Today Clyst Heath is a suburb to the south east of the city of Exeter, Devon, England. An area of relatively high ground to the west of the River Clyst, it remained heathland until the early nineteenth century when it was cultivated for the first time. [1]
Two notable battles took place on the heath, in 1455 and 1549. The 1:25000 Ordnance Survey map shows the conventional symbol for both battles at grid reference SX965912, just north of Sandy Park rugby stadium. [2]
The Courtenay family of Tiverton Castle and Colcombe Castle, who had been earls of Devon since 1335, were challenged in the 15th century by the rise of the Bonville family of Shute. [3] The Bonville–Courtenay feud during the Wars of the Roses resulted in several acts of violence, culminating on 15 December 1455 when Thomas Courtenay, Earl of Devon and William Bonville met decisively at the Battle of Clyst Heath, where Bonville was defeated and after which the Earl sacked and pillaged Shute. [4]
In the evening of 5 August 1549, during the Prayer Book Rebellion, John Russell, 1st Earl of Bedford and Lord William Grey and their troops had pitched camp on Clyst Heath. Russell and Grey were concerned about the burden of the large number of rebel prisoners that had been captured from previous encounters at Fenny Bridges, Woodbury Common and Clyst St Mary. An order was issued that the prisoners should be killed, which was done. According to John Hayward, more than nine hundred prisoners were slain. [5] [6]
The following day the rebels attacked the camp of the Royal army and the subsequent battle lasted the entire day, with heavy losses on both sides. Lord Russell's troops were finally victorious, but John Hooker later reported: [5]
Great was the slaughter and cruel was the fight and such was the valour and stoutness of these men [the rebels] that the Lord Grey reported himself that he never in all the wars he had been did know the like.
The Prayer Book Rebellion or Western Rising was a popular revolt in Cornwall and Devon in 1549. In that year, the first Book of Common Prayer, presenting the theology of the English Reformation, was introduced. The change was widely unpopular, particularly in areas where firm Catholic religious loyalty still existed, such as Lancashire. Along with poor economic conditions, the enforcement of the English language led to an explosion of anger in Cornwall and Devon, initiating an uprising. In response, Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset sent John Russell to suppress the revolt, with the rebels being defeated and its leaders executed two months after the beginning of hostilities.
Powderham Castle is a fortified manor house situated within the parish and former manor of Powderham, within the former hundred of Exminster, Devon, about 6 miles (9.7 km) south of the city of Exeter and 1⁄4 mile (0.4 km) north-east of the village of Kenton, where the main public entrance gates are located. It is a Grade I listed building. The park and gardens are Grade II* listed in the National Register of Historic Parks and Gardens.
The Lord Warden of the Stannaries used to exercise judicial and military functions in Cornwall, England, UK, and is still the official who, upon the commission of the monarch or Duke of Cornwall for the time being, has the function of calling a stannary parliament of tinners. The last such parliament sat in 1753.
Old Shute House, located at Shute, near Colyton, Axminster, Devon, is the remnant of a mediaeval manor house with Tudor additions, under the ownership of the National Trust. It was given a Grade I listing on 14 December 1955. It is one of the most important non-fortified manor houses of the Middle Ages still in existence. It was built about 1380 as a hall house and was greatly expanded in the late 16th century and partly demolished in 1785. The original 14th-century house survives, although much altered.
Clyst St Mary is a small village and civil parish 3 miles (4.8 km) east of Exeter on the main roads to Exmouth and Sidmouth in East Devon. The name comes from the Celtic word clyst meaning 'clear stream'. The village is a major part of the electoral ward of Clyst Valley. At the 2011 Census this ward population was 2,326.
Humphrey Arundell of Helland in Cornwall, was the leader of Cornish forces in the Prayer Book Rebellion early in the reign of King Edward VI. He was executed at Tyburn, London after the rebellion had been defeated.
Woodbury Common in East Devon, England is an area of common land that is predominantly heathland adjacent to the village of Woodbury. It is bordered to the south by the edge of the towns of Exmouth and Budleigh Salterton, the hamlet of Yettington to the east, and the A3052 to the north. It is part of the East Devon Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, and is a Site of Special Scientific Interest.
Events from the 1450s in England.
Events from the year 1455 in England.
Thomas de Courtenay, 5th/13th Earl of Devon was a nobleman from South West England. His seat was at Colcombe Castle near Colyton, and later at the principal historic family seat of Tiverton Castle, after his mother's death. The Courtenay family had historically been an important one in the region, and the dominant force in the counties of Devon and Cornwall. However, the rise in power and influence of several gentry families and other political players, in the years leading up to Thomas' accession to the earldom, threatened the traditional dominance of the earls of Devon in the area. Much of his life was spent in armed territorial struggle against his near-neighbour, Sir William Bonville of Shute, at a time when central control over the provinces was weak. This feud forms part of the breakdown in law and order in England that led to the Wars of the Roses.
The Bonville–Courtenay feud of 1455 engendered a series of raids, sieges, and attacks between two major Devon families, the Courtenays and the Bonvilles, in south west England, in the mid-fifteenth century. One of many such aristocratic feuds of the time, it became entwined with national politics due to the political weight of the protagonists. The Courtenay earls of Devon were the traditional powerbrokers in the region, but by this time a local baronial family, the Bonvilles, had become more powerful and rivalled the Courtenays for royal patronage. Eventually this rivalry spilled over into physical violence, including social disorder, murder, and siege.
The Battle of Sampford Courtenay was one of the chief military engagements in the Western Rebellion of 1549.
Margaret Grey was a Cambro-Norman noblewoman, the daughter of Reginald Grey, 3rd Baron Grey de Ruthyn, a powerful Welsh Marcher Lord, who was the implacable enemy of Owain Glyndŵr.
William Bonville, 1st Baron Bonville, was an English nobleman and an important, powerful landowner in south-west England during the Late Middle Ages. Bonville's father died before Bonville reached adulthood. As a result, he grew up in the household of his grandfather and namesake, who was a prominent member of the Devon gentry. Both Bonville's father and grandfather had been successful in politics and land acquisition, and when Bonville came of age, he gained control of a large estate. He augmented this further by a series of lawsuits against his stepfather, Richard Stucley. Bonville undertook royal service, which then meant fighting in France in the later years of the Hundred Years' War. In 1415, he joined the English invasion of France in the retinue of Thomas, Duke of Clarence, Henry V's brother, and fought in the Agincourt campaign. Throughout his life, Bonville was despatched on further operations in France, but increasingly events in the south-west of England took up more of his time and energy, as he became involved in a feud with his powerful neighbour Thomas Courtenay, Earl of Devon.
Sir Philip Courtenay of Powderham, Devon, was the senior member of a junior branch of the powerful Courtenay family, Earls of Devon.
Thomas Courtenay, 6th/14th Earl of Devon, was the eldest son of Thomas de Courtenay, 5th/13th Earl of Devon, by his wife Margaret Beaufort, the daughter of John Beaufort, 1st Earl of Somerset, and Margaret Holland, daughter of Thomas Holland, 2nd Earl of Kent. Through his mother, he was a great-great-grandson of King Edward III. The ordinal number given to the early Courtenay Earls of Devon depends on whether the earldom is deemed a new creation by the letters patent granted 22 February 1334/5 or whether it is deemed a restitution of the old dignity of the de Redvers family. Authorities differ in their opinions, and thus alternative ordinal numbers exist, given here.
Colcombe Castle was a castle or fortified house situated about a 0.5 mi (0.80 km) north of the town of Colyton in East Devon.
Nicholas Radford of Upcott in the parish of Cheriton Fitzpaine, and of Poughill, Devon, was a prominent lawyer in the Westcountry who served as Member of Parliament for Lyme Regis, Dorset and Devon (1435). During the anarchic times of the Wars of the Roses he was caught up in the dynastic Westcountry rivalry between Thomas de Courtenay, 5th Earl of Devon, of Tiverton Castle, for whom during his minority he had acted as steward, and William Bonville, 1st Baron Bonville, of Shute. His murder in 1455 by the Earl's faction "ranks among the most notorious crimes of the century", and was the precursor of the Battle of Clyst Heath (1455) fought shortly thereafter near Exeter by the private armies of the two magnates. He served as a Justice of the Peace for Devon (1424-1455), as Escheator for Devon and Cornwall (1435-6), Recorder of Exeter (1442-1455) and as Tax Collector for Devon in 1450 and as Apprentice-at-law for the Duchy of Lancaster (1439-1455).
Upcott is an historic manor in the parish of Cheriton Fitzpaine, Devon. The manor house, known as Upcott Barton is a mediaeval grade II* listed building notorious in the history of Devon as the place where in 1455 the murder of the lawyer Nicholas Radford by a mob directed by the Earl of Devon during the Wars of the Roses took place. In the grounds is a reproduction of an Iron Age roundhouse built circa 2014.
Roger Wyck of Bindon in the parish of Axmouth in Devon, was a Member of Parliament for Plympton Erle in 1413.