Walter Devereux, 1st Earl of Essex
Walter Devereux was the eldest son of Sir Richard Devereux, who was created a Knight of the Bath on 20 February 1547 and died that same year, in the lifetime of his father, The 1st Viscount Hereford. Walter Devereux's mother was Lady Dorothy Hastings, daughter of The 1st Earl of Huntingdon and Anne Stafford, said to have been a mistress of Henry VIII. Through his paternal ancestry he was related to the Bourchier family, to which previous Earls of Essex had belonged: John Devereux, son of Walter Devereux who died at the Battle of Bosworth, married Cecily Bourchier, sister of Henry Bourchier, 2nd Earl of Essex.
Walter Devereux (1387–1419)
On 2 May 1417 Geoffrey Harley, Richard Hull, and John Monnington granted to John Merbury, and Agnes Crophul, his wife and the heirs of their body: Weobley Castle, and the manors of Weobley, Cotesbach, and Newbold Verdon; the manors of Arnold, Treswell, Hyde, Hemington (in Lockington), Sutton Bonington, Leake, Thrumpton, Braunstone, and the manor and vill of Market Rasen; 3 knights’ fees in Weobley, Straddle (in Vowchurch), Cusop, and Little Marcle in Herefordshire, one and a quarter knights’ fees in Bitterly and Blithelow (in Bishop's Castle) in Shropshire; 60 shillings of rent and the view of frankpledge of Skeffington in Leicestershire; the advowsons in Leicestershire of the priory of Grace Dieu; the churches of Braunstone, Skeffington, and Cotesbach; a fourth part of the church of Bosworth, the advowson of Ludlow in Shropshire; and a fourth part of a water mill in Luton and Wheathampstead (Bedfordshire). These lands would all pass together to the Devereux family following the marriage of Walter Devereux’s son to John Merbury’s daughter from a previous marriage.