Arms of Fortescue: Azure, a bend engrailed argent plain cotised or. Cantingmotto: Forte Scutum Salus Ducum ("A Strong Shield is the Salvation of Leaders")[1]
Mural monument to (Hugh) Peter Fortescue, Viscount Ebrington (1920–1942), Filleigh Church
Hon. Diana Margaret Fortescue (17 May 1919 – 6 April 1920), who died an infant.
(Hugh)[6] Peter Fortescue, Viscount Ebrington (1920–1942), only son and heir apparent, killed in action during World War II fighting for his father's old regiment the Royal Scots Greys at the First Battle of El Alamein. He died unmarried. His mural monument exists in the Fortescue Chapel of St Paul's Church, Filleigh, inscribed as follows:
"In proud and ever-loving memory of Hugh Peter, Viscount Ebrington, only son of the Fifth Earl and Countess Fortescue, Lieutenant Royal Scots Greys, who was born on 9 December 1920 and killed near El Alamein on 17 July 1942. He leaves a white unbroken glory, a gathered radiance, a shining peace"
Lady Margaret Fortescue[7] (13 December 1923 – 25 May 2013), eldest surviving daughter and co-heiress, who married the prominent race-horse breeder Bernard van Cutsem of Newmarket, Suffolk, and had issue. Following her inheritance (see below) Lady Margaret found herself frequently commuting the long distance between Newmarket and Devon to administer her estates at Castle Hill and at Simonsbath on Exmoor.[8] Shortly after 1879 her grandfather Hugh Fortescue, 4th Earl Fortescue (1854–1932), Master of the Devon and Somerset Staghounds 1880/81–87, had acquired the reversion of the whole of the former Royal Forest of Exmoor after the death of Frederick Winn Knight. When Castle Hill was largely destroyed by a fire in 1934, the Fortescue family moved to Simonsbath House whilst rebuilding was in progress. Lady Margaret devoted much time to attempting to put the Exmoor estate, purchased by her grandfather largely for his sporting interest, onto a profitable footing.[9] The marriage was unsuccessful and eventually the couple were divorced and in 1966 she resumed the surname of Fortescue.[1] She served as a Deputy Lieutenant of Devon.[10] In 2001 she gave a lengthy interview for the Exmoor Oral History Archive of the Dulverton and District Civic Society, which provides a valuable insight into many aspects of modern Devon history.[8]
Lady Elizabeth Fortescue (1 October 1926 – 17 January 2010), second daughter and co-heiress, who married William Lloyd Baxendale, Coldstream Guards, of Uckfield, Sussex,[1] and had issue.
Death and succession
Fortescue died on his 70th birthday in June 1958, four days after the death of his wife, whose funeral he was too ill to attend.[5] As his only son and heir apparent, Lord Ebrington, had been killed in action at the Battle of El Alamein in 1942,[11] he left no male issue, and was therefore succeeded in the earldom by his younger brother, Denzil Fortescue, 6th Earl Fortescue (1893–1977), who also inherited Ebrington Manor in Gloucestershire, thenceforth the principal seat of the Earls Fortescue.
Although the title passed to his brother on his death, the 5th Earl left his principal and grandest seat, Castle Hill, Filleigh in North Devon, to his elder surviving daughter, Lady Margaret Fortescue (1923–2013).[12] Castle Hill is now the home of her daughter Eleanor, Countess of Arran (née van Cutsem) and her husband Arthur Gore, 9th Earl of Arran. The 5th Earl Fortescue left his secondary Devon seat, Weare Giffard Hall, to his younger daughter Lady Elizabeth Baxendale (born 1926),[12] who sold it in 1960.[13]
