[Illustration] Like the Chichesters, an ancient and wide-spreading
family, settled at Wymodeston, now called Winston, in the parish of
Modbury, in the year 1209. "This was," writes Sir William Pole, "the
most ancient seat of the Fortescues, in whose possession it
continued from the days of King John to the Reign of Queen
Elizabeth."
There are many younger branches of this family, both in England and
Ireland, "to rank which in their seniority, and by delineating the
descent to give every man his dew place, surpasseth, I freely
confesse, my ability at the present." (Westcote's MSS. quoted by
The Topographer, i. 178.) The great glory of this house is Sir John
Fortescue, Lord Chief Justice of England in the reign of Henry VI.
and the author of' the work "_Of absolute and limited Monarchy._"
Among the principal younger branches were the Fortescues of Buckland
Filleigh and Fortescue of Fallopit in this county, both extinct in
the male line, and the Fortescues of the county of Louth in Ireland,
represented by the Barons Clermont.
See Westcote's Devonshire Pedigrees, 498, 625, &c.; Prince's
Worthies, ed. 1701, 304; Brydges's Collins, v. 335; Lysons, lxxxv.
ARMS.--_Azure, a bend engrailed argent cotised or_.
Present Representative, Hugh Fortescue, 3rd Earl Fortescue.