Walter Blount (soldier)

Sir Walter Blount (died 21 July 1403), was a soldier and supporter of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster. He later supported John's son and heir Henry Bolingbroke in his bid to become king Henry IV and in later battles against his enemies. At the Battle of Shrewsbury he served as the royal standard bearer, was mistaken for the king and killed in combat.

He appears as a character in Shakespeare's play Henry IV, part 1, in which he epitomises selfless loyalty and chivalry.

According to his biography in The History Of Parliament (online), Sir Walter Blount was the 3rd son of Sir John Blount of Sodington, by his 1st wife, Iseult Mountjoy.

In 1367 Blount participated in Edward, the Black Prince's expedition to restore Peter of Castile to the throne of Leon and Castile. This expedition was successfully terminated by the Battle of Nájera in 1367. Blount returned to England.

As a result of his role in the campaign, Blount married Sancha de Ayála, the daughter of Diego Gómez, who held high office in Toledo under the Castilian regime, by his wife, Inez Alfonso de Ayála, sister of Pero López de Ayala. Sancha came to England in 1371 as a lady-in-waiting to Constance, the elder daughter of Peter of Castile, whom John of Gaunt married in 1372.

In 1374 Sir Walter Blount's brother John, who had succeeded his mother Iseult (Isolde) Mountjoy in the Mountjoy property, made over to Walter the Mountjoy estates in Derbyshire, and to them Walter added by purchase, in 1381, the great estates of the Bakepuiz family in Derbyshire, Leicestershire, and Hertfordshire.

Blount probably returned to Castile in 1386. Permission had been granted Blount in 1377 to proceed with Duke John of Gaunt to Castile in order to assert the duke's right by virtue of his marriage to the throne of Leon and Castile; but the expedition did not start till 1386. On 17 April 1393 he, with Henry Bowet and another, was appointed to negotiate a permanent peace with the king of Castile.

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