The Battle Abbey Roll. Vol. II.
by
The Duchess of Cleveland.

Prepared by Michael A. Linton
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Fort : There is a "venerable and almost uniform tradition" that the ancestor of the Fortescues was a certain Richard le Fort, Duke William's cupbearer, "who fought by the side of his master at Senlac, and after the Duke had three horses killed under him, protected him with his shield, and thus saved his life. He was thenceforward known as Richard le Fort-escu (strong shield), and after the battle returned to Normandy, where his lineage still survives, whilst his son Sir Adam remained in England, received a grant of Wimpstone in Devonshire," and was the founder of the English house. Both William of Poitou and William of Malmesbury tell us that the Conqueror had three horses killed under him on the hard-fought field of Hastings, but of this rescue by Richard le Fort, termed by old Westcote "the posy of the family," they make no mention whatever. In any case the Fortescues cannot, I think, be the family here designated, as, in the Roll that recorded the combatants in the famous battle, so gloriously earned an addition to their name would never have been left out. It may be added that, according to Sir William Pole, Wimpston did not come into their possession till 1209. "John Fortescue was the firste of yt famyly I finde toe inhabit Devonshire. Kinge John gave him in the tenth yeare of his raigne Wymondeston in the parish of Modbiry in Devonshire, wch contynewed in yt name and famyly unto these late tymes." I find that the Le Forts and Fortescues are treated as two perfectly distinct families in the Nobiliaire de Normandie. The former were Lords of Bonnebosc, in the district of Pont-Audemer; and another branch held Montfort, Carneville, &c, in that of Valognes.

I first met with the name in a totally different part of England. Ranulph de le Forte, or de Forte, was a benefactor to Lanercost Priory, in Cumberland (Mon. ii., 130) giving some land in Beaumont, and "a free net in Eden." He probably held under the old Lords of Bowness, of whose barony Beaumont formed part, but I can find no further mention of him. Sampson Forte and Adam Forte occur about 1272 in the Rotuli Hundredorum. Another Sampson le Fort, "in the year 1150, founded a priory at Harold, in honour of St. Peter, for canons and nuns of the order of St. Nicholas of Arrouasia, but it was afterwards occupied by a prioress and a few nuns of the order of St. Austin."—Lyson's Bedfordshire. According to a pedigree of the Mordaunts, quoted by Lipscomb in his History of Bucks, this "Sampson Fortis, of whom many fees were held by knight's service, was one of the most famous knights of his time; and so called from his great strength and valour, being a great champion, and an associate in war with David of Scotland and Simon de St. Liz. He was lord of several towns and villages, among the rest of Chellington, which he gave to Osmund Mordaunt with his daughter Ellen." His foundation charter to Harold Priory is witnessed by Amalricus Fortis. Henry de Fort, with Philip de Branlasche, held at Brocton by the serjeanty of finding a man-at-arms to serve for fifteen days in the castle of Montgomery.—Testa de Nevill.

This family was wholly distinct from that of De Forts, Forz, or De Fortibus (see Aumale). "The name of Forz is French and local; possibly from Fors, a village in Poitou, about four leagues south of Niort; or from a seigneury of Fors in Poitou. Seeing the spelling of the name in this country was Forz, and occasionally Fortz, it is not improbable that it was here pronounced as if written Fortz, and this would account for its plural form in Latin, de Fortibus."—Archaeological Journal, vol. xviii. See also Vivonne.