De Bohun Family History & Genealogy

History

The Anglo-Norman Bohun family[
The Bohun family played an important part in English history during the 13th and 14th centuries. The name Bohun was taken from a village situated in the Cotentin between Coutances and the estuary of the Vire.[1]

Name Origin

Wace speaks of him as among the foremost in the battle; yet all he received was the Norfolk manor of Talesford. It was the extraordinary succession of great alliances made by his descendants that gave the name its lustre, and wealth of accumulated dignities. His son, Humphrey Magnus, founded the fortunes of his family by his marriage with a great Wiltshire heiress, the daughter of Edward of Salisbury; and his grandson, Humphrey III., married the eldest of the three daughters of Milo of Gloucester, Earl of Hereford, Constable of England, and eventually the co-heir of her brother Mahel. She brought him as her dower, with twenty knight's fees, the office of Lord High Constable, which "went with inheritance, and by the tenure of the manors of Haslefield, Newman, and Whitenhurst,[49] in Gloucestershire, by grand serjeancy."—Duncumb's Herefordshire. He was Seneschal to Henry I., and Sewer both in Normandy and England to the Empress Maud, in whose cause he fought and was taken prisoner at the battle of Winchester. His only son, Humphrey IV., whose wife was a Scottish princess named Margaret, sister of William the Lion, and widow of Conan le Petit, Earl of Brittany and Richmond, was Constable of England in his mother's right, and according to the chartulary of Llanthony Abbey (their burial-place), succeeded to her Earldom: but in truth this was first granted to the next in succession, Henry de Bohun, by King John's charter of 1199. This Earl of Hereford was one of the twenty-five great barons appointed at Runnimede to be the guardians of Magna Charta; and "the next ensuing year, the Barons raising fresh troubles, was by the procurement of the King, excommunicated by the Pope."—

Spellings & Pronunciations

Bohun, de bohun .. pronounced Boone

Nationality & Ethnicity

Two leagues south of Carentan, in a low and isolated situation, adjoining the Marshes of the Taute, are the two villages called the Bohons—the parishes of St. Georges and St. Andre-de-Bohon—that gave their name to this illustrious house. They belong to the arrondissement of St. Lo, in the Cotentin. The site of the castle, with its moat, are plainly visible near St. Andre. Humphrey de Bohon founded a Benedictine Priory at St. Georges in 1092.—M. de Gerville.

"De Bohun le Vieil Onfrei," who held the fief at the time of the Conquest, and was known as Humphrey with the Beard,[48] though said to have been near of kin to Duke William, was but slenderly rewarded for his prowess at Hastings. It thus became the cognizance of Thomas of Woodstock, the husband of the eldest co-heiress of the Bohuns (hence called by Gower Vox clementis cygni), whose seal is diapered with ostrich feathers and swans. His Duchess Eleanor bequeaths to her son Humphrey "un psaultier, bien et richement enlumine, ove les claspes d'or enamailes ove cignes blank": and when this good Duke, Lord Protector of Henry VI., was murdered in 1447. a poem of the time announces that "The Swanne is goon." Henry IV., who married the other co-heiress, bore her silver swan, ducally gorged and chained Or, on his banner; and it is one of the badges, used by Henry V., that are carved on the cornice of his chantry in Westminster Abbey.

Humphrey V., Earl both of Hereford and Essex as the son of this illustrious heiress, officiated as Marshal of the King's house at Henry III.'s marriage in 1236, and three years later was one of the nine godfathers of his eldest son. "The custody of the Marches of Wales was committed to him, and he acquired the truly honourable distinction of the Good Earl of Hereford from his zealous opposition to the arbitrary measures proposed by the King."—Duncumb. Twice already he had protested against them; once in 1227, when he "demanded the restoration of the Charter of Liberties;" and again in 1253, "when that formal curse was denounced in Westminster Hall against the Violaters of Magna Charta, with Bell, Book, and Candle."—Dugdale. When the Barons' War broke out, he and his two sons were foremost in taking up arms against the King; and the eldest of them, Humphrey VI., was one of the chief commanders at Lewes, and again at the disastrous rout of Evesham, where, "it is said by some, that when he came near the place of fight, he withdrew himself." Be this as it may, both he and his father were taken prisoners; and while the Earl was pardoned and restored within the year, the son died soon after in captivity at Beeston Castle in Cheshire, whither he had been carried. Faithful to the family tradition, he had taken to wife an heiress of the best blood in England, Eleanor de Braose, the daughter of the Lord of Brecknock, by Eva, one of the five co-heirs of William Mareschal, Earl of Pembroke; and their son, Humphrey VII., inherited the Earldom at his grandfather's death in 1275. He and Roger Bigod were the two bold Earls who, in 1296, when ordered out to take the command of the army in Gascony, declared they would go if the King went, but not else; for, as Lord High Constable and Earl Marshal of England, they were bound only to attend upon the Sovereign himself in war. To assert their privilege, "the two Earls put themselves in Arms; which being discerned, that business was prosecuted no further."—Dugdale.

The next heir, Humphrey VIII, achieved the crowning triumph in this long category of splendid alliances by marrying the King's daughter, Elizabeth Plantagenet, widow of John, Earl of Holland. He followed his father-in-law to Scotland on five several occasions, and is

"li Conestables
Joefnes homes, riches et metables,
Ki Ouens estoit de Herefort;"

of the Roll of Carlaverock; justly described as "the most distinguished nobleman in the kingdom." Five years afterwards, he received from Edward I. a grant of the whole territory of Annandale, that had been wrested from Robert Bruce. During the next reign he was the determined antagonist of the King's worthless favourites, actively opposed Piers Gaveston, and was present when he was beheaded near Warwick in 1314; then engaging with equal zeal against the younger Despencer, he joined the Earl of Lancaster in his unsuccessful revolt. He lost his life after the defeat at Boroughbridge, where, while endeavouring to cross the bridge, he was run through the body with a lance by a soldier that lurked underneath. He left five surviving sons; John, Humphrey, Edward, William, and AEneas; of whom the two elder each inherited the Earldoms. John held them only four years; Humphrey IX., who succeeded at twenty-four, died unmarried in 1361; Edward was already dead, leaving no issue; and the honours and heritage descended on William's son, Humphrey X.

William de Bohun, "a right valiant and expert commander," who had died the year preceding, was created Earl of Northampton when the Black Prince was created Duke of Cornwall in 1337, and received splendid grants from the Crown, including the castle and town of Stamford with the lordship of Grantham in Lincolnshire, Fotheringhay in Northamptonshire, and Oakham in Rutlandshire. No man had more fairly earned the King's favour. He served him well and faithfully through life, following step by step in the wake of his fortunes, and commended as an excellent soldier in an age when, all alike competed for glory in the field. He was one of the Marshals of the army in Flanders in 1338; in the great sea-fight at Sluys in 1340; at "that famous Feast and Jousting, which the King made for love of the Countess of Salisbury" in the same year; his Lieutenant and Captain-General in Brittany in 1342; among the chief leaders of the heroes of Cressy; twice commissioned to treat with the Scots, and Lord Warden of the Marches towards Scotland. His wife, Elizabeth, one of the co-heiresses of Giles, last Lord Badlesmere, was a great benefactress of the Church; and among numerous other gifts, bestowed on the house of the Black Friars in Ludgate (where she was buried) "a Cross made of the Wood of the very Cross of Our Saviour, which she usually carried about her, wherein was contained one of the Thorns of his Crown."

Humphrey X. united the three Earldoms of Hereford, Essex, and Northampton, "but these great honours were not long by him enjoyed"; for he died in his thirty-second year, the last survivor of his princely race. He had married the daughter of his guardian the Earl of Arundel, and left only two little girls to represent all the power, wealth and grandeur of the Bohuns. Both of them were matched with the kindred blood of Plantagenet. Eleanor, the eldest, married Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester, the sixth son of Edward III., to whom she brought the office of Lord High Constable, and the Lordships of Essex and Northampton. The second, Mary, became Queen of England. Her husband, Henry Earl of Derby, the son of John of Gaunt, was created Duke of Hereford in her honour two years before he ascended the throne as the first King of the House of Lancaster.

The Barons Bohun of Midhurst represented, in the female line, a younger son of "le viel Onfroy" of the Conquest, Richard de Meri, Sieur de Bohun, 1070-1113, whose daughter and heir carried his Norman barony to one Engelger, supposed to have been by birth an Angevin. Engelger's daughter must have been the wife of Savaric Fitz Cana, for their eldest surviving son, Savaric Fitz Savaric, inherited the barony in 1180.

Savaric Fitz Cana was the son of Cana, daughter of Gelduin II., Lord of Chaumont-sur-Loire, by her second husband, Ralph de Beaumont, Vicomte du Mans, whom she married about 1055. When the Honour of Arundel was forfeited to the Crown in 1102 by the outlawry of Robert de Belesme, some "rich manors lying on either bank of the Arun between Arundel and the sea," were bestowed upon Savaric, to which Henry I., by a subsequent grant, added Easebourn, Midhurst, and Lynchmere. His eldest son died s. p., and the second, Savaric Fitz Savaric, became Baron of Bohun on the death of his uncle, Engelger II.;[51] but he again left no posterity, and the son of the third brother, Franco Fitz Gelduin, became the heir. He is best known as Franco de Bohun, the name which he adopted and transmitted to his descendants. His grandson and namesake, who obtained a share in the great Pembroke inheritance through his marriage with Sibyl, one of the seven daughters of William de Ferrars Earl of Derby, by his first wife, Sibyl de Mareschal, was summoned to Parliament in 1295 as one of the barons of realm. This writ of summons, was, however, never repeated either to his son or grandson, and it was not till 1354 that one was received by his great-grandson John, Lord Bohun of Midhurst. But neither his son John nor his descendants were ranked, as Dugdale relates, among the barons of the realm, thus showing, in Dugdale's opinion, that a writ of summons was not then conceived to create an hereditary dignity. The said John de Bohun had a son Humphrey, whose son, another John, had issue two daughters his co-heirs, whereof Mary married David Owen, a natural son of Owen Tudor; and Ursula married Robert Southwell, but had not any issue.

"Sir David Owen, by Mary his wife, had Henry his. eldest son, who was a great spendthrift, and sold the reversion of the manor of Cowdrey, co. Sussex, &c, after his father's death, to Sir William Fitz William, for two thousand one hundred and ninety-three pounds, six shillings, and eight-pence."—Banks.

Famous People named De Bohun

Eleanor de Bohun (c.1366–1399); elder sister and co-heiress of Mary de Bohun.
Henry de Bohun, 1st Earl of Hereford (1176–1220); a Norman-English nobleman.
Henry de Bohun (d. 1314); English knight killed by Robert I of Scotland at Bannockburn.
Humphrey de Bohun (disambiguation), multiple people with the name.
Mary de Bohun (c. 1368–1394); the first wife of King Henry IV of England and mother of King Henry V.
William de Bohun, 1st Earl of Northampton, KG (ca. 1312 – 1360); English nobleman and military commander who won the Battle of Crécy for England.
Gilbert de Bohun (c. 1303 – 1381); heir to the titles of Lord High Constable of England, Earl of Hereford, Earl of Essex, Earl of Northampton, four castles, and over one-hundred lordship manors; had issue Joan de Bohun.
Joan de Bohun (c.1332 – 1414); heiress to her father's (cousin's) titles, married Walter Weaver in 1362; had male issue.
John Bohun Abbot of Bury St Edmunds, 1453–1469

Early De Bohuns