COURTENAY, the name of a famous English family. French genealogists head the pedigree of this family with one Athon or Athos, who is said to have fortified Courtenay in Gatinois about Ioio. His great grandson, Renaud, was one of the mag nates who followed Louis le Jeune to the Holy Land and the last lord of Courtenay of the line of Athon. Elizabeth, his elder daughter, carried Courtenay to her husband Pierre, youngest son of the French king, Louis VI. the Fat. Among the lines of the royal Courtenays, sprung from Pierre of France, were the short lived dynasty of emperors of Constantinople, which ended in 1261, and the lords of Champignolles, Janlai, Yerre, Bleneau, La Ferte Loupiere and Chevillon. Roger de Courtenay, abbe des Eschalis, who in 1733, was the last recognized member of this royal line. A younger branch of the first house of Courtenay came from Josselin, second son of Josselin, son of Athon. This Josselin, a notable crusader, was the first count of Edessa.
In England a house of Courtenay has flourished with varying fortunes since the reign of the first Angevin king, and that it probably sprang from a younger son of Josselin I. of Courtenay is suggested by the name Reinaud, borne by the first known ancestor of the English house. Reinaud de Courtenay was a favourite with Henry II., who gave him Berkshire lands at Sut ton, still known as Sutton Courtenay. His son, Robert, died child less in 1209. Of his second son, Reynold, little is known save that he was a married man in 1178 when he and his wife, Hawise, were given by the pope a licence for a free chapel at Okehampton. Reynolds son, Robert, married Mary, daughter of William de Vernon, earl of Devon and of the Isle of Wight. He was suc ceeded in 1242 by his son John, who by Isabel, a daughter of Hugh de Vere, earl of Oxford, had issue Hugh, whose wife was Eleanor, daughter of the earl of Winchester. The son of this marriage, another Hugh, became known as earl of Devon. Hugh, his son, the second earl, a warrior who drove the French back from their descent on Cornwall in 1339, made another of the brilliant marriages of this family, his wife being Eleanor, grand daughter of Edward I. Their eldest son, Sir Hugh de Courtenay, shared in the honours of Crecy and Calais, and was one of the knights founders of the order of the Garter, the stall-plate of his arms being yet in St. George's chapel, Windsor. This knight died in the lifetime of the earl, who was therefore succeeded by his grandson, Edward (son of Edward, his third son), earl mar shal of England in 1385. Hugh, a second son of Earl Edward, succeeded as fourth earl of the Courtenay line. By his wife, a sister of the renowned Talbot, earl of Shrewsbury, he had issue Thomas the fifth earl, a partisan of Henry VI., whose wife was Margaret Beaufort, daughter of John, earl of Somerset. Both sons of this marriage fell in the Wars of the Roses, Thomas, the sixth earl, being taken at Towton by the Yorkists and beheaded at York in 1462, his younger brother, Henry, having the same fate at Salisbury in 1466.
The earldom being extinguished by attainder, Sir Humphrey Stafford was created earl of Devon in 1469, but in the same year, having retired with his men from the expedition against Robin of Redesdale, another earl of Devon suffered at the headsman's hands, his patent being afterwards annulled by a statute of Henry VII. On the restoration of Henry VI., John Courtenay, only sur viving brother of Thomas and Henry, was restored to the earldom by the reversal of attainder. He, too, died in the Lancastrian cause in 1471. Beside him at Tewkesbury died his cousin, Sir Hugh Courtenay of Boconnoc, son of Hugh, a younger brother of Earl Edward, leaving a son Edward, who thus became the heir male of the house, though not its heir general. By a patent of 1485 he was created earl of Devon with remainder to the heirs male of his body, and by an act of 1485 he was restored to all honours lost in his attainder by the Yorkist parliament. He de fended Exeter against Warbeck's rebels and was a knight of the Garter in 1489, dying 20 years later, when the earldom became again forfeit by his son's attainder. That son, William Courtenay, had drawn the jealousy of Henry VII. by a marriage with Catherine, sister of the queen and daughter of King Edward IV., the Yorkist sovereign, whose hand had been so heavy on the Courtenays. After the queen's death Henry sent his wife's brother-in-law to the Tower on a charge of corresponding with Edmund Pole, an attainder following. But on the accession of Henry VIII. the young king released his uncle, who although styled an earl was not fully restored in blood at his death in 151 i. His son, Henry Courtenay, obtained from parliament in 1512 a reversal of his father's attainder, thus succeeding to the earldom of his grandfather. But Cromwell was his enemy, the royal strain in his blood a dangerous thing. Involved in correspondence with Cardinal Pole, he was sent to the Tower with his wife and his young son, and in 1538 he was beheaded as a traitor. Queen Mary took the son into favour, created him earl of Devonshire by a patent of 1553, and restored him in blood. But, disappointed in his hopes, he formed some wild plans for marrying the Lady Elizabeth and making her queen, the result being that he was sent back to the Tower and thence to Fotheringhay. At Easter of he was released on parole and exiled, dying suddenly at Padua in 1556. His heir male was Sir William Courtenay, his sixth cousin once removed, head of a knightly line of Courtenays whose seat was Powderham Castle. Sir William, who is said to have been killed at St. Quintin in 1557, was succeeded by his son, another Sir William, one of the undertakers for the settling of Ireland, where the family obtained great estates. William Courtenay of Powderham, was created a baronet by writ of privy seal in 1644, the patent being never enrolled. His great grandson, Sir William Courtenay, was on May 6, 1762, ten days before his death, created Viscount Courtenay of Powderham Castle.
Since the death at Padua in 1556 of Edward, earl of Devon, that ancient title had been twice revived. Charles Blount, Lord Mountjoy, who was created earl of Devon in 1603, died without lawful issue in 1606. In 1618 Sir William Cavendish, son of the famous Bess of Hardwick, was given the same title, which is still among the peerage honours of the ducal house descending from him. For the Courtenays, who had without protest accepted a baronetcy and a viscounty, their earldom was dead. In the reign of William IV. the third and last Viscount Courtenay was living unmarried in Paris, an exile who for sufficient reasons was keeping out of the reach of the English criminal law. In the name of this man, his presumptive heir male, William Courtenay, clerk assistant of the parliament, succeeded in persuading the House of Lords that the Courtenay earldom under the patent of 1553 was still in existence, the plea being that the terms of the remainder—to him and his heirs male for ever—did not limit the succession to heirs male of the body of the grantee. After the death of the exile in 1835 the clerk of the parliament succeeded him as an earl by force of the House of Lords decision of March 1831. His second son, the Rev. Henry Hugh Courtenay (1811-1904), suc ceeded, as i 3th earl, a nephew whose extravagance had im poverished the estates. He in turn was followed, as 14th earl, by his grandson, Charles Pepys Courtenay (b. 1870). There is now no other recognized branch of this house, once so widely spread in the western counties.
See charter, patent, close, fine and plea rolls, inquests post mortem and other records. Dictionary of National Biography; Notes and Queries, series viii. vol. vii.; J. H. Round's Peerage Studies; Calendars of State Papers; Machyn's Diary (Camden Society) ; Chronicles of Capgrave, Wavrin, Adam of Usk, etc.