General Notes

After much research and cost researching this line, I found this posting on Google Groups.
Source: Todd A. Farmerie via: Google.
*** Todd A. Farmerie states:
Modbury was granted by Richard, King of Germany, (a.k.a. Richard "Plantagenet", Earl of Cornwall, younger son of King John) to Joan, widow of Ralph de Valletort, who was his mistress (hereafter Joan I). She later (or perhaps even during) married Alexander de Okestone (Oxton), and had by him an heir James. In 1285, James granted Modbury to Richard Champernowne, who enfeoffed it back to James (for the service of one rose annually), with reversion to Richard C and his right heirs. (A similar transaction transfered Broxton to a third party, and back to James with reversion to Richard and heirs.) Both of these appear to indicate an attempt to ensure that these lands passed from James, at his death, to (his nephew) Richard (Jr) Champernowne, who was son of an earlier Richard (Sr) C by Joan (II), "sister" of James. The question at hand is, who was Joan II's father.
**Source: Devon & Cornwall Notes & Queries**
Col. Prideux and John Benson
***Col Prideux cited two lines of evidence for his conclusion that Joan II was daughter of the King of the Germans.
1) the later heraldic displays of the Champernowne family included the arms of Valletort and of the Earldom of Cornwall directly linked, suggesting a descent from Cornwall that involved a Valletort connection.
2) Pole describes that James granted Modbury to his nephew Richard (Jr) Champernowne (clearly refering to the grant mentioned above) and he (Pole, that is) quoted a deed reporting the transfer of some foodstuffs to Richard (Sr) and Joan (II), in which Edmund, Earl of Cornwall calls Joan II his "sister". Since Edmund was legitimate son of Earl Richard, "it is probable" (Pole's words) that Joan II was Earl Richard's bastard.
***Benson responded:
1) any descent whereby Joan II might descend from the Earls of Cornwall involving Valletort is surely invalid, since Joan I was widow of Valletort and had no right to pass on the arms. Such descents as Risdon's (in which Joan II is shown as daughter of Joan I, daughter of Edmund, Earl of Cornwall) is obviously invented. Instead, Valletort (Vautort) came into the family in the next generation, with the marriage of the nephew Richard (Jr) to Elizabeth Vautort of North Tauton, and the linkage of Cornwall to Valletort supports an independant hypothesis that at the root of Elizabeth's Vautort/Valletort pedigree, a Valletort married the daughter of the earlier royal Earl of Cornwall, the bastard of Henry I. 2) the nugget of information from which Pole was working was that Richard (Jr) was "nephew" of James Oxton, and the rest is simply a gloss to fill out the dialogue, as shown by "it is probable". Pole's use of the word "nephew" shows that Joan II was full sister of James, daughter of Joan I by Alexander de Oxton. Anyhow, even if Pole DID see a document in which Edmund calls Joan II his sister, we underestimate the humor of our ancestors, and in this transaction among friends, Edmund was simply making a joke as to the character of Joan II's mother, his own father's mistress. He compared this to a document quoted by one of the county histories (sorry, I forget which) in which, in a similar humor, Richard Champernowne calls himself "King of Allemaigne."
***Col Prideux responded:
1) there were several of the Vautort coheiresses around, and it should not be hard to find such a Valletort/Cornwall linkage in one of the other families, if this is the nature of the Cornwall link. 2) "nephew", at the time, could as well refer to the son of a half-sister as to the son of a sister, and (quoting a historically oriented dictionary) in the 17th century, when Pole was writing, "it is probable" meant 'it is provable', and since he had the document at hand, he could prove it. Any document calling Richard Champernowne, King of Allemaigne, is bogus, and the historian quoting it is confused, or perhaps Richard was using the seal of his maternal grandfather, the King.
***Benson responded:
1)I  found the seal of Beatrice, sister of Elizabeth de Vautort, which shows the arms of Valletort, Cornwall, and Valletort differenced by a Cornwall bordure. This, he said, proves that the Cornwall arms came to the family through Elizabeth Vautort, and thus Joan was daughter of Alex de Oxton.
***Col. Prideux responded:
1) "This just goes to show that if you look for something long enough, you will find it"  At this point, the death of Col. Prideux ended the discussion.
***Todd A. Farmerie:
1) Benson clearly won this one, but the point was not valid to begin with. There is no way that a bastard daughter of Earl Richard and Joan I(de Valletort) could have brought either of these arms to Champernowne. However, Benson goes too far in his conclusions. The fact that an early Valletort married a daughter of Henry I's bastard in no way addresses the later Earl Richard/Champernowne connection. it only removes this line of argument from consideration.
2) A JOKE? He really thinks the document was a JOKE? Prideux wins that one. I am not familiar enough with the use of argumentative English in the late 17th century, but I know enough not to expect "half-nephew". IF probable meant provable, it is hard to argue with Pole's evidence. Even if it didn't, and Pole was simply being extremely cautious, the tone of the texts suggests that Pole is sitting there looking at a document in which Edmund calls Joan II his sister. It is too bad whatever the document was, we don't still have it. It could be a forgery, I suppose, but it does not involve a land transaction, and there is no particular benefit to the relationship that would make it worth the effort of forging it. (As to the Richard C, King of A quote, I suspect that the historian was reading a document of the King, and mistakenly applying it to the country squire who later held the same land.) Pole, in general, was careful, (many of his "mistakes" are actually those of his readers, who assume his lines of succession to property are actually pedigrees). He uses a narative form for presenting information, and (unfortunately) does not generally quote sources. That he stops to specifically comment on the relationship tells us that he KNEW this was a debated relationship, and his quote is his evidence for his conclusion.
3) The grants of Modbury and Broxton by James de Oxton, which served the sole purpose of establishing a reversion to Richard (Jr) Champernowne, seem to add evidence that Joan II was *not* daughter of Alexander de Oxton. Since James inherited this land from his mother Joan I, and Joan II is the only other known child of Joan I (except perhaps Earl Richard's other bastard, Richard of Cornwall - Alexander de Oxton did have at least one child by another wife, who put forward his claim when James made the Modbury grant), her son Richard (Jr) Champernowne would have been the legal heir. However, this would not have been the case had Joan II been bastard daughter of Joan I, and some sort of grant would have been necessary to prevent the land from falling to the general heirs of James (presumably his half-brother, unless the original grant to Joan I included a reversion). Since there was a fine accompanying these transactions, (they appear in the Feet of Fines (Modbury) and Fine Roll (Broxton)) it is unlikely that James would have gone to the expense had Richard been the legal heir.  Based on this, I take the position that Joan (II), wife of the first Richard Champernowne of the Modbury line, was daughter of Joan (I) de Valletort by Richard, Earl of Cornwall, King of the Germans.