5th son
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Offices Held
Admiral of the western fleet by 28 Mar. 1372-aft.
Oct. 1380.
Commr. of oyer and terminer, s. coast July, Dec.
1374, Devon Aug. 1376, July 1380, Nov. 1381, Calais Nov. 1382, Cornw.
Dec. 1395; inquiry Devon Nov. 1375, Aug. 1376 (mines and stannaries),
Apr., Aug. 1381 (seizure of a ship), May 1383 (expenditure of subsidies
for the safekeeping of the sea), Devon, Cornw. Mar., July 1391 (concealments),
Devon June 1391 (a complaint by the Franciscan friars, Plymouth),
Devon, Cornw. Mar. 1393 (concealments), Devon Aug., Nov. 1400 (concealment
of alnage); array Apr., July 1377, Feb. 1379, Mar. 1380, Dec. 1399,
Aug., Sept., Oct. 1403, July 1405; to make proclamation against unlawful
assemblies June 1381; put down rebellion Dec. 1381, Mar., Dec. 1382;
hear appeals from the admiral’s ct. Nov. 1382, Feb. 1383; of
arrest Nov. 1382; Devon Feb. 1392, Cornw. Nov. 1392; to survey mines,
Devon, Cornw. Aug. 1391; requisition fishing vessels Nov. 1394; make
proclamation of the King’s intention to govern well, Devon May
1402.
Tax surveyor, Devon Aug. 1379; collector Mar. 1404.
J.P. Devon 20 Dec. 1382-c.1385.
Lt. of Ireland 1 July 1383-Jan. 1386.
Steward of duchy of Cornw. in Cornwall 15 Nov. 1388-24
Feb. 1392.
Member of the King’s Council c. Jan. 1405.
Biography
The family of Courtenay produced three prominent
figures at the end of the 14th century, distinguished for their colourful
personalities if not always for their restraint. If William, archbishop
of Canterbury for a large part of Richard II’s reign and distinguished
for his harshness towards lollardy, was the most able, and Sir Peter,
Richard’s chamberlain, constable of Bristol and Windsor castles,
captain of Calais and famous jouster, was the most flamboyant, Sir
Philip was remembered for acts of gratuitous savagery and vindictiveness,
occasionally tempered with some real skill in military and naval affairs.
As befitted the son of a family known for its interest in the profession
of arms, Courtenay’s career began in the service of the Black
Prince, from whom he received the honour of knighthood after the battle
of Najera in 1367, at the same time as his brother Peter, and his
nephew Hugh, Lord Courtenay, who was heir to the earldom. By March
1372 Philip was admiral of the west and in the following year had
to convoy ships to Gascony and, in August, was to take the castle
of Gurry. Three years later he was ordered to ‘cease every excuse
and with all possible speed to be before the King and other nobles
and lords of England in the present Parliament assembled at Westminster,
in order to give information to the King ... touching certain matters
on which they wish to be informed’. This summons may have been
in connexion with petitions against extortion in the stannaries of
Devon and Cornwall, or perhaps one dealing with the defence of the
coast. In April 1378 Courtenay was involved in a naval expedition
under the earls of Arundel and Salisbury. The fleet was attacked by
Spaniards off the Breton coast, and Courtenay and his brother Sir
Peter were captured. Subsequently two Bristol burgesses ‘in
consideration of their great expenses and losses in their suit for
the deliverance of Philip de Courtenay and other knights ... lately
prisoners in Spain’ were exempted from payment of customs at
Bayonne. How far this disaster was Courtenay’s responsibility
as admiral is not clear.
On his first appearance as a Member of the Commons,
in February 1383, Courtenay, together with his brother Sir Peter,
was prominent in urging the acceptance of the offer of Bishop Despenser
of Norwich to lead a crusade on behalf of Pope Urban VI in Flanders.
According to the Westminster chronicler this plan was accepted, despite
the opposition of John of Gaunt, largely as a result of the Courtenays’
efforts in persuading the Commons — ‘insistentes pro eo
maxime’. Their attitude must partly have been conditioned by
their kinship with Archbishop Courtenay, leading them to support the
‘clerical’ party against Gaunt, but neither was necessarily
on bad terms with the duke. Indeed, some years before, Gaunt had ordered
the ‘gardeyn de forsboys’ of his manor of Somborne (Hampshire)
to deliver to Sir Philip ‘deux deyms de grece’ and to
provide him with all the sport he required. Furthermore, he was credibly
reported to have been one of the six knights who, at Salisbury in
the spring of 1384, viciously tortured the Carmelite friar who had
dared accuse the duke of a treasonable plot against the King’s
life, his sadistic cruelty leading directly to the friar’s death.
Close kinship with the King rather than political
activity accounted for the advancement of the Courtenay family. This
is best illustrated in Sir Philip’s case by Richard II’s
wedding gift to him of two drinking cups and two gilded silver ewers,
purchased from a London goldsmith for the sum of £22 17s.4d.
— a considerable present. The King also promised Sir Philip
and his bride land at Wallingford worth £40 a year, but was
rather slow in authorizing the grant. Annuities, however, were frequently
and generously bestowed: the Black Prince had granted him two of £50
each from the duchy lands and the stannaries in Cornwall, which were
paid until 1393 when the sum was doubled in favour of Courtenay and
his wife. Edward III had granted him £100 a year for life from
the Exchequer, which was confirmed in 1378 after Richard II had ‘retained
[Courtenay] to stay with him’, and which two years later also
became payable from the stannaries. Such an arrangement was not always
ideal, and, in 1380, payments were in arrears. Courtenay also received
several grants of land: he became keeper of the forest of Dartmoor
after the Black Prince’s death, and in the next decade he received
custody of substantial estates in Devon, including, in March 1388,
four parks forfeited by a judgement of the Merciless Parliament (which
he himself attended), as well as the royal manor of Haslebury Plucknett,
Somerset, allocated for six years at £43 6s.8d.
p.a. In 1391 he and his wife received the manor of Dartmoor and the
borough and manor of Bradninch, Devon, valued at £39 a year,
as recompense for the lands promised them at the time of their marriage.
This involved him in litigation, but these lands and his annuities
were confirmed to him by Henry IV. However, in December 1404, Courtenay
lost Dartmoor and Bradninch to Henry, prince of Wales, because they
belonged to the duchy of Cornwall.
Meanwhile, soon after his first appearance in Parliament,
Courtenay had been appointed lieutenant of Ireland. His term of office
was not uneventful, and seems to have brought out the worst in his
already deeply flawed character. His indenture, appointing him in
July 1383 for ten years, declared that he should receive £1,152
from profits and issues, including taxes, tallages and subsidies,
for which he was not required to account. He duly left for Ireland
with a body of troops, and apparently came into friendly contact with
James Butler, the young earl of Ormond. Courtenay’s wife probably
accompanied him, and she received the manor of ‘Cromelyn’
rent-free while her husband remained lieutenant. As already noted,
he was at Salisbury when Parliament met there in April 1384, and in
July his duties had to be taken over by deputies. Another visit to
England early in 1385, led to his being given considerable powers
over members of the Irish administration. He arrived back in Dublin
on 6 May, but by the end of the year his position had become untenable.
He was then being widely accused of extortion, and was forced to demand,
at a great council in December, that such accusations be inquired
into so he might clear his name. At the beginning of 1386 he was dismissed,
and on 26 Mar. a strict order for his arrest was issued by the Crown.
Courtenay was to be kept in honourable custody until his successor,
Robert de Vere, newly created marquess of Dublin with quasi-regal
powers, could send a lieutenant to make inquisition ‘concerning
intolerable oppressions, duresses, excesses [and so forth] committed
... against great numbers of the King’s lieges of Ireland, to
which no remedy is applied’, and his goods and chattels were
seized.
Nevertheless, Courtenay was able to secure election
to the Parliament which assembled that October. Inquiries into his
conduct were still proceeding in January 1387, but in the following
month Courtenay petitioned the King against the treatment accorded
him, complaining that de Vere, now duke of Ireland, had taken money
and property due from his office, that his indenture had been unlawfully
superseded by de Vere’s appointment, and that the latter had
seized Easter rents to which he himself was entitled. As a result
the duke was ordered to make recompense, and Courtenay received £66
13s.4d. in part-payment of 1,000 marks damages agreed
because of his losses and strict imprisonment. Doubtless he was in
accord with the Lords Appellant in their proscription of de Vere at
the end of the year, and fully endorsed his attainder in the Merciless
Parliament. He had no further administrative connexion with Ireland
— indeed, from November 1388 to February 1392 he was duchy steward
in Cornwall — but in September 1394 he was preparing to go there
again, this time with the King himself. Richard II spent the following
Christmas in Dublin, and Courtenay may well have been concerned with
arrangements for the royal household. Certainly, he was commissioned
to recruit fishermen from Devon and Cornwall to provide the Court
with fish.
The deposition of Richard II in 1399 brought about
a change in Courtenay’s fortunes comparable with that enjoyed
by his brother, Sir Peter. An examination of Courtenay’s public
work shows that he was not employed on any royal commission by Richard
II after 1395, without doubt because of his earlier opposition to
the King’s beloved favourite de Vere, not to mention his wilful
abuse of authority in Ireland. Nor was he elected to Parliament between
then and 1399. The change from four years’ complete absence
from royal service to six years of intense industry was quite dramatic.
For under Henry IV his military experience was called upon not only
in local commissions of array, particularly important in the west
during the Welsh revolt, but in such activities as superintending
the assembly of ships for transporting soldiers serving with the King
in Scotland in 1400 and helping to organize the fleet which sailed
to Brittany in 1402. On this second occasion he complained to the
royal council that the ships he had assembled at Southampton were
lying idle, and pressed the councillors to name a date for their departure.
Courtenay’s local prestige was particularly useful in the Welsh
emergency, as the West Country was expected to provide both men and
stores. Then, at the threat of invasion from France, the Council advised
Henry IV to send special letters to the Courtenays and to other leading
figures in the region, asking for their aid. Sir Philip’s experience
of military matters as well as in local government also made his advice
of value: he probably attended the great council of 1401; certainly
he was summoned to another such meeting about four years later; and
at the beginning of 1405 he was a member of the Council which discussed
plans for an expedition under the earl of Somerset. Meanwhile, his
practical support had taken another form when, in 1403, he had lent
£200 to the Crown.
The accusations of extortion and oppression made
against Courtenay in Ireland were almost certainly not without foundation.
Honesty and fair dealing do not seem to have been noticeable characteristics,
and on more than one occasion his lawless activities in Devon, too,
had serious repercussions. He defaulted on payment of a bond for 500
marks sealed in 1377, and in 1386 the receivers of the stannaries
were instructed to pay his creditor (a Salisbury merchant) his annuities
of £200 until the debt had been settled. Later still, in 1393,
when sitting in his fifth Parliament, Courtenay came before the King
and Lords and prayed to be discharged from his Membership of the Commons
because of accusations and slanders brought against him by bill and
by word of mouth, so that the complaints might be tried. He was accordingly
exonerated for five days, only to be restored to his place ‘a
l’instance et priere de la Commune’. Because he had been
bon et tretable towards the plaintiffs and had condescendu
a bone treite, he was restored in full Parliament to his good
fame. The Courtenay case raises, incidentally, an interesting constitutional
point, being an early example of the parliamentary privilege of freedom
from arrest in civil cases, by this time accepted as customary. Courtenay
must have been quite sure of his ground, and of the support of his
fellow Members, deliberately not to have claimed parliamentary immunity
simply in order that the matter might be decided promptly, although
it is possible that his hand was forced, and he had no choice but
to step down. The actual complaints were that he had dispossessed
of property two Devon men, who were helpless against him and could
only petition Parliament because he was si grant en pais, que
null povere homme n’ose envers lui son droit pursuer, ne null
povere homme encontre luy verite dire en mesme le counte. Arbitrators,
headed by Courtenay’s brother, Sir Peter, and Sir James Chudleigh,
were appointed to settle the disputes, and Courtenay promised that
until a decision had been made he would not disturb the complainants
by threats, chicanery or otherwise. Of even greater significance was
a dispute some nine years later. Three petitioners, suffering the
consequences of Courtenay’s rapacity and unable to stand against
him because of his local power, appealed to the Parliament of 1402.
Sir Thomas Pomeroy complained of the loss of property in Exeter at
the hands of a great number of armed men ‘by maintenance and
sustenance of the said Philip’, and Nicholas Potyngton, one
of the plaintiffs of 1393, renewed his complaints regarding the loss
of his manor of Bickleigh. More dramatic was the situation of the
abbot of Newenham, Devon, whose house had been attacked by Courtenay
and some 60 men, he himself being taken, menaced with foul words and
held to ransom for 15 days. Courtenay was summoned before the Council
for this last offence, but ignored the order, even though under threat
of a penalty of 1,000 marks. Furthermore, he and his men returned
to the abbey, and prevented the visitor, the abbot of Beaulieu, from
entering. The petitioner, having escaped, lived in hiding, but Courtenay
took two of the other monks and ‘made them hunters and falconers
against their Order and Holy Church’. Parliament therefore intervened
where the Council had failed, and Courtenay was required to answer
for his offences. This he was unable to do satisfactorily, and in
November 1402 he was imprisoned in the Tower. After about ten days,
however, and at the request of the Lords, he was set free, on condition
of finding suitable sureties, and provided that he appeared before
the King. Thus on 29 Nov. on recognizance of £100 entered into
by (Sir) John Arundell I, Sir John Herle and Sir William Sturmy, and
on his own surety of £1,000, he was released. Such was his social
position that offences of this nature went virtually unpunished.
The settlements of the Courtenay estates during the
lifetime of Sir Philip’s father, the 2nd earl of Devon, were
extremely generous to him and the other younger sons of the family.
In his youth, in 1357, Courtenay had received the reversion of the
manor of Moreton, Devon, after the death of his brother, Thomas. In
1374 according to the terms of an entail he was to obtain Broadwindsor,
Dorset, and Cadleigh, Devon, along with, after the death of his brother
Sir Peter, the reversions of Moreton and Milton Damerel, Devon. In
the following year he was granted the reversion, also after Sir Peter’s
death, of Honiton (Devon), Nuneham Courtenay (Oxfordshire) and East
Coker (Somerset). The earl left him 100 marks in his will, and shortly
after his death in 1377 Sir Philip granted the advowsons of Honiton
and East Coker to Exeter cathedral for the maintenance of a chantry
founded in his father’s memory. His mother, Countess Margaret,
left him all the contents of her chapel, including vestments, books
and candlesticks, along with various family heirlooms, and after her
death in 1391 he became owner of seven manors and other property in
Devon, Dorset and Somerset, including Powderham (the present seat
of this branch of the family). In 1405 Courtenay succeeded to the
lands of his brother, Sir Peter, so that by his own death, which occurred
on 29 July 1406, he was holding one manor and a hamlet in Dorset,
three and a half manors and three advowsons in Somerset and 17 manors
and five advowsons in Devon, besides a considerable number of smaller
properties in the same three counties. According to the inquisition
post mortem these were worth about £140 a year, no doubt an
underestimate. Courtenay’s estates descended to his son Richard,
bishop of Norwich from 1413 to 1415, and after Richard’s death
to the heirs of his second son, Sir John.
Courtenay’s career reveals a man of energy
and ability in national and local affairs whose prediliction for violence
and thuggery was extreme even by medieval standards. Even so, and
perhaps because of this unsavoury reputation, he provided the house
of Lancaster with important support at a critical time.
General
Notes: