‘..born in 1380. He was a Governor of Meaux in France in 1420. Sir John of Meaux served in the French Wars under Henry V and was present at the Battle of Agincourt in 1415. He was made captain of Meaux when it was taken in 1422, and Governor of the province of La Brie. He returned to England before 1431 and appears to have had a residence at Shepham, Devon.
He married in the parish of North Huish, and acquired Norreis via his wife. He had manors at Overcomb, Efford and Alsford in the parish of Holboughton or Holberton. In 1429 there is a reference to a grant by him to John Longford. He left his estate in Hertfordshire to his son Richard.’354
‘..born in 1395. He died about 1485. He was buried in Ebrington Chapel.(26) Sir John studied law at Lincoln's Inn, like his brother Henry. He became Lord Chief Justice of England, and Lord Chancellor to Henry VI. His branch led to the North Devon Fortescues of Filleigh and Castle Hill etc.
Sir John was probably born in about 1395, at Norreis. Volume 1 of Lord Clermont's book is about this John. His monument in Ebrington church was refurbished etc. by his descendant Colonel Robert Fortescue.
P 52 of Prideaux Book has this note -
William's (William Prideaux of Adeston - died 15 April 1472) second wife was a daughter of John Fortescue, and we do not even have her baptismal name. There are reasons for thinking that her father was the future Sir John Fortescue, Chancellor and Chief Justice to Henry VI. Fallapit in East Allington belonged to his family, while William's cousin John Prideaux of Orcharton is on record as settling the contiguous manor of North Allington, and the advowson of the church, on John's brother Martin in 1429. The Fortescues and Prideauxs were near neighbours, and members of both families established branches in North Devon. They would intermarry again in the 17th century and suffer similar divisions in the civil war.
From Chamber's Encyclopaedia published 1969
Sir John C.1394 - 1480 educated at Exeter College, Oxford, and called to the Bar at Lincoln's Inn was in 1441 made Sergeant-at-law, and in the following year Lord Chief Justice of the Court of the King's Bench. In the struggle between houses of York and Lancaster he steadily adhered to the latter and was attainted by the Parliament under Edward IV. He accompanied Margaret of Anjou and her young son, Prince Edward on their flight to Scotland and therefore is supposed to been appointed Lord Chancellor by Henry VI. In 1463 he embarked with the Queen and her son for Holland. During his exile he wrote his celebrated work, De Laudibus Legum Angliae, for the instruction of Prince Edward who was his pupil. But on the final defeat of the Lancastrian party at the battle of Tewkesbury, 1471, where he is have been taken prisoner, Fortescue submitted to Edward IV. The De Laudibus Legum Angliae was not printed till the reign of Henry VIII; another valuable work by Fortescue is the Governance of England; otherwise called the Difference between an Absolute and a Limited Monarchy.’354
‘(fôr´tsky) (KEY) , c.1394–1476, English jurist. A supporter of the Lancastrian king Henry VI, he was chief justice of the Court of King’s Bench from 1442 until 1461, when Henry was deposed by the Yorkist Edward IV. Fortescue was attainted and fled to France with the royal family. It is likely that while there he was tutor to the crown prince, Edward, and that his De laudibus legum Angliae [in praise of English law] was written (c.1470) for the prince’s instruction. An important work in the history of English law, it was not published until the reign of Henry VIII. He joined the abortive attempt at a Lancastrian restoration (1471), but he was pardoned by Edward IV and later admitted to the council. His Difference between an Absolute and Limited Monarchy (c.1471) was an early plea for limited monarchy and a perceptive analysis of the bases of the Lancastrian monarchy and the reasons for its failure. First published in 1714, it was later issued as The Governance of England (1885).’517