This surname is derived from a nickname. 'the blonde,' i.e. from the fair complexion of the nominee. Originally found as le Blound or le Blund. The early entries are very numerous.

Melodia le Blount, Huntingdonshire, 1273. Hundred Rolls.

Margareta le Blound, Cambridgeshire, ibid.

Richard le Blont, Wiltshire, ibid.

Alan le Blund, Oxfordshire, ibid.

Richard le Blunt, Wiltshire, ibid.

Hugo le Blund, Staffordshire, 20 Edward I: Placita de Quo Warranto, temp. Edward I-III.

Amabilla le Blunt, Gloucestershire, ibid.

John le Blont, Somerset, 1 Edward III: Kirby's Quest.

Johannes Blont, 1379: Poll Tax of Yorkshire.

Ricardus Blont, 1379: ibid.

Ascelina le Blund, or Blunt, Norfolk, 1272: History of Norfolk.

1767. Married — George Blount and Isabella Tinker: St. George, Hanover Square.

1786. — Edmund White and Ann Blunt: ibid.

A variant of Blund, which see. John le Blunt of Eskeby, Dumfriesshire, rendered homage, 1296 (Bain, II, p. 202). James Blunt in Dalscon, 1743, and two more of the name (Dumfries).

= Blund or Blond, q.v. Richard le Blunt.—Hund Rolls.

Norman le Blount i.e. the blond or fair-haired.

Now very rare, this name was one of the most numerous of the Anglo-Norman names in Ireland in the middle ages. MIF 281*

(English) The fair or light-complexioned man.

Wotton gives this great Norman house a classical ancestry. “They take their Rise,” he says, “from the Blondi or Biondi in Italy, whom Historians derive from the Roman Flavii.” But the origin of the distinctive name, Le Blond, would appear, like Le Brun or Le Roux, simply to denote a difference of hair or complexion. Two of the family are inscribed in Domesday (where the name is variously given as Blon, Blondus, or Blundus), whose father, according to the same authority, was the Lord of Guisnes. “He is said to have had three sons in the Conqueror’s army. One returned to France; the other two, Robert and William, remained in England, and gave a Beginning to all the Blounts in this Kingdom.” Sir Robert, Baron of Icksworth, in Suffolk, married Gundred, daughter of Earl Ferrers. He was Dux Manuum Militarum, and held Orford Castle, and several other manors in Suffolk. Gilbert, his son, whom Camden calls Magnæ Nobilitatis Vir, founded a monastery of the Order of St. Augustine at Icksworth, the head of his barony. But though his posterity spread and flourished throughout England, and continues numerous to this day, the duration of this elder line was brief. It expired with the sixth Lord of Icksworth, William le Blount, who fell bearing Simon de Montfort’s standard at the battle of Lewes. He left no children, and his barony was forfeited under attainder, but his two sisters, Agnes de Criketot and Roese de Valoines, were, nevertheless, permitted to share his estates, lying chiefly in Suffolk and Lincolnshire.

After him, Dugdale mentions three others of the name not found in the family pedigree (which is variously given, and arduous to follow); Peter le Blount, Constable of the Tower in 1254; Andrew, engaged on the Baron’s side at Evesham; and Hugh, Sheriff of Essex and Herts for the last half year of 14 Edward I. But the existing families are, by general consent, traced to Sir Stephen le Blount, first cousin of the last Baron, who married the heiress of Sir William le Blount, of Saxlingham, of Suffolk, the representative of that other Sir William who came over at the Conquest, and thus united the kindred houses. It was the first in the succession of rich marriages by which the fortunes of his posterity were rapidly built up. Their son, Sir Robert, Lord of Belton, in Rutland, in right of his wife, Isabel de Odingsells, was the father of 1. Ralph; 2. William, of whom presently.

Ralph, having married the heiress of Lovet, was seated at Hampton-Lovet in Herefordshire, and the father of Sir Thomas, Steward of the Household to Ed. II., and the second husband of the famous “Infanta of Kent,” Juliana de Leybourne. She brought him not only very great possessions, but the claim to a barony that had been granted to her grandfather in 1298, and Sir Thomas was accordingly summoned to parliament in 1326 by Ed. II. Yet, not long after, he proved unfaithful to his unhappy master, on whose flight into Wales he joined the Queen and Mortimer at Bristol; and sat in parliament among the barons who voted his deposition from the throne. He was in the retinue of Henry Earl of Lancaster during Ed. III.’s first Scottish campaign, and twice again received summons to parliament; “after which,” says Dugdale, “I find no more of him.” He left two sons by his first wife; for the great Kentish heiress, though three times married, never had children; and the youngest, Nicholas, was deeply engaged in a plot for the restoration of Richard II., and changed his name to Croke in 1404, to shelter himself from the vengeance of Henry IV. The line of the elder expired in 1400.

The second brother, William, had two sons; Peter, Chamberlain to Ed. II., who had no issue; and Sir Walter, who married the heiress of Sodington, still the family seat in Worcestershire. His eldest son, Sir William Blount of Hampton Lovet, served in the Scottish wars, and was summoned to parliament jure uxoris in 1327, his wife Margaret being one of the co-heirs of a great baron, Theobald de Verdon; but he, again, left no posterity. Sir Walter’s second son, Sir John, was the progenitor of all the families that now bear his name. Of his first marriage with Isolda de Montjoye came the Blounts of Sodington, and the now extinct branch of Kinlet; of his second marriage with Eleanor, co-heiress of John Beauchamp of Hache, the Lords Montjoye, the Herefordshire line of Grendon, Eldersfield, Orleton, &c., and the Blounts of Maple Durham.

Sir Walter Blount, his son by his second wife Eleanor, was a famous soldier, who served his apprenticeship in arms under John of Gaunt, and remained his faithful follower to the end of his life. He was with him in 1367 in his Spanish campaign, and brought home a foreign wife from the household of Constance of Castille, Donna Sancha de Ayala, daughter of the Alcalde Mayor of Toledo. As one of the Duke of Lancaster’s most trusted knights, he was named executor to his will; and Henry IV., mindful of his father’s friend, appointed him his Standard Bearer. He was slain in 1403 at the battle of Shrewsbury, together with Sir Hugh Shirley and two others knights, accoutred in the royal coat-armour:— “Semblably furnished like the King himself.”

Shakespeare introduces him in his Hen. IV. (Part 1, Act iv., Scene 3) as sent to offer terms to the rebels before the battle:— “Hotspur. Welcome, Sir Walter Blunt; And’would to God You were of our determination! Some of us love you well: and even those some Envy your great deserving, and good name, Because you are not of our quality, But stand against us as an enemy.

Blunt. And Heaven defend, but still I shall stand so, So long as, out of limit and true rule, You stand against anointed Majesty!”

He has left his name to Barton-Blount, near Derby, which, with Elvaston and other estates, he bought of the family of Bakapuz. His Spanish wife had brought him four sons. The eldest, Sir John, was again bred in the wars; and surpassed his father in feats of renown. He was Governor of a Garrison in Acquitaine in 1412, and “being there besieged by the Marshal of France, with three hundred men vanquished all the Marshal’s Army; took Prisoners twelve persons of Note, and others to the number of one hundred and twenty.”— Dugdale. For this service he received the Garter in the ensuing year. His brother and successor Sir Thomas was Treasurer of Normandy, and the father of Walter, Lord Treasurer of England, who was created Lord Mountjoy by Edward IV., in 1465. Why he should have assumed this title it is difficult to determine, as he certainly did not descend from the Isolda de Montjoye whom his ancestor had married. He had discarded the Lancastrian traditions of his house, and “became so active a person in the King’s service in that troublesome time,” that he received an ample share of the confiscated estates, including those of the Earl of Devon, Sir William Carey, and Sir William Vaux. But, although thus generously endowed, his posterity was not found among those devoted families that “withered with the White Rose.” His grandson, the fourth Lord Mountjoy, was called to the Privy Council on the accession of Henry VII.; and fourteen years afterwards had “a speciall Grant from the King of all the Preheminences, Dignities, Honours, Mannors, &c., which his Father enjoyed.” Henry VIII. appointed him master of the Mint of the Tower of London, as well as “throughout the Realm of England and the Town of Calais.” Both father and son employed him, and in the latter reign he subscribed the articles against Cardinal Wolsey, and the famous letter to Pope Clement VII. regarding the Queen’s divorce. His son Charles, fifth Lord, served in the rear-guard of the army sent to France in 1544: and “by his Testament made at that time, ordained a Stone to be laid over his Grave in case he should there be slain; with this following Epitaph thereon, for a Memorial to his Children; to continue and keep themselves worthy of so much Honour, as to be called hereafter to dye for their Master and Country:— ‘Willingly have I sought, And willing have I found, The fatal end that brought Me hither, as duty bound.

Discharg’d I am of that I ought To my Country by honest ownde; My Soul departed Christ hath bought, The end of Man is ground.’”

It does not appear, however, that he fell in battle, though he died in the following year. Second in descent from him was another Charles, who, as eighth Baron, succeeded in 1594 to “a fortune much sunk by the extravagance of his grandfather, his father’s obstinate pursuit of the philosopher’s stone, and his brother’s profuseness.” He was tall and extremely good-looking, and when he first appeared at Court at the age of twenty, made so agreeable an impression on Queen Elizabeth, that she gave him her hand to kiss, saying, “Fail not to come to Court, and I will bethink myself how to do you good.” She was true to her word; and “having run one day very well at tilt,” he received from her an enamelled chess-queen as a token of her favour. Lord Essex, seeing it on his sleeve, cried contemptuously, “Now I perceive every fool must have a favour;” and for these jealous words the aspiring young gentleman challenged and fought him, wounding him in the thigh. Yet soon after this—no doubt because Blount fell in love with the Earl’s sister, they became fast friends. He was one of the commanders of the dauntless little fleet that encountered the Armada; succeeded Essex as Lord Deputy of Ireland in 1597, and within three years had “broken the hearts of the Irish rebels,” and effected the conquest of the country. “He had,” says Camden, “no superior and but few equals for valour and learning;” and was pre-eminently gifted with the genius of command. When he first landed in Ireland, revolt was rampant on every side, and he found himself master only of a few miles of the country round Dublin. But under his stern rule all was changed; the insurrection mastered and stamped out; a Spanish force sent to support it gallantly repulsed at Kinsale; its leader, Hugh O’Neill, taken prisoner and brought in triumph to Dublin; and the Earl of Desmond, who had attempted another rising, forced to fly for his life. King James, on his accession, re-appointed him as Lord Lieutenant, created him Earl of Devonshire, and made him Master of the Ordnance and a Knight of the Garter, with large grants both of money and land. But he did not long enjoy his honours and rewards, for he died in 1606 of a burning fever, “brought,” as his secretary Morrison avers, “by grief of unsuccessful love to his last end.” Yet he had, in the previous year, married his early flame, Lord Essex’s sister Penelope, with whom he had exchanged lover’s vows, and even promises of marriage before she became the reluctant wife of Lord Rich. At his solicitation, she broke her marriage vows, bore him several children, and was in the end divorced by her husband. She was then re-married to her paramour, the ceremony being performed by Lord Devonshire’s chaplain, Laud; which “gave such a wound to the reputation” of the future Archbishop, that, though he strove to vindicate himself by a written apology, the sense of disgrace is said by his biographer Heylin to have shortened his days.

Penelope and her illegitimate children were well provided for by the Earl’s will; and Mountjoy, her eldest son, received an Irish peerage from James I., and the Earldom of Newport in the following reign. But the title expired with the two next Earls.

Thus ended the Lords Mountjoy; but the senior house from which they sprung, the Blounts of Sodington, survive them, and are yet to be found at their ancient seat in Worcestershire. Sodington—once a place of some strength, moated round, with four drawbridges, was burnt to the ground by Cromwell’s soldiers, because its inmates refused to make weapons for them at their forge. Sir Walter Blount, the first baronet, who was then its owner, had four sons in the King’s army, and passed many years of his life in the Tower.

Two other junior branches, the Blounts of Orleton, and the Blounts of Maple Durham, likewise remain; for it has been the rare fortune of this great house to be still able to count up many descendants in the male line, and the renowned name brought to England eight hundred years ago runs no chance of extinction. Yet, by a strange anomaly, its actual representatives—the acknowledged heirs of its most ancient line—do not bear it. They are called by the name that was taken by their ancestor Nicolas in the reign of Henry IV. (see p. 153), and remain to this day the Crokes of Studley in Oxfordshire.

The family crest is striking: it is an armed foot in the sun, with the motto Lux tua, Via mea.

See Blount. Robert and William Blundus were tenants in chief under the Conqueror. Domesd.

Radulf, Roger, Robert le Blont, Norm. 1180-95 (Magni Rotuli Scaccarii Normanniae). Hence the baronets Blunt.

From the Old Norse, Blundr; in the Domesday Book, Blund; a personal name.

A Norman name: From the Domesday Book, Blunders. Blandain; a local name

Blount: descriptive, le Blond, the fair-haired. Two named in Domesday, sons of the Sieur de Guisnes.

Blunt is an ancient English name that in the forms of Le Blunt and Le Blund was represented in this county, as well as in Norfolk, Lincolnshire, Oxfordshire, and Wiltshire, in the 13th century (H. R.). It is now also established in Northamptonshire, Leicestershire, and Rutlandshire.