Walter Devereux, 7th Baron Ferrers of Chartley
Walter Devereux was with the army as Edward IV marched north, and fought in the victory at the Battle of Towton on 29 March 1461, where he was knighted. On 8 July Devereux was appointed Justice of the Peace, and place on the Commission of Array for Herefordshire, Gloucestershire, and Shropshire to raise troops to stamp out Lancastrian resistance in Wales. He was also placed on a commission of Oyer and terminer to inquire into all treasons, insurrections and rebellions in South Wales, and granted the authority to receive submission into the king's peace of rebels. In September Walter Devereux met with the king and William Herbert at Ludlow Castle where they were assigned to take into the king's hands all the castles, lordships, manors, land and possessions of the late Humphrey, Duke of Buckingham, in South Wales. On 30 September 1461, Herbert and Devereux captured Pembroke Castle. On 16 October Herbert and Devereux defeated the Lancastrians under Pembroke and Exeter at the Battle of Twt Hill, effectively ending resistance in Wales. Walter Devereux attended Parliament on 4 November 1461, but was back in Wales for the capture of Denbigh Castle in January 1462.
Walter Devereux (1411–1459)
Walter Devereux married Elizabeth Merbury in 1427. She was a daughter of Sir John Merbury, Chief Justice of South Wales and his wife Alice Pembridge. They had the following children:Walter Devereux was 8 years old at the death of his father in 1419. Following his marriage in 1427, he established his first residence at Bodenham, the core of his Devereux family estates. On 8 July 1427 Thomas Barton, Thomas Smith and Thomas Lightfoot, granted John and Agnes Merbury the manors of Bonington, West Leake and Treswell; 3 messuages and 5 virgates of land in Thrumpton in the county of Nottingham; the manors of Hemington and Braunstone and the advowson of the church of Braunstone in the county of Leicester; and a third part of the manors of Market Rasen and East Rasen in the county of Lincoln. They were to be held for the lives of John and Agnes, and after their decease remain to Walter Devereux and Elizabeth, his wife, and the heirs of their bodies. On the Subsidy Rolls of 1428 Walter Devereux held 1/3 of half a fee in Byford, and ½ fee in Bodenham. On 30 July 1428 Maurice Taylor, Roger Haynes, Richard Baby and William Mimm granted to Walter Devereux and his uncles, John and Richard Devereux, all the lands and tenements they held in Bradley and their fees of Weobley, Dilwyn, and King's Pyon in Herefordshire.