It may be that the tidings of the death of the head of the house were long in travelling from Italy to distant Devonshire. It may be that none of the living members of the family were cognizant of the facts of the case; but whatever the reasons, for 260 years the Earldom of Devon was regarded as lapsed, and no successor claimed its honour and dignity, though some indications may, indeed, be found, both in written records and the behaviour of individuals, of a belief that the title, though latent, was not extinct. Gibbon, who himself has conferred a great and undying honour on the family by devoting, in his monumental work, a whole chapter to the history of the Courtenays, uses this significant expression: “His personal honours as if they had been legally extinct”; and in 1660, when Charles II. offered the dignity of a Baronetcy to the then Sir William Courtenay, it was, as Cleveland relates, refused, “he not affecting that title because he thought greater of right belonged to him. Indeed, the patent of Baronetcy was never taken out, although his successors were always styled as such.” It is possible, however, that this refusal may have been due to the natural irritation felt by the head of a great family at seeing his hereditary and ancestral honours conferred on others; for in 1602, James I. created Charles Blunt, Lord Mountjoy, Earl of Devonshire, and on his decease, six years later, gave the same title to William Cavendish, in whose line it remained until changed to a Dukedom. In the reign of William III., an offer of an English Barony was made to the head of the Courtenays, and again refused; but in 1762, the many services of Sir William Courtenay, eighth of the name, merited a higher honour, and he, accepting a Peerage, took his seat in the House of Lords as Viscount Courtenay of Powderham Castle. Only surviving his elevation some six months, he was succeeded by his son, who, marrying a lady of less exalted lineage than himself, became the parent of one son and thirteen daughters.