Sir Baldwin FULFORD [4105] ¹¹³³

   FamilySearch ID: G6PC-SJW.

  General Notes:

Biography
Baldwin Fulford, Knight, was born in 1415 in Great Fulford, Devonshire, England. He was the son of Sir Henry II de Fulford and his wife, Wilhelma (Brian) de Fulford. Baldwin Fulford married Elizabeth Bozom, daughter of Sir John Bozom and Joan Fortescue, in about 1439 at their estate of Bozom-Zeal, Devonshire.

Sir Baldwin and Elizabeth Fulford had 4 children together:
1.) Sir Thomas Fulford, heir: b. ca. 1440; d. 20 Feb 1490

2.) Alice Fulford, b. ca. 1443; m. Sir William Cary of Cockington who was slain supporting the Lancasterian cause at Tewkesbury in 1471. He left a son, Thomas Cary, father of William Cary, who married Mary Boleyn, sister of Queen Anne.

3.) Thomasine Fulford, b. ca. 1444; m. John Wise, Esq., of Sydenham.

4.) John Fulford, b. ca. 1446, became Canon of Exeter Cathedral, Devon

Sir Baldwin Fulford was a noted mariner and a Christian Crusader, fighting chivalrously in the 1443-44 Crusade against the Ottoman Turks in Eastern Europe. He was named a Knight of the Holy Sepulcher (indicating a successful pilgrimage to Jerusalem) as a young man. It is said Sir Baldwin was "celebrated for having protected the liberty and honour of a royal lady, by slaying in single combat a Saracen of enormous stature, who besieged her in her castle; in token of which Paladin-like feat, two Saracens were granted as supporters to the family arms, which were Sable, three chevronels ermine, a crescent for difference." In the 1440s, he was named Under-Admiral of the Fleet to John Holland, 2nd Duke of Exeter, the Lord-High-Admiral of England from 1435 until his death in 1447.

Baldwin Fulford was named Sheriff of Devonshire in "Year 38, Henry VI" (1459-1460), just as that monarch, having suffered several mental breakdowns, was loosing his grip on power in favor of Edward, Duke of York, who proclaimed himself King Edward IV on March 4, 1461. This marked the start of a quarter-century of bitter civil war in England, known as "The War of the Roses," pitting pro-York vs. pro-Lancaster factions and ending with the advent of Henry Tudor, crowned King Henry VII on October 30, 1485.

Baldwin Fulford remained loyal to the man who he considered England's "rightful sovereign:" Lancastrian King Henry VI, whose forces lost several decisive battles to Edward's pro-York faction in 1461, forcing King Henry to flee to exile in Scotland (still an independent country) for the next 3 years. Unfortunately, Baldwin Fulford was not as lucky. He was hunted down and beheaded on September 9, 1461, in Bristol by the forces of Edward IV for "treason".

MORE INFORMATION
Sir Baldwin de Fulford (died 1461/1476)
Sir Baldwin de Fulford (died 1476) (son), Sheriff of Devon in 1460, a Knight of the Sepulchre and Under-Admiral to John Holland, 2nd Duke of Exeter (died 1447), High Admiral of England. According to the Devonshire biographer John Prince (1643-1723):

He was a great soldier and a traveller of so undaunted resolution that for the honor and liberty of a royal lady in a castle besieged by the infidels, he fought a combat with a Sarazen, for bulk and bigness an unequal match (as the representation of him cut in the wainscot in Fulford House doth plainly shew), whom yet he vanquish'd, and rescu'd the lady.

In commemoration of this victory supporters to the arms of the family were granted (generally reserved as a privilege of the nobility alone) of two Saracens, which they still retain, and which survive today sculpted in relief on the 16th century wooden panelling of the Great Hall of Great Fulford House, as Prince noted. The carved wooden figure of a Saracen tops the newel post at the base of the Great Staircase.

He may be the same Sir Baldwin Fulford who as is recorded by Stow (d.1605) was executed in Bristol Castle in 1461, in fulfilment of his bond to King Edward IV that he would either kill the Earl of Warwick, who was then plotting to dethrone the reigning sovereign, or lose his own head.

He married Elizabeth (or Jennet) Bosome, daughter and heiress of John Bosome (alias Bosom, Bozun, Bosum, etc.) of Bosom's Hele (alias Bozunsele, etc., modern: "Bozomzeal"), in the parish of Dittisham, near Dartmouth, Devon, by his wife Johane Fortescue. Elizabeth Bozom survived her husband and married secondly to Sir William Huddesfield (died 1499), of Shillingford St. George, Devon, Attorney General to King Edward IV (1461-1483). Huddesfield married secondly (as her third husband) to Katherine Courtenay, a daughter of Sir Philip Courtenay (died 1463) of Powderham, Devon. A monumental brass of Huddesfield and his second wife Katherine Courtenay survives in Shillingford St George Church, and the arms of Bosome (Azure, three bird bolts in pale points downward or) survive in a stained glass window in the same church. By Jennet Bosome, heiress of Bozum's Hele, he had children two sons and two daughters, namely Thomasine Fulford, who married John Wise of Sydenham House, from whom was descended John Russell, 1st Earl of Bedford (c. 1485-1555), the most powerful magnate in Devon, and another daughter Alice Fulford, who married Sir William Cary of Cockington, from whom was descended Lord Hunsdon and the Earls of Monmouth and Dover. His younger son was John Fulford (died 1518), a Canon of Exeter Cathedral and Archdeacon successively of Totnes, Cornwall and Exeter, whose large black marble ledger stone survives in Exeter Cathedral, behind the high altar (or in the eastern aisle), inscribed as follows in Gothic letters: Hic jacet magist(er) Joannes Fulford filius Baldwini Fulford milit(i), hui(us) eccle(siae) Resid. pr. Archid. Tottn. deinde Cornub(iae)' ult. Exon, q(ui) obiit xix die Januarii A(nno) D(omini) xv.xviii cui(us) a(n)i(ma)e p(ro)pitietur Deus ("Here lies Master John Fulford, son of Sir Baldwin Fulford, Knight, residentiary of this church, first Archdeacon of Totnes, then of Cornwall, and lastly of Exeter, who died on the ninth day of January in the year of our Lord 1518, on whose soul may God look with favour").

The manor of Bosom's Hele was inherited by the Fulford family and the arms of Bozom appear in the 5th quarter of the 16th century relief sculpted escutcheon over the main entrance to Great Fulford House.

Baldwin married Jenet Elizabeth BOSOME [4106] [MRIN: 4725], daughter of John BOZUM [6746] and Joan FORTESCUE [6747], in 1439 in Bosumzeal, Devon, England.¹¹³² (Jenet Elizabeth BOSOME [4106] was born in 1420 in Bosumzeal, Devon, England,¹¹³³ died before 1478 in Shillingford, Devon, England ¹¹³³ and was buried in Farringdon, London Borough of Islington, Greater London, England, United Kingdom ¹¹³³.)