Individual Details

John Fortescue Lord of Whympston

(Ca 1420 - 11 Mar 1480/81)



"[William Fortescue] was succeeded by his son John who appears to have returned to Parliament as a burgess for the borough of Tavistock in the 2nd of Henry VI., and again in the following year, and in the 4th of Henry VI. he sat for Totness in the Parliament held at Leicester,and for Plymton in that held by the same king at Westminster in the eighth year of his reign.
He married, before the year 1450, Joan,daughter and heir to John Prutston, Pruteston, or Preston, of Pruteston, in the parish of Newton Ferrers, a few miles south of Plymton. He was the sixth in descent from William de Prteston, who was seated there in the time of Edward I.
John Fortescue, of Wimston, was living in the year 1461, in which year we find him witness to a deed. He died before his wife. At the death of the latter on the 23rd of May, 1501, an inquisition post mortem was held at Ermyngton, from which it appears that at her death Joan (dePruteston) was seized of lands in Ermyngton, Wethele, Burraton, and Hefford, to which her eldest son John Fortescue of Wimstone, aged, at his mother's death, more than fifty years, was heir; and that her second son William was then alive. This second son inherited the Pruteston estate.
There was a third son of John Fortescue by Joane Pruteston, named, like his elder brother, John, according to a practice not uncommon at that period, but which must have been most inconvenient. He inherited an estate at Spridleton, or Spirlton, in the parish of Brixton in South Sevon, which remained with his posterity until the beginning of the present century."
--- Thomas (Fortescue) Lord Clermont, *A History of the Family ofFortescue in All Its Branches*, 2nd edition, London, 1880, p 6-7

"JOHN FORTESCUE, s. & h., b. say 1420, d. 11 Mar. 1480/1, Inq.p.m. 4Nov. 1481, lord of Whympston, co. Devon; n. by 1450, Joan, dau. & h.John Prutteston of Prutteston (or Preston) in the psh. of Ermington, co. Devon. Joan mentioned Inq. p.m. on her father's lands dtd. 1468. She d. 23 May 1501, Inq.p.m. 26 Oct. 1501. ... not to be confused with his 1st cousin, Sir John Fortesue, lawyer who became Lord Chief Justice in England."
--- Weis & Sheppard, *Ancestral Roots ... *, 7th Edition, 1992, p215

Events

BirthCa 1420
MarriageBy 1450Emington, Devonshire, England - Joan Prutteston
Death11 Mar 1480/81Devonshire, England

Families

SpouseJoan Prutteston ( - 1501)
ChildJoane Fortescue (1450 - 1525)
FatherWilliam Fortescue (1385 - )
MotherMatilda/Mabella Fowell/Falwell ( - )