Walter Devereux

Sir Walter Devereux of Bodenham was a member of a prominent knightly family in Herefordshire during the reigns of Edward I, and Edward II. He gave rise to the Devereux Barons of Whitchurch Maund, Earls of Essex and Viscounts of Hereford. Ancestry and Childhood Walter Devereux was born probably sometime in the range 1256-1271, the son of Baron William Devereux of Lyonshall and his first wife, Alice Grandison. His mother died by 1271, while he was still young, and in which year his father married a second time to Lucy Burnell. She gave birth to his half-brother, John Devereux of Frome, whose descendants would later contend with his son, Stephen, over control of their patrimony. His father spent his life struggling to regain control of the lands forfeited by Walter’s grandfather who had died in rebellion at the Battle of Evesham in 1265, and were subject to the Dictum of Kenilworth. Walter Devereux’s coat of arms was the same as his father: argent a fesse gules, in chief three torteaux. Marriage Walter Devereux married Margery de Braose of Pipton and Brecon, but in what year we know not. They had at least 2 children: Stephen Devereux of Bodenham and Burghope, who was a minor 1306-1310 at least, and John Devereux of Manne (Whitchurch Maund), who was born by 1302. Career During his father’s lifetime Walter Devereux was established in the ancestral Devereux manors of La Fenne (Bodenham) and Whitchurch Maund. Large parts of Bodenham had been in the possession of his family since the Domesday Survey when they were held by a William Devereux. As a retainer of Humphrey de Bohun, 3rd Earl of Hereford, he probably participated in the private feud his lord had with the earl of Gloucester.