; but the seeds of disintegration had too long been sown. Notwithstanding a two-fold victory against the invader, on the death of the veteran in 1237, the Latin supremacy in the East well nigh vanished.

The youthful Baldwin de Courtenay, during the life of John of Brienne, visited many European courts in the vain hope of obtaining aid, military or pecuniary, for the defence of his forlorn dominions, and in the subsequent five and twenty years of his reign these visits were more than once repeated, each time with less result, and though, in fruitless efforts to raise men and money, he alienated his own patrimony of Namur and Courtenay, although in desperation he sold the sacred treasures of his capital—the Crown of Thorns and other relics reputed equally holy—yet his utmost efforts could in no wise avert the doom which threatened the Empire, but only availed to postpone for a while the final catastrophe.

At last the determination of Michael Palæologus brought the struggle to an end. Constantinople was invested and taken by the Greeks, the last remnant of Latin sway, in the person of the Emperor Baldwin and his family, taking refuge on board the Venetian fleet, which lay anchored in the Bosphorous.

With Baldwin and his son Philip, titular Emperor of Constantinople, ended the elder branch of the Courtenay family, for the latter left one daughter only, who married Charles of Valois, a prince aptly described as “son of a King, brother of a King, uncle to a King, and father to a King, but yet himself no King.”

The elevation of three of its members to the Imperial throne undoubtedly conferred great honour on the House of Courtenay, but the after results most adversely affected the surviving members. While other families connected with the French monarchy increased in wealth and influence, the severe struggles made by three generations to maintain their Imperial dignity so impoverished the ancestral domains that the successive holders, though undeniably of Royal descent and near relationship to the reigning dynasty, were not esteemed, and could not obtain recognition of their claims to be considered as Princes of the Blood Royal. It is true, however, that much doubt exists as to whether in the early days of the French nobility, kinship with the King implied any superiority of rank over others nobly born.

Le Comte Boulainvilliers, to whose family the Seigneurie of Courtenay, after its alienation, had been given as a royal fief, declares, in his “Dissertation sur la Noblesse de France”: “The French knew nothing of Princes among themselves; consanguinity (parenté) to Kings gave no rank the same as if descended in the male line. This is evident by the examples of the Houses of Dreux, of Courtenay, and the junior branches of the House of Bourbon.”

Indeed, it is quite apparent to all who read early French history that the King exercised merely nominal authority over the nobility, and was considered but as a chief and leader among those of equal birth and descent, though differing in degree. It cost King Louis VI. a vast deal of trouble to reduce the pretensions of the Seigneurs of Montlehery, who, allied by marriage to the houses of Flanders and Courtenay, conceived themselves in all essentials to be equal to and independent of their titular monarch, while even more cogent testimony to the same effect, redolent also to a great degree of the atmosphere of the times, is borne by the subjoined letter from Thibaut, Comte de Champagne, to the Abbot of St Denis, Governor of the Realm in the absence of the King:—“This is to let you know that Renaud de Courtenay hath done great injury to the King, ... for he hath seized on certain merchants that are the King’s subjects, who have discharged their toll at Orleans and Sens, and hath stripped them of all their goods. It is, therefore, necessary, to order him in the King’s name, they be set at liberty and all that belongs to them restored. In case he refuse ... and you be desirous to march an army against him, ... let me know, and I will send you aid.”

After the extinction of the elder branch in the persons of the Emperor Baldwin and his son, the House of Courtenay became so divided that, in the many ramifications of descent and consequent division of goods, the Seigneurs de Champignelles, de Tanlay, d’Arrablay, de Ferté Loupiere, etc., lost their pride of place, and were undistinguishable from the remainder of the nobility, direct evidence of which is furnished by the fact that Bouchet, who certainly loses no opportunity of enhancing the grandeur of the race, places over the arms of the Lord of D’Illier the nine-pointed coronet of a seigneur, and not, as on other occasions, the crown, embellished with fleur-de-lys, which designated the Royal House of France.

Yet the right of the Courtenays to be considered of Royal blood is incontrovertible, testimony to it being borne by many deeds of partition and contracts of marriage to which members of the reigning family affixed their signatures, in each case describing themselves as relations and cousins.

Moreover, even in the nineteenth century, the head of the House of Courtenay received a summons to the funeral of Henri Dieudonné, Comte de Chambord, Henri Cinq de France, as “notre parent et cousin.”

Fifteen years after the surviving members had lodged a final petition for the restoration of their rights of blood, “by the eternal doom of Fate’s decree,” the death of Charles Roger de Courtenay, the last male of the line, the controversy was closed; and thus what Gibbon calls the plaintive motto of the House: “Ubi lapsus, quid feci?” for the second time in history received the endorsement of truth.

But while two branches of the race grew, flourished, and fell, a third division rose to rank and fortune in this island, becoming closely allied by links of property and title with Devon, the fairest shire in the English land—links which the space of 750 years has strengthened, the glamour of an historic name, the charm of many a noble nature, have rendered unbreakable.

In olden times, a nation made it a point of honour to claim descent from ancestors who had participated in the siege of Troy. Fashions change. In the twentieth century, if an individual rises to such eminence that he is elevated to the peerage, the world knows he must have had a father, and presumes he had a grandfather. When the presumption can be carried back for a generation or two, the basis of an ancient descent is so firmly laid that a visit to the Heralds’ College will inevitably result in the discovery of a progenitor among those who fought with Norman William at the battle of Senlac, undoubtedly, judging from their reputed descendants, the most prolific band of warriors that ever peopled a conquered country.

In this, as in some other attributes, the Courtenays differ from the modern aristocracy.

The first mention of a Courtenay in English history occurs in the reign of Henry II., and although Bouchet, with true prophetic instinct, considers it necessary to allege that a certain Guillaume de Courtenay crossed over with the army of William of Normandy, the Battle Abbey roll of William Tailleur does not contain the name; but a “Cortney” may be found in the probably inaccurate transcriptions of the same, which have been inserted in the Chronicles of Stowe and Holinshed. A certain degree of doubt, however, exists as to the identity of the first Courtenay mentioned in English records.

Dugdale, copying the register of the monks of Forde Abbey—a foundation which benefited largely by the munificence of the family, and, as long as the spring flowed, lost no opportunity of gratifying their ancestral pride—declares that the founder of the name in this country was Reginald, a son of Florus, younger son of Lewis le Gross, King of France, who assumed the name of Courtenay from his mother, the heir female of that family.

History is silent as to whether Peter, seventh son of Louis le Gros, ever bore the designation of Florus; but it is undoubtedly proved by Bouchet and others that the said Peter married a daughter of Reginald de Courtenay, and enjoying her possessions, called himself by the title of her seigneurie. It is also fairly assured that the offspring of this noble couple did not number among them any son of the name of Reginald, and the preponderance of authority seems to show that the Reginald, friend of Queen Alienore of Aquitaine, who, being divorced from King Louis, afterwards married Henry of England, was probably the father of that Elizabeth de Courtenay who became allied with the Royal family of France.

On many occasions a de Courtenay is mentioned as accompanying Henry on his travels; and in the year 1167, Roger de Hoveden records that “Reginald de Curteney” witnessed a treaty of peace between Henry II. of England and Roderick, King of Connaught.

For services rendered to the State, Henry, in exercise of his prerogative, gave as wards to Reginald de Courtenay, probably the one aforesaid, the two daughters of Matilda, herself daughter of Randolph Avenel.

Reginald immediately married the elder, Hawise, and bestowed her half-sister, Maude, on a William de Courtenay, possibly his son, probably, as Cleveland thinks, his brother.

Hawise, as sole heiress to her father, Robert d’Abrincis, and descended from Baldwin de Brionis, a valorous Norman knight, inherited large estates in the West of England—the Barony of Okehampton, the Shrievalty of Devonshire, the custody of the Castle of Exeter, and the title of Vicecomes or Viscount; both dignities and land, as was the custom in those days, being enjoyed, “jure uxoris,” by her husband, Reginald de Courtenay, passed to the child of their marriage, Robert, who still further augmented the position of the family by marrying in his turn Mary, younger daughter of William de Redvers or Rivers, sixth Earl of Devon, through whom the House of Courtenay finally obtained the title which they retain to this day.

The policy of Henry III. deprived Robert de Courtenay of the Viscounty of Devon and the custody of Exeter Castle, but the Barony of Okehampton still remained in the line, being successively held by John and Henry, son and grandson of the said Robert.

In 1262, by the failure of heirs male, Isabella, daughter of Baldwin, seventh Earl, and his wife, Amicia, became Countess of Devonshire. This masterful lady married William de Fortibus, Earl of Albemarle, and, surviving her husband and children for more than thirty years, exercised despotic sway over the wide domains belonging to her. She erected a weir across the River Exe, even now called Countess Weir, for the benefit, as she declared, of her mills situated on both banks, though the citizens of Exeter were of different opinion, and on their oaths did aver that the Countess had “made a great Purpresture or Nusance ... to the Annoyance, Hurt and Damage of the said City.”

At her death, in 1292, the Earldom of Devon reverted to Sir Hugh Courtenay, second of the name, Baron of Okehampton, through his great-grandmother, Mary de Rivers, daughter of William de Ripariis, Redvers or Rivers, sixth Earl.

Some forty years after the death of his predecessor, Sir Hugh was summoned by writ, without any further creation, to take his seat as Earl, but before then he participated in many Parliaments as a Baron, both Stowe and Holinshed alleging that he was one of the two Lords of that rank who carried a solemn message to King Edward II., demanding from him the abdication of the throne.

Chiefly by means of judicious matrimonial alliances, the first members of the English Courtenays added largely to their rank and possessions.

Following the good example, Hugh, third of the name and second Earl, wedded, in 1325, Margaret, daughter of Humphrey de Bohun, Earl of Hereford, Lord High Constable of England, by her obtaining that appanage associated so intimately with the Courtenay name as known in their own county, the beautiful castle and demesne of Powderham. Earl Hugh assigned this residence and estate to his younger son, Philip, from whom is descended the present branch of the family.

High in rank, possessed of great territory, honoured in the council, foremost in the fray, for a hundred and fifty years the Courtenays of Devon occupied a great place in English history. They took part in the battles of Halidon Hill, Creçy, the siege of Rouen, the triumphal entry into Paris; as Admirals of the West, repelled invasion; as Governors of the County, exercised extensive jurisdiction; and in their just pride of station, contended with the Earls of Arundel as to who should take precedence as premier Peer in the degree which they held.

Their functions, when acting as rulers of the county, were varied, for it is stated that in 1383 a command was issued to them by the King, ordering the punishment of “certain malefactors and troublers of our peace ... come lately to Topsham and by force of arms have taken Peter Hill, a certain messenger of the Venerable Father, William, Archbishop of Canterbury, and with no small cruelty and threatening compelled him to eat the wax of a certain seal of the said Archbishop.”

This William, son of Hugh, second Earl, at first Bishop of London, afterwards raised to the archiepiscopal see of Canterbury, possessed so fully the hereditary courage of his opinions that he not only resolutely opposed the weighty influence of the Duke of Lancaster and Lord Percy of Northumberland, when exercised by them in favour of John Wicliffe, but also as Adam, Archdeacon of Usk, pathetically declares: “Eciam a facie istius regis Ricardi, ille vir perfectissimus Willelmus Cantuariensis Archiepiscopus quia hujus modi taxe resistere volens.” The strength of the superlative epithet is justified by the said tax having been levied solely against the clergy.

But the prosperity of the Courtenays, as of most other noble families in England, was rudely disturbed by the outbreak of civil strife—the Wars of the Roses. Supporting strongly the House of Lancaster, they shared in undue proportions the calamities which befel that party, three successive Earls of Devon, the sons of Thomas, fifth in title, giving their lives for the cause they supported. Thomas, the elder of the three, taken at Towton, was soon after executed, as historians say, to appease the ghost of the Duke of York. A few years later, Henry, his brother, met the same fate; while John, the youngest, fell in the disastrous battle of Tewkesbury, the great estates of the family being escheated by the King.

Yet once more, with the triumph of Henry VII., the fortunes of the ancient house revived. The King annulled the attainder and restored the ancestral domains to the faithful noble who had followed him into exile and fought by his side at Bosworth Field, subsequently sanctioning also the marriage of the eldest son, Sir William Courtenay, with Katherine, the younger daughter of the late King Edward IV.; though this royal alliance, as was often the case in such connections, only led to suspicion on the part of the reigning monarch and calamity to the aspiring bridegroom.

In the succeeding reign, Henry, the child of this marriage, stood high in the favour of the monarch. As the boon companion of his cousin the King, he tilted with him at Greenwich; as his brother-in-arms, he fought at the Battle of the Spurs; in the office of Lord High Steward, he presided over the trial of those persons who had fallen under the Royal displeasure; and finally the honour of a Marquisate was bestowed, and Henry, seventh Earl of Devon, became the first Marquis of Exeter.

But the friendship of Henry VIII. was almost as deadly as his enmity. Accused of treason, neither personal virtues nor high connections availed anything, and so the Marquis of Exeter was arrested, tried, and executed. Hume, in this connection, remarks: “We know little concerning the justice or iniquity of the sentence pronounced against these men: we only know that the condemnation of a man who was at that time prosecuted by the court forms no presumption of his guilt”; but with characteristic ambiguity he continues: “Though ... we may presume that sufficient evidence was produced against the Marquis of Exeter and his associates.”

In the light of present knowledge, it is not difficult to conjecture the causes of this unfortunate nobleman’s downfall. There were two actions Henry VIII. never forgave: Failure to obey his wishes, tantamount to disobedience to his commands; and friendship, or even tolerance, towards those whom he chose to consider his enemies.

There is little doubt that Henry Courtenay committed the former as well as the latter form of “lèse majesté.” A letter from Sir Thomas More to Cardinal Wolsey is still extant, in which he writes:—“And as touching the ouverture made by my Lord Shevers for the marriage of my Lord of Devonshire the King is well content and as me seemyth very glad of the motion, wherein he requireth your Grace that it may lyke you to call my Lord of Devonshire to your Grace and to advise him secretly to forbere any further treate of marriage with my Lord Mountjoy.”

Now, in 1526, Henry, Marquis of Exeter, married, as his second wife, Gertrude, daughter of Lord Mountjoy, as this letter shows in opposition to the wishes of the King; and although, truly, the matter cannot in any way be considered of importance, yet the fact that the lady was a strong supporter of the ancient Church, taken in conjunction with the jealousy obviously shown by Henry towards the power and authority exercised in the West Country by all who bore the Courtenay name, may well have had an influence over the fate of the unfortunate nobleman.

The actual charge, in the State Trial, alleged complicity with the designs of Cardinal Pole and a desire to deprive the King of his prerogatives. At this period of his reign, the one great object of Henry’s life was to assert his supremacy over the English Church—that church in whose services and welfare he showed such deep interest, not only by the extreme frequency with which he celebrated the marriage ceremony, but also by the tenacious affection he displayed for her temporal possessions.

Reginald Pole, at one time Dean of Exeter, born of a royal stock, allied with many noble English houses, a Cardinal, and deep in the councils of the Pope, was an unsparing opponent of Henry’s aspirations; so if, as Burnet says, “There were very severe invectives printed at Rome against King Henry, in which there were nothing omitted which could make him appear as the blackest of tyrants, ... and Cardinal Pole’s style was known in some of them,” even a kindly expression, much less a spirit of friendliness towards the author of these attacks would be amply sufficient to draw on anyone, be he gentle or simple, the wrath of Henry, who “never spared man in his anger, or woman in his lust.”

Therefore, as Wriothesley, in his Chronicle, relates: “The third of the same month, the Lord Henry Courtney, Marquis of Exceter and Earle of Devonshire, and the Kinge’s neare kinsman, was arraigned at Westminster Hall ... and there condempned to death, for treason against the Kinge by the counsaille of Raynold Poole, Cardinall ... which pretended to have enhaunsed the Bishop of Rome’s usurped authority againe, lyke traitors to God and their Prince.”

The same strain of royal blood, breeding jealousy and mistrust, which had caused the imprisonment of the grandfather and the death of the father, inflicted also heavy penalties on the son. Edward, only child of Henry and Gertrude Courtenay, though but twelve years old at the date of his father’s execution, was then committed to the Tower, and there remained close prisoner for fifteen years.

Released by Mary on her first regal entry into London, restored to his hereditary titles and property, endowed, moreover, with ample bodily and many mental charms, the youthful Earl of Devonshire rapidly rose into favour, and at one time was even considered as a fitting aspirant for the hand of the Queen.

But to a young man of twenty-seven, the greater part of whose life had been spent amid the gloom and seclusion of a State prison, with only such amusements as the translation of Italian theological treatises could afford, or other similar exercises, whether physical or mental, as the gaoler would allow, the freedom of the outer world presented greater temptations than his untrained nature could resist. Yielding to the dissipations of the court and, so ’tis said, the more sordid pleasures of the town, Edward Courtenay sacrificed to the enjoyment of the moment the opportunities which were offered him of gratifying splendid ambitions, and, too high placed to be disregarded, became, as his progenitors before him, an object of mistrust and suspicion to the occupant of the throne.

This unfortunate youth has been accused not only of ingratitude to his royal benefactress by making secret advances to her sister, the Princess Elizabeth, but also of the serious offence of disloyalty and treason towards the monarch. But though, indeed, he may have committed the former mistake, a critical examination of the evidence produced clears him of knowing and wilful participation in any of the serious plots which the proposed marriage of the Queen with Philip of Spain had aroused among her subjects. Sir Thomas Wyat unreservedly absolved Courtenay from all knowledge of his rising, and the leniency with which Mary, little given to clemency, extended towards the Earl shows that she, at least, believed in his innocence.

Probably the truest aspect of the case is shown by Burnet, who declares, when writing of the harsh treatment dealt to Elizabeth by her royal sister: “Others suggest a more secret reason for this dispute. The new Earl of Devonshire was much in the Queen’s favour, so that it was thought that she had some inclination to marry him, but he, either not presuming so high or having an aversion to her and an inclination to her sister, who of that moderate share of beauty which was between them had much the better of her and was nineteen years younger, made his addresses with more than ordinary concern to the Lady Elizabeth, and this did bring them both into trouble.”

It is plain enough that this young man, little older and assuredly not more experienced than a boy, was a tool in the hands of those astute intriguers, de Noailles and Simon Renard, the French and Spanish ambassadors. The one, strenuously opposing the Spanish marriage, the other, equally determined in his advocacy of the alliance, united in using the innocent Earl of Devonshire as a factor in their game, with disastrous results to the unfortunate victim.

Advised to remove himself far from the scene of those intrigues which had caught him in their net, Edward Courtenay departed for the Continent with the declared intention of travelling to distant lands, even to Constantinople. That he had no consciousness of having committed a great offence is evident from his correspondence; for while frequently expressing the hope that he may soon be home again, he asks a friend to give him a buck and some does, so that his park may be stocked with deer, and gleefully relates that the Emperor and King Philip had received him kindly. But his health is not good. He suffers, so he writes, from a disease in his hip from cold; there is, also, much plague about; and then no more is heard until the news arrives from Peter Vannes, the English ambassador to the Venetian Republic, who was staying at Padua, announcing that Edward, Earl of Devonshire, had died in that city, on September 18th, 1556. Ubi lapsus, quid feci?

Noble and honoured in degree, gifted with many admirable and amiable qualities, the fairest prospects open before them, yet, one after the other, successive Earls of Devon, like their even more exalted ancestors, perished in sorrow and adversity, until, as was generally believed, their ancient title became extinct.

Yet, far away in the West Country, beneath the oaks of Powderham, while the elder branches dropped or were snapped off, the descendants of Sir Philip Courtenay, youngest son of Hugh, second Earl of Devon, lived and thrived, gaining among their own people a love and devotion which has endured the strain of centuries and the many vicissitudes of fortune.

Through the course of years the Courtenays of Powderham followed the example of their greater kinsmen, taking part in events of national importance, bearing themselves with distinction against the foreign foe; with hereditary courage and self-denial opposing the usurper, Richard of Gloucester, and, in defeat as well as in victory, supporting the cause of Henry VII.

But in all things, great or small, they essentially were Devonshire leaders of Devonshire men—living among their own people, beloved and respected by them.

Peter Courtenay, Bishop of Exeter in 1437, expended his energy and substance in maintaining and improving the Cathedral, and to this day the great bell which he hung in the north tower is called by his name, Great Peter.

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.”

By this decision, William, Lord Courtenay, succeeded to one of the great historical titles of England, for the Earl of Devon is justly entitled to rank with his brothers of Shrewsbury, Derby, Huntingdon, and Pembroke, who, occupying Earldoms created before 1600, have been designated Catskin Earls—a name concerning the derivation of which authorities differ, some alleging that the ancient trimming of an Earl’s gown consisted of cat skin, in the place of ermine; while others are inclined to believe that in early times Peers of this rank were permitted to wear four (quatre) rows of fur on their coronation robes. It is to be feared that now this question “des jupons” will never be definitely settled.

On the successful issue of his claim, William, ninth Earl of Devon, both at Powderham, in London, and in Paris, maintained a state which, however worthy of the vast domains appertaining to his great ancestors, yet cast a heavy burden on the mere moderate appanage inherited by himself, with the inevitable result that the estates were encumbered and the successor to the title seriously embarrassed. He died, a bachelor, in 1835, being succeeded by his cousin, William, the representative of a younger branch of the family derived from Sir William Courtenay, third Baronet.

This nobleman, before his accession to the Peerage, sat in the House of Commons as Member for the City of Exeter, at one time also filling the post of Clerk to Parliament. After a long and valuable life, he died in 1859, the succession devolving upon his son, William Reginald, eleventh Earl, whose name is still a household word in the land with which he and his have so long been associated.

Marrying Lady Elizabeth Fortescue, a member of a house also closely and honourably connected with the best traditions of the county, Lord Devon, in all things which he undertook, exercised an influence indeed worthy of his illustrious lineage.

Gifted with a great kindliness of disposition—he was never known to lose his temper or to utter a harsh opinion of others—and a high sense of the duties and responsibilities of his position, he spent his life in earnest endeavours, and whether as President of the Local Government Board in Lord Derby’s Ministry, or as Chairman of the St. Thomas’ Union in the neighbourhood of his own beautiful home, his uniform punctuality and assiduity was only exceeded by his unfailing courtesy and amiability.

It has been said of “Devon’s noblest son,” as he was popularly styled, with equal truth and felicity, that from the date of his accession to the title till the day of his death, he identified himself with every good work, whether in the County of Devon or the City of Exeter; those which had as their aim the spread of religious teaching or the advancement of the Church of England being specially near his heart. So active was the part he played in all ecclesiastical matters, that on one occasion, so it is currently reported, Dr. Temple, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, declared: “Why, Lord Devon is almost a lay Bishop.”

Unfortunately, carried away, perhaps, by a desire to adequately perform the obligations of his rank, Lord Devon’s expenditure largely exceeded the income from his property. In the hopes that it would materially conduce to the welfare of that part of Ireland in which his estates were situated, he laid down, mainly at his own cost, a line of railway, the heavy outlay on which and the paucity of returns added considerably to the encumbrances which then burdened him. It should, however, be stated that in the last few years this line, which cost its maker so dearly, has been bought by an important Irish railway company for many thousands of pounds.

The embarrassments which these ventures charged upon the property were, moreover, in no way lightened by the successor to the title, Edward Baldwin, twelfth Earl, whose expenditure as M.P. for East Devon and for the City of Exeter, as well as his fondness for sport in many branches, added costly burdens to an already overweighted exchequer.

And thus, by a proneness to follow the dictates of a benevolent heart or the desire to indulge in magnificence consonant with ancient tradition, without adequate consideration with regard to the means by which the impulse was to be gratified, the glories of the Earldom of Devon have been shorn of their just splendour, and the holders of the dignity deprived of the due means of maintaining their hereditary station.

Edward Baldwin died in 1891, and was succeeded by his uncle, Henry Hugh, thirteenth Earl and Rector of Powderham, who married Lady Anna Maria Leslie, sister to the eleventh Earl of Rothes. By her, whose charity and simple-minded goodness of heart made her universally beloved, he had two sons—Henry Reginald, Lord Courtenay, who married Lady Evelyn Pepys, youngest daughter of the first Earl of Cottenham, predeceasing his father in 1898; and Hugh Leslie, who is still living. Lord Devon died in February, 1904, at the ripe age of 93, having survived his beloved wife by seven years.

Ubi lapsus, quid feci? Surely, if worldly prosperity could be earned by a blameless life and a just discharge of every duty, Henry Hugh, thirteenth Earl of Devon, Rector of Powderham, and Prebendary of Exeter, would have enjoyed wealth beyond the desires of man; surely, if the highest place and the greatest honours could be gained by courage and devotion, they would have adorned his noble son, Henry Reginald, Lord Courtenay, who bore the suffering and faced the inevitable end of a dread disease with an heroic courage which more than equalled the deeds of his chivalrous ancestors.

It is to be deplored, in these days, when wealth has usurped to an undue extent that place which used formerly to be the privilege of high birth or great intellectual attainments, that the holders of an historic dignity are deprived, even for a time, of a revenue commensurate with their name and station; but as it was by the legal knowledge and forensic skill of Charles Pepys, Earl of Cottenham, the Courtenays regained their ancestral rank, so, perhaps, it is reserved for a noble daughter of that same distinguished family, by her wise guidance, to assist in reviving the glories of a House which she has graced with her alliance and enriched with her many virtues.

Yet to those who saw the crowds, all sorts and conditions of men, which thronged the little churchyard at Powderham when the last four Courtenays were laid to rest, it was plainly evident that in their own fair county of Devon, the land of the green hill and the flowing river, the love which is felt for all who bear the Courtenay name is not measured by the breadth of their acres or the length of their purse-strings, but in the heart of everyone who knows this ancient house and its kindly members, there exists a genuine and sincere wish that the Royal Courtenays may ever flourish in all fulness of health, honour, and prosperity.