View source for Isabel de Forz, 8th Countess of Devon

{{Short description|English noblewoman (1237–1293)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=November 2023}}
{{Infobox person
| name      = Isabel de Forz, 8th Countess of Devon
| image     = Redvers.svg
| alt       =
| caption   = Isabel's paternal arms: ''[[or (heraldry)|Or]], a [[lion rampant]] [[Azure (heraldry)|azure]]'' (Redvers). These arms were later [[quartering (heraldry)|quartered]] by the Courtenay family, her heirs
| birth_date= {{birth-date|July 1237}}
| birth_place=
| death_date= 10 {{death-date and age|November 1293|July 1237}}
| death_place=
| father    = [[Baldwin de Redvers, 6th Earl of Devon|Baldwin de Redvers]]
| mother    = [[Amice de Clare]]
| relatives = [[Baldwin de Redvers, 7th Earl of Devon|Baldwin de Redvers]] (brother)<br/>[[Gilbert de Clare, 5th Earl of Hertford|Gilbert de Clare]] (grandfather)
| spouse    = [[William de Forz, 4th Earl of Albemarle|William de Forz]] (d. 1260)
| children  = 6, including [[Aveline de Forz, Countess of Aumale|Aveline]]
}}
[[File:Isabella de Redvers, 8th Countess of Devon.jpg|thumb]]
'''Isabel de Forz''' (or '''Isabel de Redvers''', [[List of Latinized names|Latinized]] to '''Isabella de Fortibus'''; July 1237 – 10 November 1293) was the eldest daughter of [[Baldwin de Redvers, 6th Earl of Devon]] (1217–1245). On the death of her brother [[Baldwin de Redvers, 7th Earl of Devon]], in 1262, without children, she inherited ''[[suo jure]]'' (in her own right) the earldom and also the [[feudal barony of Plympton]] in Devon,<ref>Sanders, pp. 137–8, Barony of Plympton</ref> and the [[lordship of the Isle of Wight]]. After the early death of her husband and her brother, before she was thirty years old, she inherited their estates and became one of the richest women in England, living mainly in [[Carisbrooke Castle]] on the [[Isle of Wight]], which she held from the king as [[tenant-in-chief]].
She had six children, all of whom died before her. On her death bed, she was persuaded to sell the Isle of Wight to [[King Edward I]], in a transaction that has ever since been considered questionable. Her heir to the feudal barony of Plympton was her cousin [[Hugh de Courtenay, 1st/9th Earl of Devon]] (1276–1340),<ref name="Sanders, p.138">Sanders, p.138</ref> [[feudal baron of Okehampton]], Devon, who in 1335 was declared [[Earl of Devon]].<ref name="Sanders, p.70">Sanders, p.70</ref>
[[Countess Wear]], now a suburb of Exeter, is named after a [[weir]] that she built on the [[River Exe]], and she is the subject of several legends and traditions.
==Origins==
She was the eldest daughter of [[Baldwin de Redvers, 6th Earl of Devon]] (1217–1245), of [[Tiverton Castle]] in Devon, by his wife [[Amice de Clare]] (c. 1220 – 1284), a daughter of [[Gilbert de Clare, 5th Earl of Hertford|Gilbert de Clare, 4th Earl of Hertford, 5th Earl of Gloucester, 1st Lord of Glamorgan]]. Her early life was apparently spent at Tidcombe near her father's seat at Tiverton.
==Marriage and issue==
[[File:DeForzArms.png|thumb|Arms of de Forz: ''Gules, a cross patonce vair''.<ref>Arms of Guillaume de Forz, Comte d'Aumale: ''Gules a cross patonce vair'' (per the following [[Roll of arms|rolls of arms]]: Charles' Roll, 15; Glover's Roll, B13; Walford's Roll, C60; The Camden Roll, D142 & St George's Roll, E28) [http://www.briantimms.fr/Rolls/charles/charles01.html] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130820015204/http://www.briantimms.fr/Rolls/charles/charles01.html |date=20 August 2013 }}</ref>]]
At the age of 11 or 12 she became the second wife of [[William de Forz, 4th Earl of Albemarle]] (died 1260), who held land in Yorkshire and Cumberland and was [[Counts and dukes of Aumale|Count of Aumale]] in [[Normandy]]. When he died in 1260, their children were [[Minor (law)|minors]], so the [[Ward (law)|wardship]] of his heir (whose name is not known), and his estates passed to the crown, namely King [[Henry III of England|Henry III]]. One-third of her late husband's estates were granted to Isabel as her [[dower]], comprising one-third of the [[English feudal barony|feudal barony]] [[Holderness]], half of the feudal barony of [[Cockermouth]], and the feudal barony of [[Skipton]]. She was also granted custody of two of her younger sons, Thomas and William. The king granted to his own son and [[heir apparent]], Prince Edward (later [[King Edward I]]), the other two-thirds of the estates and the marriage of the heir.<ref name=ODNB />
She had six children by William de Forz, four sons and two daughters, who all predeceased her:<ref name=ODNB>{{Cite ODNB|id=47209|title=Forz, Isabella de, suo jure countess of Devon, and countess of Aumale (1237–1293)}}</ref>
*John de Forz, predeceased his father and mother;
*Teron de Forz, predeceased his father and mother;
*Thomas de Forz (died before April 1269), predeceased his mother;
*William de Forz (died before April 1269), predeceased his mother;
*Avice de Forz (died before April 1269), daughter, predeceased her mother;
*[[Aveline de Forz, Countess of Aumale|Aveline de Forz]] (1259–1274), who in 1269 married [[Edmund Crouchback]], son of King [[Henry III of England|Henry III]], but died childless four years later, aged 15,<ref name=ODNB /> predeceasing her mother.
Upon her father's death. Marrying William de Forz.
After his death she courted:
*Simon de Montfort. Despite the younger Simon de Montfort (second son of [[Simon de Montfort, 6th Earl of Leicester]]) having acquired the very valuable rights to her remarriage in 1264, (female [[tenant-in-chief|tenants-in-chief]] or widows of such requiring royal licence to remarry) she refused to marry him and hid away in [[Breamore Priory]] in Hampshire and later in Wales.
*Edmund Crouchback, 1st Earl of Lancaster. In 1268 her marriage was granted to [[Edmund Crouchback, 1st Earl of Lancaster]], son of [[Henry III of England|King Henry III]], but she refused to marry him either. Instead however, her daughter [[Aveline de Forz]] (1258–1273) did marry Edmund in 1269, but died four years later, aged 15.
==Widowhood==
{{multiple image|header=Two of Isabel's seals
|image1=Seal2IsabellaDeFortibus.jpg
|caption1=Showing her paternal arms of Redvers (a lion rampant) [[Impalement (heraldry)|impaled]] by the [[dimidiation|dimidiated]] arms of her husband, William de Forz (a cross patonce). This seal displays a rare mixture of forms of [[Heraldry#Marshalling|marshalling]].
|image2=SealOfIsabellaDeForz.jpg|caption2=The Redvers lion is repeated as a border around a shield containing the de Forz arms of  her husband. Legend: ''SECRETUM ISABELL(A)E DE FORTIB(U)S (COMITISSA(E)) DEVONI(A)E ET INSUL(A)E'' ("Personal seal of Isabel de Forz, Countess of Devon and of the Isle")}}
After the death of her husband in 1260, Isabel lived with her children and her mother, Amice de Clare, at [[Burstwick]] in her barony of Holderness. Isabel and Amice jointly purchased the outstanding two-thirds of the [[English feudal barony|feudal barony]] of Holderness that Isabel did not already hold, and they administered the area jointly for some years.<ref name=ODNB />
===Inheriting the Earldom of Devon===
In 1262 Isabel's brother [[Baldwin de Redvers, 7th Earl of Devon]] died and, subject to his widow's and his mother's dower rights, she inherited his lands in [[Devon]], [[Hampshire]], the [[Isle of Wight]] and [[Harewood, West Yorkshire|Harewood]] in Yorkshire. From then on she lived mainly at [[Carisbrooke Castle]] on the Isle of Wight. She used titles including "Countess of Aumale and of Devon" and "Lady of the Isle", and in her surviving [[charter]]s she is regularly referred to in the [[List of Latinized names|Latinized]] form ''Isabella de Fortibus''.{{efn|Her husband used both "Forz" and the Latinized form "Fortibus" as his surname.}}<ref name=ODNB />
In her mid-twenties, widowed for two years, then left with a rich dower, she was one of the richest heiresses in England, and a much-sought-after wife for several powerful and ambitious men. In 1264 Simon de Montfort (second son of [[Simon de Montfort, 6th Earl of Leicester]]) acquired the very valuable rights to her remarriage, having obtained the royal licence requisite for the remarriage of a female [[tenant-in-chief]]. However, she refused to marry him and hid from him, at first in [[Breamore Priory]] in Hampshire, and later in Wales. Four years later, in November 1268, her marriage was granted to [[Edmund Crouchback]], son of King [[Henry III of England|Henry III]], but having refused him also. He married her daughter [[Aveline de Forz, Countess of Aumale|Aveline de Forz]] (1259–1274) in 1269, but she died childless four years later, aged 15.<ref name=ODNB />
Many of Isabel's estate accounts from her long period of widowhood have survived and have been subjected to much study.<ref>See, for example: {{cite journal |last=Mate |first=Mavis |date=August 1980 |title=Profit and Productivity on the Estates of Isabella de Forz (1260–92) |journal=The Economic History Review |publisher=Wiley |volume=33 |issue=3 |pages=326–334 |jstor=2595191 |doi=10.1111/j.1468-0289.1980.tb01162.x}}</ref> Her ''net income'' in the 1260s is known to have risen by 2/3rds, from £1,500 to £2,500 (now equivalent to {{Inflation|UK|2500|1265|fmt=eq|cursign=£}}).
From about 1274 her estates were being managed by [[Adam de Stratton]], a notorious money-lender, in association with the [[Tuscany|Tuscan]] bankers the [[Simonetti family#Simonetti of Lucca|Riccardi family]] of [[Lucca]]. In 1276 she gave her office of [[Chamberlain of the Exchequer]]<ref>held in fee</ref> to Stratton, probably as a reward for his financial services, and he continued as her chief financial official until at least 1286.<ref>{{Cite ODNB|id=26652|title= Stratton, Adam of (d. 1292x4), administrator and moneylender}}</ref> She apparently owned her own copy of the ''[[statute|Statutes of the Realm]]'' and being very [[Lawsuit|litigious]], with her advisers she prosecuted in the law courts dozens of cases, both civil and criminal.<ref name=ODNB />
===Selling the Isle of Wight===
It is known that King [[Edward I of England|Edward I]] (1272–1307) had long wanted to acquire Isabel's estates. In 1276 he proposed that she should sell him the lands in southern England which she had inherited from her brother, but the conveyance was not completed. Following the death in 1274 of her daughter and last surviving [[heir apparent]], Aveline, a certain John de Eston was found (against expectations) by a jury at her [[inquisition post mortem]] to be Isabel's next heir. In 1278 this John de Eston [[Quitclaim deed|quit-claimed]] to the Crown her lands in the north and in the County of Aumale and its associated lands.<ref name=ODNB />
In 1293 King Edward I re-opened negotiations to acquire Isabel's southern lands, and while travelling from [[Canterbury]] in Kent, Isabel was taken ill and stopped near [[Lambeth]] in Surrey, opposite the [[Palace of Westminster]]. One of Edward's favourite servants, [[Walter Langton]], who was a [[Clerks in chancery|clerk in chancery]], rushed to her and drafted a charter to confirm the sale of the Isle of Wight to the king. It was read to the dying Isabel, who ordered her [[Lady of the Bedchamber]] to seal it on her behalf. She died at nearby [[Stockwell]] in the early morning of 10 November 1293, aged 56, and was buried at [[Breamore Priory]] in Hampshire.<ref name=ODNB />
==Succession==
After Isabel's death, the feudal barony of Plympton<ref name="Sanders, p.138"/> and eventually the Earldom of Devon passed to her 17-year-old second cousin once removed (Both shared common ancestry from [[William de Redvers, 5th Earl of Devon]] (died 1217), Isabel's great-grandfather and Courtenay's great-great-grandfather) [[Hugh de Courtenay, 9th Earl of Devon]] (1276–1340),<ref name="Sanders, p.138"/> [[feudal baron of Okehampton]], Devon, who in 1335 was declared [[Earl of Devon]].<ref name="Sanders, p.70"/><ref>{{Cite book |title=The Complete Peerage, edited by H.A. Doubleday |last=Cokayne |first=George Edward |publisher=St. Catherine Press |location=London |year=1916 |volume=IV |pages=322–4}}</ref> In 1315 he petitioned Parliament, unsuccessfully, claiming his right as Isabel's heir, to the [[Lord of the Isle of Wight|Lordship of the Isle of Wight]] and to the adjacent manor of [[Christchurch, Hampshire|Christchurch]], part of the Feudal barony of Plympton.<ref>According to Sanders, p.112, the manor of Christchurch, sometimes called a barony, was part of the barony of Plympton, granted by King Henry I to Richard de Redvers (died 1107), but was sold together with the Isle of Wight to the crown by Isabel</ref><ref>Charter XXII, published in Appendix to Worsley, Sir Richard, History of the Isle of Wight, London, 1781</ref>
==Countess Wear, Exeter==
[[Countess Wear]], now a suburb of [[Exeter]], takes its name from a [[fish weir]] on the [[River Exe]], about two miles downstream of the ancient walled city, which Isabel de Forz is said to have built in the late 13th century.<ref>{{cite book|title=The Cambridge Dictionary of English Place-Names |editor=Victor Watts |year=2004 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-521-16855-7 |page=161}}</ref> The details of the weir's construction are uncertain: a source of 1290 states that Isabel had it built in 1284 and thereby damaged the salmon fishing and prevented boats from reaching Exeter, but a later source of 1378 claims that she had had the weir built in 1272, leaving a thirty-foot gap in the centre through which boats could pass, until it was blocked between 1307 and 1327 by her cousin [[Hugh de Courtenay, 9th Earl of Devon]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Clark |first=E. A. G |title=The Ports of the Exe Estuary 1660 – 1860. A Study in Historical Geography |year=1960 |publisher=The University of Exeter |pages=21–22}}</ref>
==Legends and traditions==
[[File:Isabelle de Reviers comtesse de Devon.jpg|thumb|right|Sculpted [[corbel]] in [[Christchurch Priory]], [[Dorset]], possibly a portrait of Isabel]]
Two legends exist which feature Isabel de Forz. One, that of the Seven Crosses, of which there are many variations, relates that she came across a poor man carrying a basket containing what he said were puppies, but which were in fact seven of his children whom he was going to drown because he could not afford to keep them. After severely upbraiding him for his lack of morality, Isabel adopted the children and ensured that they were looked after and well-educated until their adulthood when she found employment for all of them.<ref>One version of the story appears in: {{cite book |last=White |first=William |title=History, Gazetteer and Directory of the County of Devon |year=1879 |publisher=William White |location=Sheffield |page=219}}</ref>
The other legend concerns the disputed boundary of four parishes in East Devon which she, as [[Countess of Devon|Countess]], was called upon to settle. She is said to have done this by arranging to meet the disputants on top of a marshy hill near the site whereupon she took off a ring from her finger and threw it into the middle of the bog declaring "that shall be the boundary". The place where these four parishes meet is called "Ring in the Mire".<ref>{{cite book |last=Hone |first=William |title=The year book, of daily recreation & information |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YzRMAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA677 |year=1832 |publisher=W. Tegg}}</ref>
Isabel is also said to have given in perpetuity a water supply to the inhabitants of [[Tiverton, Devon]]. A ceremony to commemorate the gift, known as the [[Perambulation of the Town Leat]] still takes place in the town every seven years.<ref>{{cite web
|url= http://www.tivertontowncouncil.gov.uk/9-general/25-perambulation
|title= Perambulation
|publisher= Tiverton Town Council website
|access-date= 13 April 2016
|archive-date= 7 May 2016
|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20160507112309/http://www.tivertontowncouncil.gov.uk/9-general/25-perambulation
|url-status= dead
}}</ref>{{efn|Some sources state that it was Isabel's mother, Amicia, who ordered the leat to be built and presented it to the town.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Baldwin-Wiseman |first=William Ralph |date=June 1909 |title=The Increase in the National Consumption of Water |journal=Journal of the Royal Statistical Society |publisher=Wiley |volume=72 |issue=2 |page=249 |doi=10.2307/2340220 |jstor=2340220 |url=https://zenodo.org/record/2267340 }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |first=Emily |last=Skinner |title=Burg de Tiverton and the Town Leat|journal=Report & Transactions of the Devonshire Association |year=1907 |volume=39 |page=219}}</ref>}} There was also a tradition that she was responsible for the planting of [[Wistman's Wood]], a stand of ancient stunted oak trees high on [[Dartmoor]].<ref>{{cite web |url= http://www.legendarydartmoor.co.uk/wistman.htm |title=Wistman's Wood |first=Tim |last=Sandles |work=Legendary Dartmoor |access-date=27 December 2016}} Citing Mrs. Bray (1838) ''Traditions, Legends, Superstitions and Sketches of Devonshire'', p.&nbsp;102.</ref>
==Notes==
{{notelist}}
==External links==
* [https://www.british-history.ac.uk/inquis-post-mortem/vol3/pp79-99 Inquisition Post Mortem] #156, dated 1293.
==References==
{{Reflist|30em}}
==Sources==
*Sanders, I.J. ''English Baronies: A Study of their Origin and Descent 1086–1327'', Oxford, 1960.
==Further reading==
*{{cite journal | author=Mrs Rose-Troup| title=The Lady of the Isle: Isabella de Fortibus, Countess of Albemarle and Devon| journal=Report & Transactions of the Devonshire Association| year=1905| volume=37| pages=206–45}}
{{S-start}}
{{S-reg|en}}
{{S-bef | before=[[Baldwin de Redvers, 7th Earl of Devon|Baldwin de Redvers]]}}
{{S-ttl | title=[[Earl of Devon|Countess of Devon]] | years=1262–1293}}
{{S-vac | next=[[Hugh de Courtenay, 9th Earl of Devon|Hugh Courtenay]]|dormant}}
{{S-end}}
{{authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Devon, Isabella De Forz, Countess Of}}
[[Category:1237 births]]
[[Category:1293 deaths]]
[[Category:English countesses]]
[[Category:Redvers family|Isabel]]
[[Category:13th-century countesses regnant]]
[[Category:13th-century ladies regnant]]