According to Pole the Spekes were "Men of very great estate and condicion", and were powerful in early Norman England, as appears from the style used by members of the family in their grants of land and other charters, one of which (exemplified in the cartulary of Torre Abbey[6]) contains the following wording in Latin:[7] According to the Devon historian Thomas Westcote (c. 1567 – c. 1637): The family is remembered today in the parish of Wembworthy by the crossroads near the parish church known as Speke's Cross.

[8] His father died in 1444 when John was aged 2, and his wardship and marriage were granted by the crown jointly to[9] William de la Pole, 1st Marquess of Suffolk (1396–1450) (later Duke of Suffolk), William Waynflete (c. 1398 – 1486), Provost of Eton (later Bishop of Winchester), and John Hampton (died 1472) of Kinver, Staffordshire, (whose monument was once in Kinver Church), Esquire of the Body to King Henry VI, all three of whom in 1442, together with others had been placed in charge of the foundation of Eton College by King Henry VI.

Her ancestor was William Wynard (alias Wonard or Wenar), Recorder of Exeter (1404–1442), whose house was in South Street on the site of the present White Hart Inn, who founded Wynard's Almshouse or Hospital in Magdalen Street, Exeter (still standing), on 20 January 1436 together with the attached chapel of the Holy Trinity and Maison Dieu.

[38] The first clause in his will was:[39] Amongst the lands with which he had endowed his chancery (by conveying them to the Dean and Canons of Exeter Cathedral) was the manor of Langford Fivehead in Somerset.

[40] The text of his grant is as follows:[41] The recumbent effigy of Sir John Speke, dressed in full armour, lies within a canopied recess in the north wall.

The walls are highly decorated with relief sculpture in panels, with stone vaulted ceiling with pendants, "not an inch left unadorned".

[42] The decorations include much heraldry and several instances of the canting heraldic device of the Speke family, the porcupine, in French porc-épic, ("spiky-pig").