The relics of his patrimony were conveyed into strange families by the marriages of his four aunts; and his personal honors, as if they had been legally extinct, were revived by the patents of succeeding princes.

But there still survived a lineal descendant of Hugh, the first earl of Devon, a younger branch of the Courtenays, who have been seated at Powderham Castle above four hundred years, from the reign of Edward the Third to the present hour.

Their estates have been increased by the grant and improvement of lands in Ireland, and they have been recently restored to the honors of the peerage.

Yet the Courtenays still retain the plaintive motto, which asserts the innocence, and deplores the fall, of their ancient house.

[86] While they sigh for past greatness, they are doubtless sensible of present blessings: in the long series of the Courtenay annals, the most splendid aera is likewise the most unfortunate; nor can an opulent peer of Britain be inclined to envy the emperors of Constantinople, who wandered over Europe to solicit alms for the support of their dignity and the defence of their capital.
[Footnote 80: Dugdale, Monasticon Anglicanum, vol.i.p.