Person:Isabella de Fortibus, Countess of Devon (1)

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Isabel de Forz (July 1237 – 10 November 1293) (or Isabel de Redvers, Latinized to Isabella de Fortibus) was the eldest daughter of Baldwin de Redvers, 6th Earl of Devon (1217–1245). On the death of her brother Baldwin de Redvers, 7th Earl of Devon in 1262, without children, she inherited suo jure (in her own right) the earldom and also the feudal barony of Plympton in Devon, and the Lordship of the Isle of Wight. After the early death of her husband and her brother, before she was thirty years old, she inherited their estates and became one of the richest women in England, living mainly in Carisbrooke Castle on the Isle of Wight, which she held from the king as tenant-in-chief.

She had six children, all of whom died before her. On her death bed she was persuaded to sell the Isle of Wight to King Edward I, in a transaction that has ever since been considered questionable. Her heir to the feudal barony of Plympton was her cousin Hugh de Courtenay, 1st/9th Earl of Devon (1276–1340), feudal baron of Okehampton, Devon, who in 1335 was declared Earl of Devon.

Countess Wear, now a suburb of Exeter, is named after a weir that she built on the River Exe, and she is the subject of several legends and traditions.

1. ↑ ^1.0 1.1 Isabella de Fortibus, Countess of Devon, in Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia.
2.   Cokayne, George Edward, and Vicary Gibbs; et al. The complete peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom, extant, extinct, or dormant [2nd ed.]. (London: St. Catherine Press, 1910-59)
   Volume 322 to 323.