Christopher Lethbridge (d.1670)

Christopher Lethbridge (died 1670) of Exeter in Devon, was Mayor of Exeter in 1660, and is one of the Worthies of Devon of the biographer John Prince, (1643–1723). His mural monument survives in St Mary Arches Church in Exeter.

He was born at Walson, an estate listed in the Domesday Book of 1066, in the parish of Clannaborough, north of Okehampton and Crediton in Devon. The parish of Clannaborough adjoined on the south-west to the parishes of Bow, alias Nymet Tracy, and of Broad Nymet, of which latter he was lord of the manor at his death. Walson Barton is situated between the villages of Bow and Nymet Tracy. Prince did not record his parentage, however it is recorded in the Heraldic Visitations of Devon that Robert Lethbridge of Nimet Tracy married Alice Knapman, a daughter of Alexander Knapman of Throwley, Devon, probably circa 1600-20.

Other branches of the Lethbridge family existed in the following Devonshire locations:

The Lethbridge family is supposedly descended from Ragnar Lodbrok (alias Lethbroke, etc), a Norse king and saga-character of dubious historicity, possibly an amalgam of several historical ninth-century figures.

The origin of the Lethbridge family is ascribed by legend (due to the "fancies of mellancholly monks", according to the historian Sir Winston Churchill (1620–1688), father of the 1st Duke of Marlborough) to have been in the person of "Lethbroke, a noble Dane", who having lost his hawk whilst out hunting by the sea-shore, got into a small boat to follow it and was blown onto the coast of Norfolk at Rodham. He was received by King Edmund, whose entertainment of him aroused jealousy in Beric, the royal falconer. Beric murdered Lethbroke, but the buried body was found by his spaniel dog, and he was convicted of the crime. His punishment was to be put in Lethbroke's own boat and set adrift. By chance he drifted not only back to Denmark, but to the very spot where Lethbroke had embarked. He was captured by the local Danes, who recognised Lethbroke's boat, and whom he informed falsely that Lethbroke had been killed by King Edmund. On hearing the story the King of Denmark dispatched an invasionary force to England, commanded by Lethbroke's two sons Hunga and Hubba. The sisters of the latter made a banner to be carried by their brothers, embroidered with a black raven, or eagle. Thus an eagle displayed sable features in the Lethbridge armorials.

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