Isabel de Forz, 8th Countess of Devon

Isabel de Forz (or Isabel de Redvers, Latinized to Isabella de Fortibus; July 1237 – 10 November 1293) 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.

Origins She was the eldest daughter of Baldwin de Redvers, 6th Earl of Devon (1217–1245), of Tiverton Castle in Devon, by his wife Amice de Clare (c. 1220 – 1284), a daughter of Gilbert de Clare, 4th Earl of Hertford, 5th Earl of Gloucester, 1st Lord of Glamorgan. Her early life was apparently spent at Tidcombe near her father's seat at Tiverton.

Marriage and issue

At the age of 11 or 12 she became the second wife of William de Forz, 4th Earl of Albemarle (died 1260), who held land in Yorkshire and Cumberland and was Count of Aumale in Normandy. When he died in 1260, their children were minors, so the wardship of his heir (whose name is not known), and his estates passed to the crown, namely King Henry III. One-third of her late husband's estates were granted to Isabel as her dower, comprising one-third of the feudal barony Holderness, half of the feudal barony of Cockermouth, and the feudal barony of Skipton. She was also granted custody of two of her younger sons, Thomas and William. The king granted to his own son and heir apparent, Prince Edward (later King Edward I), the other two-thirds of the estates and the marriage of the heir. John de Forz, predeceased his father and mother; Teron de Forz, predeceased his father and mother; Thomas de Forz (died before April 1269), predeceased his mother; William de Forz (died before April 1269), predeceased his mother; Avice de Forz (died before April 1269), daughter, predeceased her mother; Aveline de Forz (1259–1274), who in 1269 married Edmund Crouchback, son of King Henry III, but died childless four years later, aged 15, Her net income in the 1260s is known to have risen by 2/3rds, from £1,500 to £2,500 (now equivalent to ).

From about 1274 her estates were being managed by Adam de Stratton, a notorious money-lender, in association with the Tuscan bankers the Riccardi family of Lucca. In 1276 she gave her office of Chamberlain of the Exchequer to Stratton, probably as a reward for his financial services, and he continued as her chief financial official until at least 1286. She apparently owned her own copy of the Statutes of the Realm and being very litigious, with her advisers she prosecuted in the law courts dozens of cases, both civil and criminal. In 1315 he petitioned Parliament, unsuccessfully, claiming his right as Isabel's heir, to the Lordship of the Isle of Wight and to the adjacent manor of Christchurch, part of the Feudal barony of Plympton.

Countess Wear, Exeter Countess Wear, now a suburb of Exeter, takes its name from a fish weir on the River Exe, about two miles downstream of the ancient walled city, which Isabel de Forz is said to have built in the late 13th century. The details of the weir's construction are uncertain: a source of 1290 states that Isabel had it built in 1284 and thereby damaged the salmon fishing and prevented boats from reaching Exeter, but a later source of 1378 claims that she had had the weir built in 1272, leaving a thirty-foot gap in the centre through which boats could pass, until it was blocked between 1307 and 1327 by her cousin Hugh de Courtenay, 9th Earl of Devon.

Legends and traditions

Two legends exist which feature Isabel de Forz. One, that of the Seven Crosses, of which there are many variations, relates that she came across a poor man carrying a basket containing what he said were puppies, but which were in fact seven of his children whom he was going to drown because he could not afford to keep them. After severely upbraiding him for his lack of morality, Isabel adopted the children and ensured that they were looked after and well-educated until their adulthood when she found employment for all of them.

The other legend concerns the disputed boundary of four parishes in East Devon which she, as Countess, was called upon to settle. She is said to have done this by arranging to meet the disputants on top of a marshy hill near the site whereupon she took off a ring from her finger and threw it into the middle of the bog declaring "that shall be the boundary". The place where these four parishes meet is called "Ring in the Mire".

Isabel is also said to have given in perpetuity a water supply to the inhabitants of Tiverton, Devon. A ceremony to commemorate the gift, known as the Perambulation of the Town Leat still takes place in the town every seven years. There was also a tradition that she was responsible for the planting of Wistman's Wood, a stand of ancient stunted oak trees high on Dartmoor.