This only son and heir, the tenth in thirteen generations who successively bore the name of William, on the advice, it is said, of that distinguished lawyer, Mr. Pepys, afterwards Lord Chancellor and first Earl of Cottenham, in 1830 asserted, by petition to Parliament, his right to the ancient Earldom of Devon. The grounds of the claim were as follows: When, in the year 1553, Sir Edward Courtenay, son of Henry, Marquis of Exeter and Earl of Devonshire, attainted and executed by Henry VIII., after having suffered a long confinement in the Tower, obtained from Queen Mary his release, she annulled the attainder, and created him, by special patent, “to hold the title and dignity of Earl of Devon with the said honours and pre-eminence thereunto belonging, to the aforesaid Edward and his _heir male for ever_” (“prefato Edwardo et heredibus suis masculis imperpetuum”). And this phrase is again repeated later: “Do grant to the aforesaid now Earl that he and his _heirs male_ may enjoy ... the same pre-eminence as any of the ancestors of the said Earl being heretofore Earl of Devon may have enjoyed.” With great lucidity and deep knowledge of the subject, Mr. Pepys maintained that, whereas in the majority of patents it was usual to restrict the title to the recipient and his direct descendants (heirs male of his body), in this instance, as shown by the wording of the deed, the Sovereign deliberately intended to restore the Earldom to the heir male of Hugh, second Earl of Devon, which position was undoubtedly occupied by the claimant, William, Viscount Courtenay. Certain cases were cited in support of this contention, especially the charter given by Richard II. creating William le Scrope Earl of Wiltshire, and special reference was made to a patent of Charles I. appointing Lewis Boyle Baron of Bandon Bridge, which contained a declaration explaining the express intention of words absolutely similar to those used in the deed concerning the Earldom of Devon. The claim was tried before the Committee of Privileges of the House of Lords, consisting of the Lord Chancellor (Lord Brougham) and Lord Wynford, who himself, as Sir W. Draper-Best, had lately been raised to the peerage, for the reason, as Greville, in his Memoirs, amusingly remarks, “that he is to assist the Chancellor in deciding Scotch causes of which he knows nothing whatever; as the Chancellor knows nothing either, the Scotch law is likely to be strangely administered.” The decision in this case which related to an English peerage, however, was eminently just, and the House resolved and adjudged: “That William, Viscount Courtenay, hath made out his claim to the title, honour, and dignity of Earl of Devon.”