William Blount, 4th Baron Mountjoy

William Blount, 4th Baron Mountjoy (c.1478 – 8 November 1534), KG, of Barton Blount, Derbyshire, was an extremely influential English courtier, scholar and patron of learning. He was one of the wealthiest English nobles of his time.

William Blount was born in about 1478 in Barton Blount, Derbyshire, the eldest son of John Blount, 3rd Baron Mountjoy (c. 1450 – 1485) by his wife Lora Berkeley (d.1501), daughter of Edward Berkeley (d.1506) of Beverston Castle, Gloucestershire. After her husband's death in 1485, Lora Berkeley remarried firstly to Sir Thomas Montgomery (d.1495), and secondly to Thomas Butler, 7th Earl of Ormond (d.1515), grandfather of Thomas Boleyn, 1st Earl of Wiltshire, father of Queen Anne Boleyn, second wife of King Henry VIII.

Blount was a pupil of Erasmus, who called him inter nobiles doctissimus ("The most learned amongst the nobles"). His friends included John Colet, Thomas More and William Grocyn.

In 1497 he commanded part of a force sent to suppress the rebellion of Perkin Warbeck. In 1509 he was appointed Master of the Mint. In 1513 he was appointed Governor of Tournai, and his letters to Cardinal Wolsey and King Henry VIII describing his vigorous government of the town are preserved in the British Library.

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