William Bonville, 1st Baron Bonville KG, was an English nobleman and powerful landowner in southwest England during the Late Middle Ages. Bonville’s father died before Bonville reached adulthood, and he grew up in the household of his grandfather and namesake, who was a prominent member of the Devon gentry. He undertook royal service, which then meant fighting in France in the later years of the Hundred Years’ War. In 1437, King Henry VI granted Bonville the profitable office of steward of the Duchy of Cornwall.
About William Bonville, 1st Baron Bonville in brief
William Bonville, 1st Baron Bonville KG, was an English nobleman and powerful landowner in southwest England during the Late Middle Ages. Bonville’s father died before Bonville reached adulthood, and he grew up in the household of his grandfather and namesake, who was a prominent member of the Devon gentry. He undertook royal service, which then meant fighting in France in the later years of the Hundred Years’ War. In 1437, King Henry VI granted Bonville the profitable office of steward of the Duchy of Cornwall. The dispute soon descended into violence, and Bonville and Thomas Courtenay ravaged each other’s properties. Their feud was part of a broader breakdown in law and order which eventually evolved into the Wars of the Roses in 1455. At this point, he threw in his lot with the rebellious Richard, Duke of York. His new allegiance brought him little profit; his son was killed alongside York at the Battle of Wakefield in December 1460, while Bonville himself took part in the Second Battle of St Albans two months later on the losing side. With the new Earl of Devon watching, he was beheaded on 18 February 1461. The Bonvilles were one of the major gentry families of late-fourteenth-century Devon, often working in close co-operation with their neighbours. The most important of these were the Courtenays, the 11th Earl, Edward. The historian Christine Carpenter comments, on the family’s social position, that they were of sufficiently ‘landed and official status to be regarded as what might be termed’super-knights’ ”.
The family was described as ‘a powerful and respected element in Devon… there was no need for them to stand in dread of the great, for they were not small themselves’”. Bonville seems to have remained loyal to the king, although his guiding motivation was to support whoever would aid him in his struggle againstCourtenay. He has been described as a ‘capable and energetic and well-connected man’ who stood godparent to the young William Bonville when he was four, and probably grew up legally in his grandfather’s household when his father died in 1408. On hearing of the birth of his grandson, a contemporary reports, a historian described him as one of ‘the most prominent west-country gentry in the late gentry of the 15th century’ and has been described by a historian as ‘one of the most prominent gentry in the late 14th century and early 15th millennium’ He was described by the scholar Ralph Griffiths as a ‘capable and well- connected man’ who stood ‘to be praised by God’ and has been called ‘the son of the lord of Newenham’. The younger Bonville was still legally heir to his grandfather’s estate when his grandfather died while he was still legal heir to both his father and grandfather; the latter had substantially expanded the patrimony.
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