Sir Humphrey Bourchier

Soldier

Sir Humphrey Bourchier (or Bourgchier) is buried in St Edmund's chapel in Westminster Abbey. He was the great grandson of Eleanor de Bohun, Duchess of Gloucester.

The Purbeck marble altar tomb once had a brass figure in armour on it which has been lost, but four engraved shields of arms and his crest of a Saracen's head still remain, together with the inscription plate. The feet originally rested on a leopard and an eagle.

The Latin inscription can be translated:

Behold lying here the warrior at Barnet, eager for fierce fights; he fights like Eacides [another name for Achilles]; the knight is wounded on all sides; he falls smitten; Mars brings him a wound; his armour spattered in many places with blood grows red. Lo, the tearful grief of the hour. He falls, indeed, from the light, whither Christ rose from the dead. Humphrey Bourgchier, sprung from the glorious line of King Edward, called the Third, the son and heir of John, Lord Berners. And lo, Edward the Fourth has the triumph in the battle, in which Humphrey dies a true servant of the king. He was an attendant at the table of the king's wife Elizabeth; so his virtue grows with honour; once this man was distinguished in arms and dear to Britons; ask in your prayers that he may live in heaven

The comparison to Achilles is unique in medieval inscriptions in England.

He died at the battle of Barnet in 1471 fighting for Edward IV. The queen mentioned is Elizabeth Woodville. The coats of arms include those of Bourgchier - a cross engrailed between four water bougets or leather water carriers - Louvain, Berners, Tilney and Thorpe.

His life

He was probably born in the 1440s, the son of Sir John Bourchier (died 1474), Lord Berners, and his wife Margery, daughter of Sir Richard Berners, and grandson of Sir William Bourchier and Anne, daughter of Thomas of Woodstock, son of Edward III.

With his father he held the post of constable of Windsor Castle. He married heiress Elizabeth Tilney (she remarried Thomas Howard later Earl of Surrey and had ten children by him and died in 1497). Their son John (born 1467) succeeded his grandfather as Lord Berners and married Katherine, daughter of John Howard, Duke of Norfolk. He became Chancellor of the Exchequer to Henry VIII and died in 1533.

He had two legitimate daughters Margaret, baroness Bryan, who was a governess to the children of Henry VIII, and Anne, lady of the bedchamber to Katherine of Aragon, who married Thomas Fiennes, Lord Dacre.

See also Sir Lewis Robessart, Lord Bourchier, an earlier kinsman of Humphrey.

His cousin Sir Humphrey Bourchier, Lord Cromwell is buried in the same chapel, near the grave of Robert de Waldeby, but has no brass remaining. His father was Henry Bourchier or Bouchier, Earl of Essex and his mother was Isabel, daughter of Richard, Earl of Cambridge, aunt of Edward IV. He was Constable of Nottingham Castle and Steward of Sherwood Forest. He married Joan daughter of Sir Richard Stanhope and also died at the battle of Barnet, on 14th April 1471, leaving no legitimate children.