Sir Richard Stury

  Events

• Manorial Estate, 1370, Belton Manor, Belton-in-Rutland, Oakham, Rutland, LE15, GB. ¹ We find one moiety a few years later in the possession of the Blount family. It is said to have been brought to them by the marriage of Robert le Blount with Isabel, one of the heirs of Sir (William) Odinsells. There is no contemporary evidence, however, that Robert, who is said to have died in 1288, or his son and successor Ralph ever held Belton. The first member of the family who was undoubtedly seised of property in Belton was William le Blount, who in 1270 settled lands and rents, which evidently represented the moiety of the manor, on himself and Isabel his wife and the heirs of their bodies with remainder to Walter le Blount, their younger son. Sir William le Blount, son of Walter, was holding Belton of the Earl of Cornwall in 1300 and was knight of the shire for Rutland in 1301, 1307 and 1313. In 1322 he served against the Scots in the retinue of Henry, Earl of Lancaster. He married as his second wife Joan de Soddington and died in 1337. He was succeeded by his brother John le Blount. Before 1370 the moiety of Belton had passed to Alice, daughter of Sir John Blount, and her first husband Richard Stafford. In 1393 Alice and her second husband, Sir Richard Stury, settled Belton on themselves and the heirs of their bodies, with remainder to Elizabeth le Blount for life and then to Sir Walter Blount, kt., and his son John, who were cousins of the Soddington (co. Worc.) branch of the family. Alice died in 1415, leaving no children. The manor, however, had been granted by Richard Dudley and John Lovedale, probably feoffees, to Sir Walter le Blount (d. 1403) in the reign of Richard II. Sir Walter was succeeded by his son Sir John le Blount of Soddington, whose brother Thomas was lord of the manor in 1428. He was succeeded by his son Walter le Blount, who in 1465 was created Lord Mountjoy, but Belton seems to have come into the hands of John Elryngton and his wife Margaret, against whom his younger son John, the third Lord Mountjoy, brought an action for its recovery in 1476. His successors held the manor until 1557, when James, sixth Lord Mountjoy, sold it to Thomas Haselwood, at one time keeper of Leighfield Forest, under the Earl of Huntingdon.

Richard married Alice Blount, daughter of John Blount of Sodington, Worcestershire and Isolda de Mountjoy. (Alice Blount died on 4 Nov 1414 ².)