Other Events and Attributes:

• Name: Elizabeth Tilney
• _UID: F4E9F64C29D7D711BA22AAFF03D374360CB7

Family/Spouse: Sir Humphrey Bourchier, Knight, 1st and last Lord Bourchier of Cromwell. Humphrey (son of John Bourchier, 1st Baron Berners and Margorie Berners, Baroness Berners) was born between 1440 and 1444 in Halstead, Essex, England; died on 14 Apr 1471 in Battle of Barnet, Hertfordshire, England; was buried in Westminster Abbey, London, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Elizabeth married Earl of Surrey Thomas Howard on 30 Apr 1472. Thomas was born in 1443 in Stoke Neyland; died on 21 May 1524 in Framlingham Castle; was buried on 26 Jun 1524 in Thetford Abbey. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Born around 1468 in Beningbrough, Yorkshire, England or 1467 in Tharfield, hertfordshire, son of Sir Humphrey Bourchier and Elizabeth Tilney. He had royal descent through his great grandmother on his father's side, Anne of Woodstock, Countess of Buckingham, the granddaughter of King Edward III. Humphrey Bourchier was heir to the title Baron Berners but died before his father, being killed during the Wars of the Roses at the Battle of Barnet. John succeeded to the title as second Baron Berners. His mother remarried at Sir Humphrey´s death; her second husband was Thomas Howard, 2nd Duke of Norfolk. This connection made him uncle to Anne Boleyn as well as a member of the wider circle of kin and dependents around the Howard family. John Bourchier was brother of Margaret, lady Bryan, governess of the three children of Henry VIII.

Little is known of his career till after the accession of Henry VII. In 1492 he entered into a contract 'to serue the King in his warres beyond see on hole yeere with two speres' (Rymer, Foedera, xii. 479). In 1497 he helped to repress the Cornish rebellion in behalf of Perkin Warbeck. It is fairly certain that he and Henry VIII were acquainted as youths, and the latter showed Berners much favour in the opening years of his reign. In 1513 he travelled in the King's retinue to Calais, and was present at the capture of Terouenne. Later in the same year he was marshal of his step father, the Earl of Surrey's army in Scotland. When the Princess Mary married Louis XII (9 Oct 1514), Berners was sent with her to France as her chamberlain. But he did not remain abroad. On 18 May 1514 he had been granted the reversion to the office of chancellor of the exchequer, and on 28 May 1516 Berners was sent with John Kite, Archbishop of Armagh, on a special mission to Spain to form an alliance between Henry VIII and Carlos V of Spain. The letters of the envoys represent Berners as suffering from severe gout. He sent the King accounts of the bull-baiting and other sports that took place at the Spanish Court. The negotiations dragged on from Apr to Dec, and the irregularity with which money was sent to the envoys from home caused them much embarrassment (cf. Berners to Wolsey, 26 Jul 1518, in Brewer's Letters &c. of Henry VIII).

Early in 1519 Berners was again in England, and he, with his wife, attended Henry VIII at the Field of the Cloth of Gold in the next year. The privy council thanked him (2 Jul 1520) for the account of the ceremonial which he forwarded to them. Throughout this period Berners, when in England, regularly attended parliament, and was in all the commissions of the peace issued for Hertfordshire and Surrey. But his pecuniary resources were failing him. He had entered upon several harasssing lawsuits touching property in Staffordshire, Wiltshire, and elsewhere. As early as 1511 he had borrowed 350 pounds of the King, and the load was frequently repeated. In Dec 1520 he left England to become deputy of Calais, during pleasure, with 100 pounds yearly as salary and 104 pounds as "spyall money".

His letters to Wolsey and other officers of state prove him to have been busily engaged in succeeding years in strengthening the fortifications of Calais and in watching the armies of France and the Low Countries in the neighborhood. In 1522 he received Carlos V. In 1528 he obtained grants of manors in Surrey, Wiltshire, Hampshire, and Oxfordshire. In 1529 and 1531 he sent Henry VIII gifts of hawks (Privy Purse Expenses, pp. 54, 231). But his pecuniary troubles were increasing, and his debts to the crown remained unpaid. Early in 1532-3, while Berners was very ill. Henry VIII directed his agents in Calais to watch over the deputy's personal effects in the interests of his creditors. On 16 Mar 1532-3 Berners died, and he was buried in the parish church of Calais by his special direction. All his goods were placed under arrest and an inventory taken, which is still at the Record Office, and proves Berners to have lived in no little state. Eighty books and four pictures are mentioned among his household furniture. By his will (3 Mar 1532-3) he left his chief property in Calais to Francis Hastings, his executor, who became Earl of Huntingdon in 1544 (Chronicle of Calais, Camd. Soc. p. 164).

Berners married Catherine, daughter of John Howard, Duke of Norfolk, by whom he had a daughter, Joan or Jane, the wife of Edmund Knyvett of Ashwellthorp in Norfolk, who succeeded to her father's estates in England. Small legacies were also left to his illegitimate sons, Humphrey, James, and George. The Barony of Berners was long in abeyance. Lord Berners daughter and heiress died in 1561, and her grandson, Sir Thomas Knyvett, petitioned the crown to grant him the barony, but died 9 Feb 1616-7 before his claim was ratified. In 1720 Elizabeth, a great-granddaughter of Sir Thomas, was confirmed in the barony and bore the title of Baroness Berners, but she died without issue in 1743, and the barony fell again into abeyance.

from http://www.tudorplace.com.ar/BOURCHIER1.htm#Robert De BOURCHIER1

~~~~~~~~~

from http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/62492/John-Bourchier-2nd-Baron-Berners
John Bourchier, 2nd Baron Berners, (born c. 1467, Tharfield, Hertfordshire, Eng.—died March 16, 1532/33, Calais?, France), English writer and statesman, best known for his simple, fresh, and energetic translation (vol. 1, 1523; vol. 2, 1525) from the French of Jean Froissart’s Chroniques.

Berners’ active political and military career started early when at the age of 15 he was defeated in a premature attempt to make Henry Tudor, earl of Richmond (later Henry VII), king. He helped to suppress the 1497 Cornish rebellion in favour of Perkin Warbeck, pretender to the English throne, and served the crown in campaigns in France and Scotland. He was involved in English diplomacy concerning Henry VIII’s alliances with France and Spain and was present at the Field of Cloth of Gold, at which Henry and Francis I of France met to pledge their friendship. His appointment in 1520 as deputy of Calais helped him to a stable income, ending the royal loans he had been constantly receiving. He held the post, except from 1526 to 1531, until his death.

Berners’ translation of the French romance The Boke Huon de Bordeuxe, which introduces Oberon, king of the fairies, into English literature, is almost as successful as his translation of Froissart. Near the end of his life, he translated into English prose two of the newly fashionable courtesy books: The Castell of Love, by Diego de San Pedro, and The Golden Boke of Marcus Aurelius, by Antonio de Guevara. The latter was by far the most popular of his works.

{ this is the first and only mention I have found of Tharfield outside the Eastern Cape - Paul TT}

~~~~~~~~~~

from http://www.bartleby.com/209/42.html : -
John Bourchier, or Bouchier, afterwards Lord Berners, was descended from a family of great distinction, which could claim kinship with the Plantagenets, and which had already furnished a long list of men high in Church and State. The Bourchiers had at first been supporters of the Lancastrian House: but had afterwards joined the Yorkist party, on whose behalf our author’s grandfather, Lord Berners (whom he succeeded), fought at St. Albans, while his father, Humphrey Bourchier, fell at Barnet fighting on the same side. John Bourchier was born about 1467, and succeeded to the title in 1474. Even as a child he seems to have lived at the Court, and was knighted in 1477; but, according to the growing custom of the day which no longer countenanced the complete separation of arms from letters, he was sent to Oxford, where, according to Anthony Wood, he belonged to Balliol College. After his stay at the University he travelled abroad, returning to England when the Earl of Richmond became Henry VII., with the Bourchier family amongst his chief supporters. It was a member of that family, Cardinal Bourchier, Archbishop of Canterbury, who placed the crown on Henry’s head. In the following years Lord Berners distinguished himself in military service, and he continued as high in favour with Henry VIII. as with his father. He served under Lord Surrey in Scotland, and was employed on embassies of high importance. About 1520 he seems to have been appointed Governor of Calais, and there he spent his last years, employed at Henry’s command, upon the translation of Froissart’s Chronicles from the French. He died in 1532.

BY birth, by education, by association and employment; as the head of a great family, from his youth a courtier; as the companion in arms as well as in letters of his kinsman, Surrey; as conversant not only with the learning of Oxford, but with the active life of the counsellor and the soldier; as acquainted not only with the languages but with the rulers of all the leading European states—Lord Berners was one on whose head all that was choicest in the England of his day seemed to unite, so as to make him in truth one of the most typical figures in an age when the chivalry of the past was linked, as it were, with the intellectual activity of the future. His work has precisely the qualities which such a training and such opportunities were likely to give: and it is perhaps not too much to say that there is no one who, without producing a work of original genius or research, has laid English literature under such a heavy debt of obligation, as Lord Berners by his translation of Froissart. From the abundance of French and Spanish romances he translated a few specimens: and he also made a translation from a French version of the Spaniard Guevara’s work entitled the Golden Book of Marcus Aurelius, or El Relox de Principles. As Guevara’s work was not published until 1529, and as no French version is known to have appeared in Berners’ time, some doubt may be felt as to the genesis of the book. But these works have long been forgotten: his chief achievement, and that by which his name must live, is his reproduction of the French Chronicle in a translation, which, by the rarest of literary gifts, has all the energy and verve of an original work.
Berners’ work is an advance no less upon the laboured ponderousness of works which produced, in an English dress, the old chroniclers, than upon the more ornate, but fantastic and shadowy translations of the romances. He had the good fortune in following a royal order (which is enough of itself to prove a rare literary sagacity in Henry VIII.), to find an author between whom and himself—though separated by a century of time—there was a close sympathy of thought and interest. This was the first condition of success; but that success was made still more sure by the union of a romantic fancy with experience of active life, and of the pomp and pageantry that surround the great. Nor was Berners simply the laureate of chivalry. Faithful as he is to his original, we can yet trace his own feeling through his choice of words, and he is able to give us an impression of earnest sympathy with every phase of the amazingly varied scene through which the Chronicle leads us.
We have seen how even in Fabyan’s Concordance of Histories, with all its roughness and coldness, the interest grows, and the force of the narrative increases as he comes nearer to the events of his own days, and more especially when he tells of that Government of London, in which he had himself borne a part. But in Berners we have got many strides further away from the monkish chronicler, to whom it never even remotely occurred that any words that fell from his pen should recall scenes of real life—of a life, heard in his cloister only as a confused and distant babble of noise. It is the very opposite of the mood of the monkish chronicler which gives to Berners’ translation those qualities that make it a model of style, simple, direct, and unaffected, and yet with a force and intensity of feeling which the most elaborate affectations of more laboured ingenuity would seek in vain to reproduce.
The translation undoubtedly marks the highest point to which English narrative prose had as yet reached. It attains its effect by no straining after a purity of Saxon diction, which some are pleased to consider the distinctive mark of excellence. Like all the early masters of English prose, Berners was bold in his appropriation of foreign words. Occasionally he reminds us even of the perfect English of the book of Common Prayer in his harmonious variations between words of Teutonic and of Romance origin. But his style was far too flexible and mobile to be confined to the narrow range, within which are to be found the meagre currents that go to feed the beginnings of our language, and to which the pedantry of the Teutonic purist would confine the ideal of English prose.
Lord Berners is a master of English style, then, partly because he found in his author one with whose subjects and whose methods he was in complete sympathy: partly because by the teaching of the university, the training of the Court, and the discipline of experience, he had learned to realise what he described, and thus to impart to it a force which no laboured art could improve: and partly because his intimate acquaintance with the Romance languages opened to him a wide range of words which he made no scruple of appropriating at his need. We are perhaps apt to persuade ourselves, in reading these early authors, that the harmonious charm of their style comes in great measure from their almost childish simplicity. The persuasion is more flattering to ourselves than true. Artistic skill like that of Berners is rarely unconscious: that it conceals itself does not rob it of the character of art. And the particular instance of Berners suggests a contrast that is not soothing to our self-respect. Froissart has been twice translated into English; by Berners, and again in the early days of this century by Mr. Johnes, a Welsh squire and member of Parliament, of literary tastes and most creditable industry. The work of Mr. Johnes obtained much favour from our grandfathers; but a comparison with that of Berners shews us at least to what a bathos English prose can fall. Let us take a few sentences at random, from Berners and from Johnes.
First this from Lord Berners—
“Wherefore he came on a night and declared all this to the queen, and advised her of the peril that she was in. Then the queen was greatly abashed, and required him, all weeping, of his good counsel. Then he said, Madame, I counsel you that ye depart and go in to the Empire, where as there be many great lords who may right well aid you, and specially the Earl William of Hainault, and Sir John of Hainault, his brother. These two are great lords and wise men, true, dread, and redoubted of their enemies.”

Then the parallel passage in Mr. Johnes:—
“He therefore came in the middle of the night to inform the queen of the peril she was in. She was thunderstruck at the information, to which he added, “I recommend you to set out for the Empire, where there are many noble lords who may greatly assist you, particularly William, Earl of Hainault, and his brother, who are both great lords, and wise and loyal men, and much dreaded by their enemies.”

Let us next compare a few sentences (taken from one of the extracts which follow) with their counterparts in Johnes. This is from the scene at Bruce’s death-bed, as given by Lord Berners.
“Then he called to him the gentle knight, Sir James Douglas, and said before all the lords, Sir James, my dear friend, ye know well that I have had much ado in my days to uphold and sustain the right of this realm: and when I had most ado, I made a solemn vow, the which as yet I have not accomplished, whereof I am right sorry: the which was, if I might achieve and make an end of all my wars, so that I might once have brought this realm in rest and peace, then I promised in my mind to have gone and warred on Christ’s enemies, adversaries to our holy Christian faith…. Then all the lords that heard these words wept for pity. And when this knight, Sir James Douglas, might speak for weeping, he said, Ah, gentle and noble King, an hundred times I thank your grace of the great honour that ye do to me, sith of so noble and great treasure ye give me in charge: and, sir, I shall do with a glad heart all that ye have commanded me, to the best of my true power: howbeit, I am not worthy nor sufficient to achieve such a noble enterprise. Then the King said, Ah, gentle knight, I thank you, so ye will promise to do it. Sir, said the knight, I shall do it undoubtedly, by the faith that I owe to God, and to the order of knighthood.”

Here is Mr. Johnes’s version of the same lines:—
“He after that called to him the gallant lord James Douglas, and said to him in presence of the others: “My dear friend, lord James Douglas, you know that I have had much to do, and have suffered many troubles during the time I have lived, to support the rights of my crown: at the time that I was most occupied I made a vow, the non-accomplishment of which gives me much uneasiness—I vowed that if I could finish my wars in such a manner that I might have quiet to govern peaceably, I would go and make war against the enemies of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the adversaries of the Christian faith…. All those present began bewailing bitterly, and when the lord James could speak, he said, “Gallant and noble King, I return you a hundred thousand thanks for the high honour you do me, and for the valuable and dear treasure with which you entrust me, and I will willingly do all that you command me with the utmost loyalty in my power: never doubt it, however I may feel myself unworthy of such a high distinction. The King replied, “Gallant knight, I thank you—you promise it me then?” “Certainly, Sir, most willingly,” answered the knight. He then gave his promise upon his knighthood.

If we wish to measure the decadence of English prose in the course of three centuries, no description can help half so much as the comparison of these few paragraphs, sentence by sentence and word by word. The same lesson might be drawn from any page taken at random of the old and the new translation. Yet in 1812 the editor of Berners actually offers an apology for reproducing “the venerable production,” now that “the elegant modern translation by Mr. Johnes has made the contents generally familiar!” Perhaps we have recovered somewhat from the style of Johnes,—it is so much gained that we know that it is not elegant, but execrably bad,—but the grace of Lord Berners is something that we can never by any possibility recover. An affected archaicism will not bring us one hair’s-breadth nearer to it. 11
The translation was printed by Pynson in 1523 and 1525. The best modern edition is that published in London in 1812, with a memoir of Lord Berners, and an index."

end of from http://www.bartleby.com/209/42.html :
~~~~~~~~~~~~

see also : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Bourchier,_2nd_Baron_Berners
and
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/1911_Encyclop%C3%A6dia_Britannica/Berners,_John_Bourchier

John married Lady Katherine Howard, Baroness Berners before 13 May 1490. Katherine (daughter of Lord John Howard, 1st Duke of Norfolk and Margaret Chedworth) was born about 1471 in Tendring, Essex, England; died on 12 Mar 1536 in Tendring Hall, Stoke-By-Nayland, Suffolk, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Family/Spouse: Elizabeth Becon. Elizabeth was born in 1474; died in 1510. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Margaret was born around 1468 in Beningbrough, Yorkshire, England, dau. of Sir Humphrey Bourchier and Elizabeth Tilney. Margaret Bryan could boast royal Plantagenet bloodlines for herself through her great grandmother on her father's side, Anne of Woodstock, Countess of Buckingham, who was herself the granddaughter of King Edward III. Humphrey Bourchier was heir to the title Baron Berners but died before his father, killed at the Battle of Barnet while fighting for the Yorkists. Margaret's brother John succeeded to the title as second Baron Berners. Her mother remarried at Sir Humphrey´s death; her second husband was Thomas Howard, 2nd Duke of Norfolk. Margaret was brought up with her half brothers and half sisters, including Elizabeth Howard (Anne Boleyn’s mother). This connection made Margaret an aunt to Anne Boleyn as well as a member of the wider circle of kin and dependents around the Howard family.

Humphrey Bourchier and Elizabeth Tilney had one further daughter who survived to adulthood. Margaret's younger sister was Anne Bourchier, who married Thomas Fiennes, 8th Lord Dacre, in 1492. Their son, also Thomas, was the 9th Lord Dacre who was executed for murder in 1541.

Margaret Bourchier was married three times. Her first husband, with whom there may only have been a marriage agreement (a ‘pre-contract’), was Sir John Sands (or Sandys). The marriage agreement was signed when Margaret was 10 or 11 years old on 11 Nov 1478.

Margaret married Sir Thomas Bryan about 1487. As Lady Bryan, she was present at Catalina of Aragon's wedding to Prince Henry in 1509, and was a lady in waiting to Catalina from 1509 to 1516, while her husband was vice chamberlain of the Queen’s household. She apparently brought their daughters Margaret and Elizabeth Bryan, and her son Francis with her to court. She also had charge of the upbringing of Lettice Penyston.

Known as Lady Bryan initially because of her husband's knighthood, she claimed to have been made Baroness Bryan suo jure on 18 Feb 1516, upon the birth of Princess Mary, when she was appointed as Mary's Lady Governess in charge of the nursery at Ditton Park, Buckinghamshire and at Hanworth. She remained with the Princess for five years and when she left was given an annuity of £50 for life. She may also have been Lady Governess to Henry's illigitimate but acknowledged son Henry Fitzroy. If she had responsibility also for Henry Fitzoy that would have made her tenure as Mary's Lady Governess fairly short.

Sir Thomas Bryan died sometime before 1517, and Margaret married her final husband, David Zouche. In Jul 1519, there is a record in the archives of Henry VIII's court that notes the payment of an annuity of £50 to "MARGARET BRYAN, widow of Sir Thomas Bryan, and now wife of David Soche". The annuity paid "for services to the King and queen Katharine" included "one tun of Gascon wine yearly, out of the wine received for the King's use". David Zouche may have died in 1526 or in 1536.

In 1533 she was called back to care for Elizabeth Tudor at Hatfield. From Aug 1536, there is a widely quoted letter from her to Thomas Cromwell, in which she complains of the economic difficulties of the household of lady Elizabeth since the change in her status (from legitimate to illegitimate) following the annulment of the King's marriage to her mother Anne Boleyn, and Anne's execution in May.

"Now, as my lady Elizabeth is put from that degree she was in, and what degree she is at now I know not but by hearsay, I know not how to order her or myself, or her women or grooms. I beg you to be good lord to her and hers, and that she may have raiment, for she has neither gown nor kirtle nor petticoat, nor linen for smocks, nor kerchiefs, sleeves, rails, bodystychets, handkerchiefs, mufflers, nor "begens."

She also reports that: "My lady has great pain with her teeth, which come very slowly". Elizabeth was to have serious difficulties with her teeth on and off for much of her life.

She was Lady Governess to Elizabeth for four years. Margaret Bryan passed over responsibility for Elizabeth to Catherine Champernowne in Oct 1537 following the birth of Prince Edward, who became her new charge. Later, she was put in charge of a combined household at Havering-atte-Bower. A second letter to Cromwell, dated 11 Mar 1539, describes the Prince.

"My lord Prince is in good health and merry. Would to God the King and your Lordship had seen him last night. The minstrels played, and his Grace danced and played so wantonly that he could not stand still ..."

A late mention of Margaret Bryan in the archives is a note referring to the payment of a £20 annuity to "Lady Margaret Bryane, the King's servant" in 1545.

She died in Leyton, now a suburb of London but at the time a village in Essex. The only children Lady Margaret had were in her marriage with Sir Thomas Bryan. Two of their surviving children were: Elizabeth Bryan, who became the wife of Sir Nicholas Carew, and Sir Francis Bryan, who became Lord Chief Justice of Ireland.

Margaret married John Sands on 11 Nov 1478 in Beningborough, Yorkshire, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Margaret married Sir Thomas Bryan, Knight about 1487 in Beningborough, Yorkshire, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Family/Spouse: David Zouche. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Sometime after her marriage, John Skelton, Poet Laureate of England commemorated Anne, her mother, and her two half-sisters, Elizabeth and Muriel in his poem Garlande of Laurrell, which is about an event that had occurred when he was a guest in the Howard residence of Sheriff Hutton Castle. Anne's mother, along with her three daughters and gentlewomen of her household, had placed a garland of laurel, worked in silks, gold, and pearls, upon Skelton's head as a sign of homage to the poet. The stanza which is addressed to Anne reads: "To my Lady Anne Dakers of the sowth". Her name also appears in several of Skelton's other poems.

Anne married Thomas Fiennes, 2nd Baron Dacre of the South in 1492 in Berners, Ross & Cromarty, Scotland. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• _UID: 8100C4FC09D7D711BA224445535400001533

Family/Spouse: Thomas Boleyn, Earl of Wiltshire, Earl of Ormond [Ireland] and Viscount Rochford. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Title: Duke of Norfolk
• Title: Earl Marshal of England
• Title: Earl of Surrey
• _UID: 6000C4FC09D7D711BA22444553540000F423

Thomas married Anne Plantagenet on (4 Feb 1494/1495) in Greenwich. Anne (daughter of King Edward York, King Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville) was born on 2 Nov 1475 in Westminster; died after 22 Nov 1511; was buried in Thetford. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Thomas married Elizabeth Stafford in (BEF 8 Jan 1512/1513). Elizabeth (daughter of Duke of Buckingham Edward Stafford and Eleanor Percy) was born about 1497; died on 30 Nov 1558 in Lambeth, London, England; was buried on 7 Dec 1558 in Howard Chapel, Lambeth. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• _UID: 9CEDCE57CFD7D711BA22ACE9C2156A3624E6

Family/Spouse: Unknown. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

She was interred in the church of Ashwellthorpe under the following inscription:
Jane Knyvet resteth here, the only Heir by Right
of the Lord berners, that Sir John Bourchier height,
Twenty years and three a Wyddo's Life she ledd,
Alwayes keeping Howse, where Rich and Poor were fedd;
Gentill, most quyet, void of Debate and Stryf;
Ever doying Good. Lo! thus she ledd her life;
Even to the Grave, where Erth on Erth doth ly,
On whos Soul, God grant of his abundant Mercy.
The xviii of February, MDLXI.

Jane married Edmund Knyvett, Baron Berners about 1508 in Ashwellthorpe, Norfolk, England. Edmund was born about 1484 in Buckenham, Norfolk, England; died on 1 May 1539; was buried in Ashwellthorpe, Norfolk, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

no issue

Family/Spouse: Alexander Unton. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

James married Mary Bannister about 1530. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

no issue with Elizabeth

Family/Spouse: Elizabeth Bacon. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Family/Spouse: Sir William Sharington. William died in 1535. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• _UID: 4900C4FC09D7D711BA22444553540000DDB3
• Sent to the Tower of London: 2 May 1536
• Tried: 15 May 1536, Tower of London

Notes:

Anne Boleyn (/ˈbʊlɪn/, /bəˈlɪn/ or /bʊˈlɪn/)[3][4] (c. 1501[1] – 19 May 1536) was Queen of England from 1533 to 1536 as the second wife of King Henry VIII, and Marquess of Pembroke in her own right.[5] Henry's marriage to Anne, and her subsequent execution, made her a key figure in the political and religious upheaval that was the start of the English Reformation. Anne was the daughter of Thomas Boleyn, 1st Earl of Wiltshire, and his wife, Lady Elizabeth Howard, and was educated in the Netherlands and France, largely as a maid of honour to Claude of France. She returned to England in early 1522, to marry her Irish cousin James Butler, 9th Earl of Ormond; the marriage plans were broken up by Cardinal Wolsey, and instead she secured a post at court as maid of honour to Henry VIII's wife, Catherine of Aragon.

Early in 1523 Anne was secretly betrothed to Henry Percy, son of the 5th Earl of Northumberland. In January 1524, Cardinal Wolsey broke the betrothal, Anne was sent back home to Hever Castle, and Percy was married to Lady Mary Talbot, to whom he had been betrothed since adolescence. In February/March 1526, Henry VIII began his pursuit of Anne. She resisted his attempts to seduce her, refusing to become his mistress – which her sister Mary had been. It soon became the one absorbing object of Henry's desires to annul his marriage to Queen Catherine so he would be free to marry Anne. When it became clear that Pope Clement VII would not annul the marriage, the breaking of the power of the Catholic Church in England began. In 1532, Henry granted Anne the Marquessate of Pembroke.

Henry and Anne married on 25 January 1533. On 23 May 1533, Thomas Cranmer declared Henry and Catherine's marriage null and void; five days later, he declared Henry and Anne's marriage valid. Shortly afterwards, the Pope decreed sentences of excommunication against Henry and Cranmer. As a result of this marriage and these excommunications, the first break between the Church of England and Rome took place and the Church of England was brought under the King's control. Anne was crowned Queen of England on 1 June 1533. On 7 September, she gave birth to the future Queen Elizabeth I. Henry was disappointed to have a daughter rather than a son but hoped a son would follow and professed to love Elizabeth. Anne subsequently had three miscarriages, and by March 1536, Henry was courting Jane Seymour.

Henry had Anne investigated for high treason in April 1536. On 2 May she was arrested and sent to the Tower of London, where she was tried before a jury of peers – which included Henry Percy, her former betrothed, and her own uncle, Thomas Howard – and found guilty on 15 May. She was beheaded four days later. Modern historians view the charges against her, which included adultery, incest, and witchcraft, as unconvincing. Following the coronation of her daughter Elizabeth as queen, Anne was venerated as a martyr and heroine of the English Reformation, particularly through the works of John Foxe.[6] Over the centuries, she has inspired or been mentioned in numerous artistic and cultural works. As a result, she has retained her hold on the popular imagination. Anne has been called "the most influential and important queen consort England has ever had",[7] since she provided the occasion for Henry VIII to annul his marriage to Catherine of Aragon, and declare his independence from Rome.

Anne married King Henry Tudor, King Henry VIII, Duke of Cornwall in (ABT 25 Jan 1532/1533) in Whitehall. Henry (son of King Henry Tudor, King Henry VII and Elizabeth Plantagenet, of York) was born on 28 Jun 1491 in Greenwich Palace, Greenwich; was christened in Greenwich; died on 28 Jan 1547 in Whitehall, London, Engand; was buried on 4 Feb 1547 in St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• _UID: 429304CACCDAD711BA22B8E68CB2433561B1

Mary married William Carey on (4 Feb 1519/1520). William died on 22 Jun 1528. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Family/Spouse: King Henry Tudor, King Henry VIII, Duke of Cornwall. Henry (son of King Henry Tudor, King Henry VII and Elizabeth Plantagenet, of York) was born on 28 Jun 1491 in Greenwich Palace, Greenwich; was christened in Greenwich; died on 28 Jan 1547 in Whitehall, London, Engand; was buried on 4 Feb 1547 in St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Mary married William Stafford before 1534. William died on 5 May 1556 in Geneva. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• _UID: 1FEAF64C29D7D711BA22AAFF03D374363876

Other Events and Attributes:

• _UID: 5D00C4FC09D7D711BA22444553540000F1F3

Notes:

Died:
without issue

Family/Spouse: Knight of the Garter Henry Fitzroy. Henry (son of King Henry Tudor, King Henry VIII, Duke of Cornwall and Elizabeth Blount) was born in 1519 in ?Blackmore, Essex; died on 22 Jul 1536; was buried in Thetford. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• _UID: BDEDCE57CFD7D711BA22ACE9C2156A3645F6

Family/Spouse: Mabel Burton. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• _UID: 5200C4FC09D7D711BA22444553540000E643

Notes:

Catherine Howard (c.1521 – 13 February 1542) was Queen of England from 1540 until 1541, as the fifth wife of Henry VIII who referred to her as his "rose without a thorn".[1] Catherine married Henry VIII on 28 July 1540, at Oatlands Palace, in Surrey, almost immediately after the annulment of his marriage to Anne of Cleves was arranged. Catherine was beheaded after less than two years of marriage to Henry on the grounds of treason for committing adultery while married to the King.

Catherine married King Henry Tudor, King Henry VIII, Duke of Cornwall on 28 Jul 1540. Henry (son of King Henry Tudor, King Henry VII and Elizabeth Plantagenet, of York) was born on 28 Jun 1491 in Greenwich Palace, Greenwich; was christened in Greenwich; died on 28 Jan 1547 in Whitehall, London, Engand; was buried on 4 Feb 1547 in St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Name: Raff Bourchier

Notes:

He was born in Beningbrough, Yorkshire.
He built all or part of the Elizabethan Beningbrough on a site near the present house. Ralph was 25 years of age when he inherited the estate in 1556 from his uncle John Banester, who purchases it from the crown in 1544. Before this Ralph had inherited estates in Staffordshire from his father and in 1571 was first elected to Parliament as MP for Newcastle-under-Lyme. His Elizabethan house lay approximately 300 yards south-east of the present hall. In 1580-1 he was High Sheriff of Yorkshire, and was knighted in 1584. In 1589 he was an MP for the county. When he died most of his property went to his grandsons, as his eldest son William was declared insane. The eldest was Robert who died unmarried at the age of 18 in 1606, so John inherited Beningbrough.
Note: Faris (1999, page 45)
"Ralph Bourchier, Knight, of Haughton, co. Stafford, and Beninbrough in Newton-upon-Ouse, North Riding, co. York, Knight of the Shire for Yorkshire, Sheriff of Yorkshire, Keeper of Rochester Castle, Kent, son and heir, was married for the first time to Elizabeth Hall, daughter of Francis Hall, of Grantham, co. Lincoln (descendant of King EdwardI), by Ursula, daughter of Thomas Sherington. They had two sons and four daughters. In 1556 he was heir to his uncle, John Bannaster, Esq., by which he inherited the Manor of Beninbrough. He was married for the second time to Christian Shakerley, widow of John Harding, Esq., Alderman of London, and daughter of Rowland Shakerley, of London. He was married for the third time to Anne Coote, widow.
Sir Ralph Bourchier died on 11 June 1598, and was buried at Barking, Essex. His widow died the following August. His grandson and heir, John Bourchier, Knt., subscribed as an adventurer for Virginia in 1620."

In 1575, Sir Ralph Bourchier bought the manor at Hanging Grimston and other lands in Kirby Underdale, Painsthorpe and Uncleby. He probably bought it for his son John Bourchier, who was knighted in 1609

quoted from The National Trust.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~#

from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beningbrough_Hall

Beningbrough Hall is a large Georgian mansion near the village of Beningbrough, North Yorkshire, England, and overlooks the River Ouse.

It has baroque interiors, cantilevered stairs, wood carving and central corridors which run the length of the house. Externally the house is a red-brick Georgian mansion with a grand drive running to the main frontage and a walled garden, The house is home to over 100 portraits on loan from the National Portrait Gallery. It has a restaurant, shop and garden shop, and was shortlisted in 2010 for the Guardian Family Friendly Museum Award.

The Hall is set in extensive grounds and is separated from them by an example of a ha-ha (a sunken wall) to prevent sheep and cattle entering the Hall's gardens or the Hall itself.

History
Beningbrough Hall, situated 8 miles north of York, was built in 1716 by a York landowner, John Bourchier III to replace his family's modest Elizabethan manor, which had been built in 1556 by Sir Ralph Bourchier on his inheritance to the estate. Local builder William Thornton oversaw the construction, but Beningbrough's designer remains a mystery; possibly it was Thomas Archer. Bourchier was High Sheriff of Yorkshire for 1719-1721 and died in 1736 at the age of 52.

John Bourchier (1710-1759) followed his father as owner of Beningbrough Hall and was High Sheriff in 1749. It then passed to Dr. Ralph Bourchier, a 71 year old physician and from him to his daughter, Margaret, who lived there for 70 years. Today a Bourchier knot is cut into a lawn adjoining the house.

After over 100 years in the Bourchiers' possession, the estate passed in 1827 to the Rev. William Henry Dawnay, the future 6th Viscount Downe, a distant relative. He died in 1846 and left the house to his second son, Payan, who was High Sheriff for 1851. The house was neglected, prompting fears that it might have to be demolished. In 1916 however, a wealthy heiress, Enid Scudamore-Stanhope, Countess of Chesterfield, bought it and immediately set about its restoration, filling it with furnishings and paintings from her ancestral home, Holme Lacy. During the Second World War the hall was occupied by the Royal Air Force.

Lady Chesterfield died in 1957 and in June 1958 the estate was acquired by the National Trust after it had been accepted by the government in lieu of death duties at a cost of £29,250. In partnership with the National Portrait Gallery the hall exhibits more than 100 18th-century portraits and has seven new interpretation galleries called 'Making Faces: 18th century Style'. Outside the main building there is a Victorian laundry and a walled garden with vegetable planting, the produce from which is used by the walled garden restaurant.

~~~~

from http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1558-1603/member/bourchier-ralph-1531-98:

BOURCHIER, Ralph (c.1531-98), of Haughton, Staffs. and Beningbrough, Yorks.
Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1558-1603, ed. P.W. Hasler, 1981
Available from Boydell and Brewer
ConstituencyDates
NEWCASTLE-UNDER-LYME
1571
NEWCASTLE-UNDER-LYME
1572
NEWPORT I.O.W.
1584
SCARBOROUGH
1586
YORKSHIRE
1589
Family and Education
b. c.1531, s. of James Bourchier of Haughton by Mary, da. of Sir Humphrey Bannister of Calais and h. of her bro. John. m. (1) Elizabeth, da. of Francis Hall of Grantham, Lincs., sis. of Arthur Hall, 2s. 4da.; (2) 1577, Christian, da. of Rowland Shakerley of London, wid. of John Harding of London, prob. s.p.; (3) Anne, wid. of one Coote, ?s.p. suc. fa. c.1555. Kntd. 1584.1

Offices Held
Keeper of Rochester castle, Kent 1559; sheriff, Yorks. 1580-1; j.p. Yorks. (N. Riding) from c.1573, (E. Riding) from c.1584.2

Biography
Bourchier’s grandfather was the 2nd Lord Berners, appointed deputy of Calais in 1520. His father, one of Lord Berners’s many illegitimate children, spent most of his life soldiering, first at Galais and later as lieutenant of Ambleteuse. Bourchier himself inherited the manor of Haughton and other lands in Staffordshire, most of which he sold between 1568 and 1575, having by then inherited an estate in Yorkshire from his mother’s brother, John Bannister of London.3

Bourchier’s local standing was no doubt sufficient to secure his own return to Parliament for Newcastle-under-Lyme and for Scarborough, where he had a lease of the rectory and other property. In 1572 he was first returned at Petersfield, probably through a connexion with Sir Henry Weston, before choosing to sit a second time for Newcastle-under-Lyme. His nomination at Newport must have been due to Sir George Carey, who had obtained the borough’s enfranchisement in the same year, though the actual connexion with Carey has not been ascertained; Bourchier may have met him either at court or during the northern campaign of 1569-70, and he may also have known Carey’s kinsman Edward, who had sat for Scarborough in 1272. For his fifth and last Parliament Bourchier sat as one of the Yorkshire county Members. On 26 Feb. 1589 he was named to a committee concerning captains and soldiers. He had already by then been active in local affairs in Yorkshire for some years. Indeed, as early as 1564 it had been suggested that he would be a suitable j.p. for the North Riding. In 1591 he was appointed with several other people to inquire into a dispute over the office of clerk to the castle and county court of York.4

He died 11 June 1598 and was buried the same day at Barking, Essex. The administration of his property was granted on 15 June to his widow, who died the following August. Bourchier is not known to have had any estates in Essex and may have been visiting his daughter-in-law, formerly Katherine Barrington, whom his eldest son, William, married in about 1588. Through her mother, Katherine, she was related to the Hastings family, and Henry, 3rd of Huntingdon, was one of the witnesses of her marriage settlement. In the same year Huntingdon recommended to the Privy Council that Bourchier should be made a captain of horse. William Bourchier later went mad and the father delayed carrying out the stipulations of the settlement until a petition had been presented to Burghley by Francis Barrington. On Bourchier’s death, his property passed to a grandson, William’s eldest son, except for half the manor of Hanging Grimston in Yorkshire left to his younger son, John. William’s second son, Sir John, who eventually inherited Beningbrough, was a regicide.5

Ref Volumes: 1558-1603
Author: Patricia Hyde
Notes
1. C142/107/39; Dugdale’s Vis. Yorks. ed. Clay, i. 305-8; Vis. Yorks. (Harl. Soc. xvi), 30; London Mar. Lic. (Harl. Soc. xxv.), 77; Staffs. Parl. Hist. i. (Wm. Salt Arch. Soc.) 366-7; PCC admon. act bk. 1598, ff. 251, 258, 266; Wm. Salt Arch. Soc. n.s. ix. 29, 85.
2.CSP Dom. Add. 1547-65, p. 491; CSP Dom. 1598-1601, p. 62; HMC Var. ii. 99.
3.Parl. Rep. Yorks. ed. Gooder (Yorks. Arch. Soc. Rec. ser. xcvi), 34; Wm. Salt Arch. Soc. xiii. 270; xiv. 176; n.s. ix. 29, 85; CPR, 1558-60, p. 244; C142/107/39; Lincs. Peds. (Harl. Soc. li), 441.
4.LP Hen. VIII, xiii(1), p. 562; D’Ewes, 439; HMC Var. ii. 92-5; J. J. Cartwright, Chapters in Yorks. Hist. (1872), p. 67; Cam Misc. ix(3), p. 72; APC, xxi. 161-2; xxii. 400-1.
5.Border Pprs. 1560-94, p. 324; Vis. Essex (Harl. Soc. xiii), 87; Essex Arch. Soc. n.s. ii. 9; VCH Yorks. N. Riding, ii. 162; C142/337/98.

Ralph married Elizabeth Hall about 1551 in Eaton, Norfolk, England. Elizabeth (daughter of Francis Hall, of Grantham, Leicestershire and Ursula Sherington) was born in 1538; died in 1577. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Ralph married Christian Shakerley in 1577. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Family/Spouse: Anne Coote. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Family/Spouse: Catherine Jones. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Name: Banyster Bourchier

Family/Spouse: Nicholas Yetsworth. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Title: Queen Elizabeth I
• _UID: 519304CACCDAD711BA22B8E68CB2433570A1

Notes:

Elizabeth I (7 September 1533 – 24 March 1603) was Queen of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death. Sometimes called The Virgin Queen, Gloriana or Good Queen Bess, the childless Elizabeth was the fifth and last monarch of the Tudor dynasty.

Elizabeth was the daughter of Henry VIII by second wife, Anne Boleyn, who was executed two and a half years after Elizabeth's birth. Anne's marriage to Henry VIII was annulled, and Elizabeth was declared illegitimate. Her half-brother, Edward VI, ruled until his death in 1553, bequeathing the crown to Lady Jane Grey and ignoring the claims of his two half-sisters, Elizabeth and the Roman Catholic Mary, in spite of statute law to the contrary. Edward's will was set aside and Mary became queen, deposing Lady Jane Grey. During Mary's reign, Elizabeth was imprisoned for nearly a year on suspicion of supporting Protestant rebels.

In 1558, Elizabeth succeeded her half-sister to the throne and set out to rule by good counsel.[1] She depended heavily on a group of trusted advisers, led by William Cecil, Baron Burghley. One of her first actions as queen was the establishment of an English Protestant church, of which she became the Supreme Governor. This Elizabethan Religious Settlement was to evolve into the Church of England. It was expected that Elizabeth would marry and produce an heir to continue the Tudor line. She never did, despite numerous courtships. As she grew older, Elizabeth became famous for her virginity. A cult grew around her which was celebrated in the portraits, pageants, and literature of the day.

In government, Elizabeth was more moderate than her father and half-siblings had been.[2] One of her mottoes was "video et taceo" ("I see, and say nothing").[3] In religion she was relatively tolerant and avoided systematic persecution. After 1570, when the pope declared her illegitimate and released her subjects from obedience to her, several conspiracies threatened her life, all of which were defeated with the help of her ministers' secret service. Elizabeth was cautious in foreign affairs, manoeuvring between the major powers of France and Spain. She only half-heartedly supported a number of ineffective, poorly resourced military campaigns in the Netherlands, France, and Ireland. By the mid-1580s, England could no longer avoid war with Spain. England's defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588 associated Elizabeth with one of the greatest military victories in English history.

Elizabeth's reign is known as the Elizabethan era. The period is famous for the flourishing of English drama, led by playwrights such as William Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe, and for the seafaring prowess of English adventurers such as Francis Drake. Some historians depict Elizabeth as a short-tempered, sometimes indecisive ruler,[4] who enjoyed more than her share of luck. Towards the end of her reign, a series of economic and military problems weakened her popularity. Elizabeth is acknowledged as a charismatic performer and a dogged survivor in an era when government was ramshackle and limited, and when monarchs in neighbouring countries faced internal problems that jeopardised their thrones. Such was the case with Elizabeth's rival, Mary, Queen of Scots, whom she imprisoned in 1568 and had executed in 1587. After the short reigns of Elizabeth's half-siblings, her 44 years on the throne provided welcome stability for the kingdom and helped forge a sense of national identity.

Portraits:
Link to Marilee Cody's "Tudor England" website

Other Events and Attributes:

• _UID: 4D9304CACCDAD711BA22B8E68CB243356C61

Notes:

Parentage doubtful

Family/Spouse: Anne Morgan. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• _UID: 4F9304CACCDAD711BA22B8E68CB243356E81

Notes:

Parentage doubtful

Catherine married Francis Knollys before May 1540. Francis died on 19 Jul 1596. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• _UID: B7EDCE57CFD7D711BA22ACE9C2156A363F96

Notes:

Died:
without issue

Family/Spouse: Henry Pranell. Henry died on 20 Dec 1599. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Family/Spouse: Earl of Hertford Edward Seymour. Edward (son of Viscount Beauchamp Edward Seymour and Anne Stanhope) was born on 12 Oct 1537; died on 6 Apr 1621 in Netley; was buried in Salisbury Cathedral. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Family/Spouse: Duke of Richmond Ludovic Stuart. Ludovic died on (16 Feb 1623/1624); was buried in Westminster Abbey. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Eventually mentally deranged. Eldest son.
~~~~~~~~~
Tim Powys-Lybbe writes:
I have a copy of the National Trust guide to Beningbrough Hall, nr York, England. The Bourchiers used to own the Hall and the guide has a family tree at the end. This tree shows:

(a) That William Bourchier (1559-1584) married Katherine Barrington, daughter of Sir Thomas Barrington.

(b) They had a son Sir John Bourchier (d.1659) who was a parliamentarian and regicide.

(c) That the ownership of the estate passed through Sir John's son Barrington Bourchier and continued in the Bourchier family until the mid 1750s when the male Bourchier line died out.

The regicide Bourchier would have escaped any punishment because he died just before the Restoration.

There is absolutely no sign or possibility of the Bourchiers changing their name.

It may be worth adding that the Barringtons were also a strong Parliamentarian family. Sir Thomas' great-grandson, Sir John Barrington, was undoubtedly invited to join in the trial of Charles I but retired from politics rather than do this.

But Sir Thomas' son Francis married Joan Cromwell, aunt of the Protector who very definitely did sign the execution warrant.

And is it worth mentioning that politics apart, the first of these Sir Thomas Barringtons married Winifred Pole, an unfortunate lady who had had her father, her grandmother, her great-uncle, her great-grandfather all executed in the Tower by the order of various sovereigns. And her only brother was undoubtedly imprisoned in the Tower as a boy of around 10 and either died or was also executed there. Might not she have harboured some bitterness that was passed on to her descendants and relatives?

--
Tim Powys-Lybbe
For a patchwork of bygones: www.powys.org

William married Katherine Barrington about 1584 in Barrington Hall, Yorkshire, England. Katherine (daughter of Sir Thomas Barrington and Winifred Pole) was born in 1565 in Essex; died in 1630. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

see http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1604-1629/member/bourchier-sir-john-15678-1626 for his biography:
Family and Education

b.1567/8,1 2nd s. of Sir Ralph Bourchier† (d.1598) of Beningborough, Yorks. and 1st w. Elizabeth, da. of Francis Hall† of Grantham, Lincs.2 educ. G. Inn 1584.3 m. ?by 1593 (without portion), Elizabeth, da. of George Verney of Compton Verney, Warws. 8s., at least 3da.4 kntd. 23 May/2 June 1609.5 d. 17 Mar. 1626.6 sig. John Bourchier.
Offices Held

J.p. Yorks. (E. Riding) by 1599-at least 1608; capt. militia ft., E. Riding 1599;7 commr. sewers., E. Riding 1603-4;8 member, Council in the North 1611-d.9

Patentee, alum refinery 1607-13;10 lessee, battery works, Maidstone, Kent c.1610-22;11 partner, London Soapmakers’ Co. 1624-d.12
Biography

Bourchier’s lawyer ancestor Robert Bourchier†, the first MP in the family, was ennobled in the fourteenth century, but this title passed to the Devereux earls of Essex. Bourchier’s paternal grandfather was an illegitimate child of the 2nd Baron Berners, while his father inherited a Yorkshire estate from his maternal uncle.13 Bourchier himself should not be confused with various namesakes, the most prominent of whom was a soldier and Ulster planter, who commanded lord deputy Chichester’s bodyguard, and was knighted in 1611.14 Returned to the Irish Parliament for co. Armagh in 1613, this man died and was replaced at a by-election by Sir Francis Annesley*.15 Bourchier should also not be confused with Oliver Cromwell’s* father-in-law Sir James Bourchier of Little Stambridge, Essex,16 or with his nephew Sir John Bourchier† the regicide, who played little part in public affairs until the 1630s.

Unusually for a younger son, Bourchier was granted the manor of Hanging Grimston, Yorkshire by his father in about 1593. This was partly to compensate him for the fact that his brother-in-law, Sir Richard Verney*, was unable to afford to pay a dowry, and partly because his elder brother was a lunatic. The latter’s wardship was secured by his wife and her brother, Sir Francis Barrington*, shortly after he inherited the family estate in 1598. Bourchier objected to this arrangement, and in 1601 accused Barrington of abusing his position as guardian to break the entail on his brother’s estate. Barrington did not take this lying down, and in 1615-17 he prosecuted Bourchier ‘for certain debts supposed to be due to the lunatic’.17

Converted from arable land to sheepwalks in the 1580s, the manor of Hanging Grimston was highly profitable. Indeed, it must have yielded about £1,200 p.a., for in 1623 half the estate was sold (at 15 years’ purchase price) for £9,500. Bourchier, who was more entrepreneurial than most landowners, initially used the income from the manor to purchase other property, investing at least £6,000 in land between 1598 and 1608. He exploited his purchases to their full economic potential, leasing Spanton woods, Newton-upon-Ouse manor and probably most of his other estates at rack rents.18 The first and most complex of Bourchier’s land purchases, in 1598, was the manor of Barton-le-Street, Yorkshire, then under extent for repayment of the vendor’s debts. Though he reduced his initial offer of £2,400 when rival claimants to the estate came to light, Bourchier eventually bought out the rights of all but one man, whose claim escheated to the Crown on his death without heirs. Bourchier lost possession of the manor in 1615, when the king granted it to lord treasurer Suffolk, who ultimately sold it to Sir Arthur Ingram*.19 Bourchier next ventured into the property market at Seamer near Scarborough in 1602, paying John Thornborough† £700 and £30 p.a. rent for a 21-year lease of the manor house and lands. This was apparently an usurious loan, as Bourchier proceeded to sub-let his interest to a nominee of Thornborough’s for £130 a year. Although the manor was extended for debt in 1606, Bourchier’s lease was eventually bought out, but the ramifications of this dispute spawned years of litigation.20

While Bourchier’s estates were managed efficiently, almost all of his investments in manufacturing projects met with disaster. The first was a 21-year lease of a small alum refinery at Slape Wath, near Whitby. This lease, and the contacts he made with London financiers through his land dealings, probably explain why Bourchier was joined with lord president Sheffield, Sir David Foulis and Sir Thomas Chaloner* in the monopoly to manufacture alum, established in January 1607. The patentees quickly leased their rights and half their profits to a consortium of London merchants led by William Turner, but the availability of foreign imports meant that the scheme failed to prosper. However, it caught the attention of lord treasurer Salisbury (Robert Cecil†), who, having received a favourable report on the industry’s potential from the customs farmers Sir Arthur Ingram and Sir Nicholas Salter, bullied the alum farmers into surrendering their rights to the Crown in May 1609. The knighthood which Bourchier received a few weeks after this surrender was presumably intended as part of his compensation.21 Bourchier still considered the alum industry a good investment, acquiring a 25 per cent share in Turner’s farm of the Crown lease in April 1610. The partners involved later claimed to have invested nearly £60,000 during 1609-12, but their price remained uncompetitive and they ran up debts of nearly £23,000 in bills of exchange with George Morgan, their factor at Middelburg. They declared bankruptcy on 20 May 1612, and for several years Bourchier was only secured from his creditors, who moved swiftly to extend his estates, by royal protections. However, the consortium which took over the farm was required to pay compensation amounting to £37,400 to the former partners. Meanwhile, Bourchier maintained a residual interest in the industry through a lease of a Durham coalmine which supplied the alum works.22

Even before the failure of the alum farm, Bourchier was in trouble with one of his most important creditors, the London Grocer Richard Burrell. In 1602 Bourchier had arranged to mortgage to Burrell the Lincolnshire estates of his cousin, Arthur Hall, standing surety for the deal with a bond of £3,600. However, when the offer of Hall’s son to sell the estate to Burrell was refused in 1610, Bourchier was arrested upon his earlier bond. Bourchier eventually paid Burrell £1,360, and sealed a fresh bond of £1,500 as surety for any further outstanding debts. In the midst of this furore, Bourchier was also prosecuted by Hall’s daughter over her unpaid dowry.23 The bankruptcy of the alum farm in 1612 encouraged Bourchier’s creditors to clamour for payment. Indeed, one of them secured Bourchier’s outlawry for debt in October 1613, although the latter’s protection presumably rendered this invalid. Bourchier responded by reportedly going into hiding, only venturing forth ‘armed with pistols and other extraordinary weapons so as few or none dare adventure to take him’. At this time he was also prosecuted by the heirs of his financial agent Robert Gibson of York, for misappropriating £2,000 of the latter’s goods, while another creditor, who had bought a life annuity of £80 charged upon the manor of Barton, sued when the manor was seized by the Crown.24 In a desperate attempt to raise cash, he mortgaged part of the Grimston estate to Mathias Springham for £1,000 in February 1614, leased the manor of Newton-upon-Ouse to the York lawyers Sir George and John Ellis for £550, and borrowed £500 from his erstwhile partner, William Turner. Bourchier also sold half the compensation he was due from the new alum farmers to Sir John Brooke*.25

Despite his outlawry, which should have rendered him ineligible, Bourchier was elected to Parliament in 1614. Evidently he viewed parliamentary privilege as a more secure form of refuge from his creditors than a royal protection. Returned for Hull, he was almost certainly nominated by Lord Sheffield, whose former secretary, John Edmondes had represented the borough in 1604. He is noted to have spoken only once, during the debate of 25 May over Bishop Neile’s attack on the Commons for questioning the king’s right to levy impositions: he moved ‘to proceed in no business till righted’, and supported the motion of Sir Thomas Hoby and Sir Jerome Horsey to refer the matter directly to the king rather than the House of Lords.26

Bourchier’s losses from the alum farm did not discourage him from investing in other projects. Indeed, in 1610 he secured a lease of the Mineral and Battery Company’s brassworks at Maidstone and Lambeth. However, although Turner was co-opted as a partner, the business had collapsed by 1621.27 In 1614 Bourchier and Lord Sheffield were granted a patent for the manufacture of copper by dissolving the ore in water, which proved fruitless. Bourchier lost £700 of Burrell’s money while speculating in grain with Prince Henry’s purveyor, Robert Clarke, and in 1621 he was again outlawed for debt after he became involved in a contentious project for the transportation of skins to the north of England, a scheme which had been suggested by Henry Mynors, another Household official. Despite this unpromising record, Bourchier’s views on the causes of the shortage of money were treated seriously enough to be referred to lord treasurer Middlesex (Sir Lionel Cranfield*) in 1622.28

There is no evidence that Bourchier sought re-election to the Commons in 1621, but even if he had, Sheffield’s removal from the presidency deprived him of his only patron. He was, however, involved in three separate issues which came before this Parliament. He was apparently a partner in Sir Ferdinando Gorges’† monopoly of fishing in American waters, which was investigated by the Commons at the behest of the Devon ports, and only narrowly escaped condemnation. He was also one of the subjects of George Morgan’s bill to confirm a Chancery decree awarding him damages for the £22,000 still owed him by members of the failed alum syndicate of 1610-12.29 Finally, he attempted to obtain redress in his long-running suit over the lease of Seamer manor house. According to the petition submitted by Sheffield to the Upper House on Bourchier’s behalf on 3 Dec. 1621, lord keeper Williams had passed judgment in the case with undue haste. Consequently, Sheffield’s request for a judicial review was granted, despite Archbishop Abbot’s warning that this might precipitate a flood of similar complaints. However, Bourchier’s claim that his case had not been given a hearing was refuted by the judges. Moreover, Bourchier lost the sympathy of the Upper House when, being asked to produce witnesses who had not been allowed to testify by Williams, he retorted, ‘I hope I shall not be put to that, for it will be a very hard thing for me to bring any man to speak what is contradicted by my lord keeper’. The House voted to clear Williams, imprisoned Bourchier, and ordered him to apologize to both at the bar of the Lords and in Chancery. However, the remainder of the punishment was remitted, at Williams’ request, after Bourchier submitted to the Lords.30

Bourchier was finally discharged from liability for the debts incurred during his lease of the alum farm in 1622, by which stage the business had begun to turn a profit. Bourchier remained interested in the patent through his Durham coalmine, and in 1618 he offered to buy out Sir John Brooke’s share in the farm. He also proposed a scheme to take over the alum farm and the new patent for the manufacture of soap from home-produced potash as a joint venture in 1623. This latter project was apparently backed by the London financier Sir Paul Pindar, whose great diamond, worth £35,000, was offered as an entry fine, together with £6,000 annual rent and a levy of 40s. on every ton of soap sold. However, while Bourchier bought the support of secretary of state Sir Edward Conway I* with the promise of an annuity of £2,000, Sir Arthur Ingram refused to surrender his lease.31 Bourchier thereupon claimed that Ingram’s failure to fulfil the terms of his contract had rendered the existing lease invalid. This accusation, which coincided with the fall of Ingram’s patron, lord treasurer Middlesex, was investigated by the Exchequer in January 1625. Bourchier further charged Ingram with failing to provide the contracted quantities of alum, and embezzlement of £10,000 assigned to pay for repairs to the works in 1615. The two men came to blows a few days later, and were placed under house arrest. Ingram quickly surrendered his lease, but the farm was granted not to Bourchier, but to his former partners William Turner and Sir Paul Pindar.32

While Bourchier’s plans for the alum farm came to nothing, he invested heavily in the manufacture of soap from English potash. He raised the capital by selling half of Grimston manor to Sir William Cockayne for £9,500, a sale which brought with it its own problems, as Cockayne required assurances that his investment would be freed from Bourchier’s debts. The soap patent, however, was opposed by the Eastland Company, which imported potash from the Baltic. In order to defuse the Company’s opposition, Bourchier bought up £9,000 of their stocks, and promised to take up the remainder in return for an import ban. The London soapmakers also objected to the challenge to their trade, but were overruled after trials established that the new soap was more economical.33 Bourchier paid just over £1,000 for a one-sixth share in the new soap company in May 1624, and persuaded Cockayne to invest ‘a great sum’ in the Company’s first year of operation. By the end of the year he protested at being ‘already out of purse above £5,000’, but he remained confident of success, doubling his shareholding in July 1625. However, at his death the Company’s stock was virtually exhausted. Two of the partners maintained their patent rights by manufacturing small quantities of soap until the new Westminster Soapmakers’ Company bought them out for £5,000 in 1632.34

Bourchier died intestate on 17 Mar. 1626, leaving his affairs in considerable confusion. His daughter Mary quickly secured administration of his estate in London, but in the following August letters of administration were issued at York to one of Bourchier’s servants, who was then suing a lawyer for mishandling a trust of Bourchier’s Yorkshire estates. One of Bourchier’s sons took over the administration in 1635, in a vain hope of securing a share of the £5,000 granted to the defunct Soapmakers’ Company, but his former partners quickly demonstrated that Bourchier’s outstanding debts far outweighed his share of the compensation. His estate was still being pursued for old debts in 1638.35 None of Bourchier’s direct descendants sat in Parliament, but his nephew and namesake Sir John Bourchier was returned to the Long Parliament as a recruiter Member for Ripon in 1645.

John married Elizabeth Verney in 1587 in Compton Verney, Warwickshire, England. Elizabeth was born in 1566 in Compton Verney, Warwickshire, England; died on 18 Jan 1612 in Compton Verney, Warwickshire, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Family/Spouse: Elizabeth Wentworth. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

unmarried

Family/Spouse: Elizabeth Pickering. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Birth: Abt 1591, Beningborough, Yorkshire, England
• Death: 5 Dec 1659, London, England

Notes:

regicide; Member of Parliament for Ripon, 1645; one of Charles I's judges, 1648; signed death-warrant; member of Council of State, 1651 and 1652; surrendered as regicide, 1660, but died before settlement of exceptions to Act of Indemnity.

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Bourchier_%28regicide%29
"
Sir John Bourchier or Bourcher (c. 1595 – August 1660) was an English parliamentarian, Puritan and one of the regicides of King Charles I.


John Bourchier was the son of William Bourchier of Beningbrough and grandson of Sir Ralph Bourchier. He was probably educated at Christ's College, Cambridge, and was admitted to Gray's Inn in 1609/10. He was knighted in 1609.[1]

In 1625, Bourchier was appointed as a Justice of the Peace for the three Yorkshire Ridings. When Charles dissolved Parliament and sought to raise money through the forced loans in 1627, Sir John was one of those who refused. At the outbreak of the English Civil War, he was arrested and imprisoned in York until 1643. He was elected Member of Parliament for Ripon in 1647; at Pride's Purge, he was one of the MPs permitted to keep his seat in Commons.

As a judge at the trial of King Charles, he was one of the signatories of the King's death warrant. After the Restoration, May 1660, Bourchier was too ill to be tried as a regicide, and died, unrepentant, a few months later.

"During these contests between the two Houses, toufhing the exceptions to be made, Sir John Bourchier, who had been one of the King's judges, and had rendered himself within the time limit by the proclamation, being of a great age and very infirm, was permitted to lodge at a private house belonging to one of his daugheters. In this place he was seized with so dangerous a fit of illness, that those about him who were his nearest relations, despairing of his recovery, and presuming that an acknowledgment from him of his sorrow, for the part he had in the condemnation of the King, might tend to procure some favour to them from those in power, they earnestly pressed him to give them that satisfaction. But he being highly displeased with their request, rose suddenly from his chair, which for some days he had not been able to do without assistance; and receiving fresh vigour from the memory of that action, said, 'I tell you, it was a just act; God and all good men will own it.' And having thus expressed himself, he sat down again, and soon after quietly ended his life."[2]

Bourchier was a great-grandson of Margaret Pole, 8th Countess of Salisbury who had been beheaded by order of King Henry VIII; Charles I was a great-great-grandson of Margaret Tudor-a sister of King Henry VIII. He was the great-great-great-grandson of Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick, who was known as the "Kingmaker" for helping to place both Edward IV and Henry VI upon the throne during the War of the Roses.
"

from http://bcw-project.org/biography/sir-john-bourchier
"
Yorkshire Puritan who signed the King's death warrant and died unrepentant before being brought to trial as a regicide.

John Bourchier was the eldest surviving son of William Bourchier of Beningborough in Yorkshire, who was certified a lunatic in 1598, after which Bourchier was brought up under the wardship of his mother and uncle. After attending Cambridge and Gray's Inn, he was knighted in 1619 and appointed Justice of the Peace for all three Yorkshire Ridings in 1625.

A devout Puritan, Bourchier refused to pay the forced loans demanded by King Charles I in 1627, and clashed with the Council of the North in a dispute over royal enclosures in the Forest of Galtres near York in 1633, for which he was heavily fined. When King Charles summoned the Yorkshire gentry to attend him on Heworth Moor in June 1642, Bourchier argued violently with the Royalist Lord Savile. On the outbreak of civil war, he was arrested and imprisoned at York until June 1643. He made his way to Hull, where he was involved in the arrest of Sir John Hotham and his son.

In the spring of 1647, Bourchier was elected MP for Ripon and was one of the Members allowed to retain their seats after Pride's Purge in 1648. He sat as one of the King's judges and signed the death warrant. During the Commonwealth, he was active on various committees and was appointed a Trier and Ejector in 1654. Too ill to be brought to trial as a regicide, Bourchier died unrepentant in August 1660.
"

John married Anne Rolfe in 1617 in Hadley, Suffolk, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Admitted to Cambridge University in 1611 see Cambridge University alumni 1261-1900
Name: Ralph Bourchier
College: EMMANUEL
Entered: 1611
More Information: Adm. Fell.-Com. at EMMANUEL, Dec. 3, 1611. S. and h. of Sir John, Knt., of Hanging Grimston, Yorks. Matric. 1611. Adm. at Gray's Inn, Aug. 12, 1617. Brother of Richard (1611). (Vis. of Yorks., 1665.)

Family/Spouse: Unknown. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Baptism: 25 Mar 1593, Kirkby Underdale, Yorkshire, England

Family/Spouse: Richard Rossiter. Richard was born about 1591. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Baptism: 7 Aug 1595, Hanging Grimston, Yorkshire, England

Mary married Jabez Whitaker about 1616 in Yorkshire, England. Jabez was born about 1589. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Robert married Anne Tuffnayle about 1629 in London, England. Anne was born in 1605. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Baptism: 22 Nov 1601, Hanging Grimston, Yorkshire, England

Family/Spouse: Ann. Ann was born in 1610. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Baptism: 2 Jun 1604, Hanging Grimston, Yorkshire, England