page_title: Whympston
section_title: William Fortescue (died post-1406)
hierarchical_section_title: Whympston / Descent / Fortescue / William Fortescue (died post-1406)
context_page_description: Whympston, in the parish of Modbury in Devon, England, is a historic manor. In the 12th century it became the earliest English seat of the prominent Norman family of Fortescue, influential in British and West Country history, which survives today as Earl Fortescue, seated at Ebrington in Gloucestershire, but until recently seated at Castle Hill and Weare Giffard in Devon.
context_section_description: William Fortescue (died post-1406), of Whympston married  Elizabeth Beauchamp, widow of Richard Branscombe, a daughter of Sir John Beauchamp of Ryme in Dorset by his wife Margaret Whalesborough, and a co-heiress of her brother Thomas Beauchamp of Ryme. The Beauchamp family of Ryme was a junior branch of the Beauchamp feudal barons of Hatch Beauchamp in Somerset. Thomas Beauchamp died without children, when his heirs to one moiety each became the descendants of his two sisters, the other of whom was Joane Beauchamp, wife of Sir Robert Challons, from whom the moiety descended to a member of the Carwithan family. The younger son of  William Fortescue and Elizabeth Beauchamp was John Fortescue (died after 1432), of Sheepham in the parish of Modbury, Captain of the captured Castle of Meaux, during the Hundred Years' War, ancestor of the Fortescues of Filleigh and Weare Giffard in Devon (see Earl Fortescue) and of the Fortescues of Buckland Filleigh, Devon (see Earl of Clermont). These three prominent seats of the Fortescue family were all inherited by the marriage of Martin Fortescue (d.1472) (son of Sir John Fortescue (c.1394-1479) of Ebrington in Gloucestershire, Chief Justice of the King's Bench, 2nd son of John Fortescue, Captain of Meaux) to Elizabeth Densyll, daughter and heiress of Richard Densyll.
caption: Arms of Beauchamp of Ryme: Vair, as seen in Fortescue heraldic window in Buckland Filleigh Church[2]