♂Humphrey de Bohun

Humphrey de Bohun^W (died 24 September 1275) was an English magnate, Earl of Hereford and Essex and hereditary Constable of England^W, who served Henry III in war, at court and in council, helped draw up the Provisions of Oxford in 1258, and was taken prisoner at the Battle of Lewes in 1264. He was the twenty-first great-grandfather of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006), through his daughter Alice de Bohun.

Early life

Humphrey is said to have been born before 1208, the son and heir of Henry de Bohun, Earl of Hereford, one of the twenty-five barons chosen to guarantee Magna Carta, and of Maud de Mandeville. He fought in France in 1230, and at the coronation of Queen Eleanor^W in 1236 he served as Marshal of the Household. That same year his mother died, and he succeeded her as Earl of Essex. In 1237 he made a pilgrimage to Santiago^W in Spain.

Marriages

His first wife was Maud of Eu, a daughter of Raoul d’Exoudun, Count of Eu, and of Alice, the daughter of Henry, Count of Eu. Humphrey and Maud had four sons and four daughters, among them Alice, who was married by an agreement of 1239 to Roger de Tony. Maud died on 14 August 1241 and was buried at Llanthony Abbey^W near Gloucester. Humphrey then married Maud de Avenbury, and they had two sons, John and Miles.

The king and the barons

In 1242 Humphrey went with the king’s expedition to France, and he fought in Gascony in 1242 and 1253 and in Wales in 1257. In 1246 he joined the English peers in their letter of remonstrance to Pope Innocent IV, and in 1250 he took the cross and went to the Holy Land as a crusader. In 1252 he spoke in defense of Simon de Montfort.

In 1258 he was one of the twenty-four councilors who drew up the Provisions of Oxford^W, the reforms that placed the king’s government under the oversight of a council of barons, and he served first as one of the original commissioners and then on the council of fifteen. In 1259 he was the king’s representative for keeping the peace between France and England, and in 1260 he sat as a justice itinerant for Gloucestershire, Worcestershire and Herefordshire. When the quarrel became open war in 1263–64, the Second Barons’ War^W, he took the king’s side, and he was taken prisoner at the Battle of Lewes^W on 14 May 1264.

Last years

His second wife died at Sorges in Gascony on 8 October 1273 and was buried there. In 1275 the Bishop of Worcester gave Humphrey a dispensation to eat meat on Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays in Lent. He died on 24 September 1275 and was buried before the high altar of Llanthony Abbey, outside Gloucester. In 1290 his son John brought the remains of his mother, Maud de Avenbury, from France and buried them at Llanthony beside her husband. Through Alice’s line the pedigrees carry his descent down to John Washburn (died 1547), whom they make a son of Joan Mitton; that last link is probable rather than documented, and the Notes explain why.

Notes

Sources

Humphrey’s parentage, birth, career, both marriages, his children and his death and burial are given by Douglas Richardson in Magna Carta Ancestry (2005), pp. 99–100 (Bohun 2), which cites, among others, the Complete Peerage (vol. 6, 1926, pp. 459–462, under Hereford), the Dictionary of National Biography and Dugdale’s Baronage. His daughter Alice’s marriage agreement of 1239 is from p. 824 (Tony 3).

His numbering as earl

Richardson numbers him the sixth Earl of Hereford and the seventh Earl of Essex, counting the earlier holders of both titles. Works that count only the Bohun earls of Hereford call him the second Earl.

The Llanthony pedigree

Richardson cites an old Bohun pedigree among the records of Llanthony Abbey, printed in Dugdale’s Monasticon Anglicanum (vol. 6, part 1, 1830, pp. 134–136): “Humfredus [de Bohun] desponsavit primo Matildem filiam comitis de Ewe in Normannia”, Humphrey de Bohun married first Maud, the daughter of the count of Eu in Normandy.

The descent through John Washburn

That the John whom the pedigrees give as a son of Joyce Botetourt’s great-granddaughter Joan Mitton was John Washburn of Bengeworth, who died in 1547, is the identification of the Washbournes’ historian, James Davenport, not a record’s, so the descent through him is given here as probable.