John Bourchier (abt. 1467 - 1533)

Ancestors

Husband of Katherine (Howard) Bourchier — married before 13 May 1490 in England

Descendants

Died 19 Mar 1533 at about age 66 in Calais, France

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Biography

John Bourchier, K.B., 2nd Lord Berners^[1][2]

Family

Sir John Bourchier was the son and heir of Sir Humphrey Bourchier and his wife Elizabeth Tilney.^[3] Born about 1467, he was 7 in 1474^[2] when he succeeded to the Berners barony on the death of his grandfather, his father having died in 1471 in the Battle of Barnet.^[4][5]

On 30 April 1472, his mother married Thomas Howard, K.G., K.B., Earl of Surrey, Duke of Norfolk, Earl Marshal of England.^[1] Thomas was the son of John Howard, K.G., by his first wife, Katherine Moleyns.^[6] Thomas became John Bourchier’s guardian.^[4]

Marriage and legitimate children

Before 13 May 1490, John Bourchier married Katherine Howard, John Howard’s daughter by his second marriage to Margaret Chedworth.^[7][8][4] The couple were fined for their marriage in 1491/2.^[9] They had 1 son and 3 daughters^[8]:

• Thomas
• Joan, wife of Sir Edmund Knyvet^[10][11]
• Margaret
• Mary, wife of Alexander Unton esq. but no issue (Alexander’s surname is mistakenly given as Linton in some secondary sources).^[12][13]

Illegitimate children

Sir John Bourchier had four illegitimate offspring:^[8]

• Sir James Bourchier,^[8] ancestor of the Bourchiers of Beningbrough in Yorkshire.^[12][14]
• Humphrey Bourchier, Esq., who married Elizabeth Bacon.^[14] (No issue.)^[2]
• George Bourchier, Esq.,^[2] mentioned in his father's will.^[14]
• Ursula Bourchier, wife of Sir William Sherington,^[2] but died without issue.^[12]

Career

John Bourchier was knighted in January 1478 when Richard Duke of York, son of Edward IV, married Anne de Mowbray.^[4]

He appears to have been involved in attempts in 1484 to place Henry Tudor, future Henry VII, on the English throne in place of Richard III, and, when these failed, to have fled to Brittany.^[4]

He was summoned to Parliament in 1495, and frequently attended it when he was in England, the last occasion being in 1529.^[8][4]

In 1497 he helped to put down the rebellion of Perkin Warbeck.^[8][4]

In 1513 he participated in Henry VIII’s military campaign in France^[8], and then fought alongside his half-brother Thomas Howard in Scotland. Howard was Lord High Admiral, and John Bourchier was marshal of the army in the Scottish campaign.^[8][4]

In 1514 he was nominated as chamberlain of Princess Mary, Henry VIII’s sister, when, after peace had been secured with France, it was agreed she should marry Louis XII, but the French insisted that he and others in Mary’s entourage be dismissed. That same year he was prospectively given the chancellorship of the Exchequer when Sir Thomas Lovell died: he entered the office after Lovell’s death in 1524.^[4]

In 1518 he was joint head of a diplomatic mission to Spain in an attempt to negotiate a general peace in Europe. As was common with diplomatic missions of the time, funding was inadequate and he wrote to Wolsey complaining of this.^[8][4]

In 1520 he was appointed royal Deputy at Calais. In 1526 he was replaced by Sir Robert Wingfield: he resumed the post in 1531, agreeing to pay Wingfield 100 marks a year.^[4]

Writings

John Bourchier produced a number of translations from French and Spanish:^[4][15][16]

• Arthur of Lytell Brytayne, from a French prose romance
• Huon de Bordeaux, from another French prose romance. This translation is the first work in English referring to the fairy king Oberon.^[15]
• Froissart's Chronicles, a translation, undertaken at the request of King Henry VIII, which played a significant role in the development of English prose style and which influenced the 16th century chroniclers Hall and Holinshed on whom Shakespeare drew heavily for his historical plays. Text available at Project Gutenberg.
• The Castell of Love, from a French translation of a Spanish original with a continuation directly translated from Spanish: a book on manners and etiquette, fictionalised in the form of a tale of "the love betwene Leriano and Laureola doughter to the kynge of Masedonia"^[17]
• The Golden Book of Marcus Aurelius, undertaken at the request of his nephew Sir Francis Bryan, from a French translation of a Spanish original, and completed a few days before John Bourchier's death: it was rendered into a flowery English which was a precursor of a florid style, popular in the later 16th century, called "Euphuism"; many editions were published in the 16th century.

He is said to have written a comedy in Latin, which was often staged after Vespers while he was in Calais, and which has not survived, as well as a work on the duties of the Calais population.^[4][18]

Death

Sir John made a will on 3 March 1532/3 and died on 19 March 1532/3 at Calais, where he was buried.^[8] His will was proved 4 Feb 1533/4^[8]: it has been published and can be found, with accompanying notes, online.^[12][19] His estate was heavily encumbered by debt, much of it to the English Crown. In 1532 Henry VIII gave orders for John Bourchier’s personal property to be watched over to protect the crown’s financial interest, and soon after John Bourchier’s death Edmund Howard, a half-brother of John’s who was Controller of Calais, was commanded to seize all John’s goods in Calais on behalf of the king.^[4]

Research Notes

Mother of illegitimate children

The mother of John Bourchier’s illegitimate children is often named as Elizabeth Bacon (or Becon or Bakyn). These suggestions probably derive from Flower’s Visitation of Yorkshire in 1563 and 1564, which gives Elizabeth Becon as mother of James, George and Humphrey, in wording that makes clear that they were born outside marriage: they are said to be "by on (i.e. "one" or "an") Elizabeth Becon”.^[14] Tudor Place has Elizabeth Bacon as John Bourchier’s second wife, though there is clear documentary evidence of the illegitimacy of the children who survived him: the mistake is probably due to a misreading of the Bourchier pedigree in Flower's Visitation. Douglas Richardson’s Magna Carta Ancestry^[8] suggests that the identification of the mother of his illegitimate children as Elizabeth Bacon is likely to be mistaken, resulting from confusion with Elizabeth Bacon, the wife of John Bourchier’s illegitimate son Humphrey: vol.1, p.287 footnote 165. Dugdale’s Visitation of Yorkshire does not name the mother.^[20]

Field of the Cloth of Gold

Douglas Richardson states that John Bourchier was present at the Field of the Cloth of Gold in 1520.^[8] Cokayne says the same in the Complete Peerage.^[5] The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography states categorically that, although this is a widely held belief, it is wrong, as he remained in London with Henry VIII's Council.^[4] He was on a list prepared on 26 March 1520 of those expected to attend, with his name given as 'Lord Barnesse'^[21], but if the ODNB is right, he was in the event required to stay behind in England. The statement in the ODNB seems supported by a letter from the King’s Council in London in response to one sent from Calais by Cardinal Wolsey in late June: the signatories include 'John Berners', and the letter refers to ‘the Lord Barnes’ (another form of his name) being sent by the Council to welcome three gentlemen from France. This would seem to give fairly clear evidence that John Bourchier stayed in London as a member of the Lords in Council.^[22]

Sources

1. ↑ ^{1.0 1.1} Douglas Richardson. Royal Ancestry: A Study in Colonial and Medieval Families, 5 vols, ed. Kimball G. Everingham (Salt Lake City: the author, 2013), volume I, pages 479-492 BOURCHIER.
2. ↑ ^{2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4} Richardson, Royal Ancestry, I:488-490 BOURCHIER 14.
3. ↑ Douglas Richardson. Magna Carta Ancestry: A Study in Colonial and Medieval Families, 4 vols, ed. Kimball G. Everingham, 2nd edition (Salt Lake City: the author, 2011), volume I, pages 284-285 BOURCHIER 11.i.
4. ↑ ^{4.00 4.01 4.02 4.03 4.04 4.05 4.06 4.07 4.08 4.09 4.10 4.11 4.12 4.13 4.14} Oxford Dictionary of National Biography: Bourchier, John, second Baron Berners, Oxford University Press 2004, available online via some libraries, accessed online 14 April 2019.
5. ↑ ^{5.0 5.1} G E Cokayne. Complete Peerage, revised and enlarged edition, vol. 2, St Catherine Press 1912, pp.153-4.
6. ↑ Richardson, Royal Ancestry, III:336 HOWARD 14.
7. ↑ Richardson, Royal Ancestry, III:334-336 HOWARD 13.i.
8. ↑ ^{8.00 8.01 8.02 8.03 8.04 8.05 8.06 8.07 8.08 8.09 8.10 8.11 8.12} Richardson, Magna Carta Ancestry, I:287-289 BOURCHIER 12.
9. ↑ Marlyn Lewis. Entry for Katherine Howard, in "Our Royal, Titled, Noble, and Commoner Ancestors and Cousins" database (accessed 21 April 2019).
10. ↑ Ancestor of Margaret (Touteville) Shepard (Richardson, Magna Carta Ancestry, II:223 FITZWILLIAM 14.), who took part in the Puritan Great Migration.
11. ↑ Ancestors of Muriel (Gurdon) Saltonstall, who immigrated with her husband when he returned to New England in April 1635, settling in Ipswich, Massachusetts. (Richardson, Royal Ancestry, III:183 GURDON 21.i.; IV:551-552 SALTONSTALL 24.)
12. ↑ ^{12.0 12.1 12.2 12.3} Nicholas Harris Nicolas. Testamenta Vetusta: Being Illustrations from Wills, of Manners, Customs Etc. as Well as of the Descents and Possessions of Many Distinguished Families from Henry II. to Queen Elizabeth, Volume 2, 1826, pp.657-660, Google Books
13. ↑ Farringdon Church page on David Nash Ford's Royal Berkshire History website
14. ↑ ^{14.0 14.1 14.2 14.3} William Flower. The Visitation of Yorkshire in the Years 1563 and 1564, Harleian Society 1881, p.30
15. ↑ ^{15.0 15.1} Ian Ousby (ed). The Cambridge Guide to Literature in English, Cambridge University Press 1988, p.113
16. ↑ British Library Catalogue: search results for "John Bourchier"
17. ↑ British Library catalogue
18. ↑ Dictionary of National Biography, pub. Smith, Elder & Co, 1885-1900, vol. 6 p.12: John Bourchier, 2nd Baron Berners
19. ↑ John Gough Nichols (ed.). Chronicle of Calais, 1846, p. 164, Internet Archive
20. ↑ J W Clay. Dugdale's Visitation of Yorkshire, with Additions, Vol 1, pub. William Pollard 1899, page 305
21. ↑ 'Henry VIII: March 1520, 21-30', in Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, Volume 3, 1519-1523, ed. J S Brewer (London, 1867), pp. 231-249. British History Online http://www.british-history.ac.uk/letters-papers-hen8/vol3/pp231-249, no. 703, accessed 14 April 2019
22. ↑ British Library MS. Cotton. D vii p.233, full text in Richard Turpyn, The Chronicles of Calais: in the Reigns of Henry VII. and Henry VIII. to the Year 1540. Ed. from Mss. in the British Museum, Camden Society, 1846, pp.92-94, Internet Archive, accessed 14 April 2019

• Richardson, Douglas. Royal Ancestry: A Study in Colonial and Medieval Families, 5 vols, ed. Kimball G. Everingham. Salt Lake City: the author, 2013. See also WikiTree's source page for Royal Ancestry.
• Richardson, Douglas. Magna Carta Ancestry: A Study in Colonial and Medieval Families, 4 vols, ed. Kimball G. Everingham. 2nd edition. Salt Lake City: the author, 2011. See also WikiTree's source page for Magna Carta Ancestry.
• Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, John, second Baron Berners, Oxford University Press, 2004 (vol.6 pp. 819-821), also available online via some public libraries.
• Dictionary of National Biography, pub. Smith, Elder & Co, 1885-1900, vol. 6 p.12: John Bourchier, 2nd Baron Berners, viewable at Wikisource.
• Cokayne, G E C. Complete Peerage, revised and enlarged edition, vol. 2, St Catherine Press 1912, pp.153-4. See also WikiTree's source page for Complete Peerage.
• Lewis, Marlyn. Entry for Sir Humphrey Bourchier, in "Our Royal, Titled, Noble, and Commoner Ancestors and Cousins" database. Note: Listed under "Reliable Sources with Conditions" (see the Magna Carta Project's Reliable Sources page).
• Entry for John Bourchier, "Tudor Place" database. Note: Not a recommended source; see the Magna Carta Project's Reliable Sources page.
• Foster, Joseph. Pedigree of Duke of Norfolk; Earl of Suffolk; Baron Howard of Glossop
• Faris, David. Plantagenet Ancestry of 17th Century Colonists, Genealogical Publishing Company, 1996
• Lundy, Darryl. Entry for John Bourchier, 2nd Baron Berners, thepeerage.com. Note: Listed under "Reliable Sources with Conditions" (see the Magna Carta Project's Reliable Sources page).
• Wikipedia: John Bourchier, 2nd Baron Berners.

Acknowledgements

Magna Carta Project

John Bourchier appears in Magna Carta Ancestry in a Richardson-documented trail from Gateway Ancestor Mary Bourchier to Magna Carta Surety Baron Henry de Bohun (vol. I, pages 277-291 BOURCHIER). This profile was developed in accordance with project standards by Michael Cayley in April 2019 and was badged 5 July 2019 by Noland-165. Additionally, the Bourchier to Bohun trail connected this profile to previously-badged trails to other surety barons including John de Lacy, Saher de Quincy, Gilbert de Clare, Richard de Clare, Robert de Vere, Hugh le Bigod and Roger le Bigod. These trails are set out in the Magna Carta Trails on the Gateway's profile.

See Base Camp for more information about identified Magna Carta trails and their status. See the project's glossary for project-specific terms, such as a "badged trail".