Baldwin de Redvers, 1st Earl of Devon

Baldwin de Redvers, 1st Earl of Devon^[1] (died 4 June 1155), feudal baron of Plympton in Devon,^[2] was the son of Richard de Redvers and his wife Adeline Peverel.

He was one of the first to rebel against King Stephen, and was the only first rank magnate never to accept the new king.^[3] He seized Exeter, and was a pirate out of Carisbrooke, but he was driven out of England to Anjou, where he joined the Empress Matilda. She made him Earl of Devon after she established herself in England, probably in early 1141.

He founded several monasteries, notably those of Quarr Abbey (1131), in the Isle of Wight, a priory at Breamore, Hampshire, and the Priory of St James, at Exeter. Some monastic chronicles call his father also Earl of Devon, but no contemporary record uses the title, including the monastic charters.

Family and children

He was married to Adeliz Baluun (d. circa 1146) and had children:

1. Richard de Redvers, 2nd Earl of Devon. Married Denise de Dunstanville.
2. Henry de Redvers
3. William de Redvers, 5th Earl of Devon. Married Mabel de Beaumont.
4. Matilda de Redvers, married to Anschetil de Greye.
5. Maud de Redvers, married Ralph de Avenel.
6. Alice de Redvers, married Roger II de Nonant.
7. Hawise de Redvers, married Robert Castellan.
8. Eva de Redvers, married Robert d' Oyly.

Between 1151 and 1155 he married Lucy, who was the widow of Gilbert de Clare, earl of Hertford.

The name de Redvers can also be found as de Reviers or Revières.

Footnotes

1. Cokayne 1916, p. 312
2. Sanders, I.J. English Baronies: A Study of their Origin and Descent 1086-1327, Oxford, 1960, pp.137-8, Barony of Plympton
3. Marjorie Chibnall, The Empress Matilda: Queen Consort, Queen Mother and Lady of the English (1993), p 69.

References

• Frederick Lewis Weis Ancestral Roots of Certain American Colonists Who Came to America Before 1700; Line 50-27
• Cokayne, George Edward (1916). The Complete Peerage, edited by H.A. Doubleday. IV. London: St. Catherine Press.
• Charles Mosley, editor-in-chief Burke's Peerage and Baronetage, 106th edition, 1999, Page: 832
• Robert Bearman, ‘Revières , Baldwin de, earl of Devon (c.1095–1155)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004.
•  "Baldwin of Redvers". Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.