Rarely had the married life of a noble lady commenced with happier and more brilliant prospects, than when Alianore de Bohun became Countess of Buckingham and Essex. Shortly after her marriage, her husband was created Duke of Gloucester. He was then in the prime of life; he was in high favour with the King, his nephew; and his brother-in-law, the Earl of Derby, and himself, were two of the most powerful, as well as the wealthiest and most dignified personages in the kingdom. But the sunshine of this great prosperity soon passed away, and most dismal was the darkness which succeeded to it. A man of strong mind and resolute will, the Duke of Gloucester was unable to endure the unhappy weaknesses which characterised the reign of Richard: accordingly, "he forbare not, roughlie, not so much to admonish, as to check and schoole his Soueraigne."* Coldness was succeeded by anger on the part of the King; and then suspicions were excited in the royal mind by men, who would gladly remove from their Sovereign such a kinsman as the Constable. Mowbray, the Earl Marshall, with Holland, Earl of Exeter, appear to have been the Duke's chief enemies.† The resolution of the King was soon formed and promptly carried into effect; on the 21st of September, 1397, a summons was issued, commanding Thomas Duke of Gloucester to appear before the Parliament; within a few days, the Duke was seized at his castle of Plessy, in Essex, by the Earl Marshall, and having been hurried thence to Calais was there instantly murdered. He was then in his forty-fifth year. The crime was too great to be committed with safety upon English ground; but no danger would attend upon subsequent acts of spoliation. Accordingly all the titles and dignities of the deceased Prince, with his whole property, including the entire inheritance of his wife, were at once confiscated to the crown. On the 6th of October (that is, within a few days of the murder), the King issued a characteristic mandate to the Archbishops and their suffragans, "de orando pro anima

* Weever, p. 639; Froissart, iv. p. 582.

Within the space of two years a stern retribution had fallen upon both these noblemen, and also on their master: in 1399 Richard was deposed and murdered; Exeter was beheaded for treason; and Norfolk died, attainted and in exile.

Thomæ nuper Ducis Glocestria, &c." The widowed Alianore received the King's permission, on the 14th of that same month, to have the body of her late husband buried, under her direction, in Westminster Abbey; but before this act of royal clemency could take effect, the bereaved lady was peremptorily commanded to convey the body for burial to Bermondsey Abbey. I do not find whether this command was enforced; it is, however, certain that the Duke's remains were not interred at Westminster at the period of his decease. Weever says, from Holinshed, that they were "conueyed with all funerall pompe into England, and buried" at Plessy, in the church there of the Duke's "own foundation, in a goodly sepulchre prouided by himselfe in his life-time;" and he adds, that these "reliques were afterwards remoued and laid under a marble inlaid with brasse in the King's chappell at Westminster.”*

The Duchess retired to the Abbey of Berking, where she is said to have assumed the religious habit. The King granted to her, for her use, her own clothes, and other articles of her property, to the value of 1247. 188.-" bonorum et catallorum, sibi necessariorum, usque ad valorem centum et quater viginti librarum, et decem et octo solidorum;" and warrants were addressed to the King's "escaetor" in Essex, and to Richard Whytyngton, Lord Mayor of London (majori Civitat. Lond.), to release these confiscated effects.† One son and four daughters were born to Thomas de Woodstock and Alianore his wife; they all bore the surname of Plantagenet, and their christian names were Humphrey, Anne, Joanne, Isabel, and Philippa. Isabel was a nun in the house of the Sisters Minoresses (the Minories), near London, "dehors la porte de Algate." Philippa died young. Joanne married Gilbert, Lord Talbot; their only child, a daughter, died at an early age, A.D. 1421. Humphrey Plantagenet, after his father's murder, was sent with his cousin Henry, son of the Duke of Hereford, into Ireland, and there they were detained until the accession of Henry IV. to the throne. The youthful cousins were then recalled; and King Henry proposed to reinstate his

* Weever, p. 638. See also Rymer, vol. iii. part iv. pp. 135, 137, 138, and 139.

*

nephew in all the honours which had been enjoyed by his father. But an untimely fate awaited the young prince; he died of the plague, at Chester, on his way towards London; or, as some writers affirm, he was drowned on his passage from Ireland. According to Weever, he was buried at Walden, in Essex, by his mother, who survived him for a few weeks only. The unhappy Duchess died at Berking Abbey, Oct. 3rd, 1399, leaving a will bearing date August the 9th in that same year. This document, printed in Nichols's Royal Wills, contains many interesting passages, and throughout it is a pathetic commentary upon the fallen fortunes of the testatrix. In it she speaks of her late father, as " Humfrey de Bohun, darreme Counte de Herford d'Essex et de Northampton, et Conestable d'Engleterre :" her late husband she styles, "monseignour et mari Thomas Duc de Gloucestr;" and again, "Thomas sum tyme Duc of Gloucestre;" her mother she entitles, "madame et mere la Countesse d'Erford;" and she speaks of herself as " Alianore Duchesse de Gloucestre, Countess d'Essex, &c." She bequeaths to her son Humphrey, inter alia, some books, "tous en François:" "un habergeon ove un crois de laton merchie sur le pis encontre le cuer, quele feust a mon seignour son piere ;" and also "un crois d'or pendant par un cheyne ove une ymage du crucifix et iiii perles entour, ove ma benoison, come chose du myen qe jai mieux amee.” To her eldest daughter, Anne, she leaves, besides other things, "un pare de pater nostres d'ore cont' xxx ariez et iiii gaudes de get (four large beads of jet), qe fuesent a mon seignour et mari son piere, ove ma benoison." She leaves 401. "de monoie," with various books, to her daughter Isabelle, the nun. Her other money bequests are few, and have reference to her funeral expenses, and a certain gift to the Abbess and Sisters Minoresses.

Strutt, in his 57th Plate, gives a portrait of Thomas de Woodstock (from Nero D. VII.); he wears a double-pointed beard, and in his right hand he holds, in a wreath or jewel, a silver swan. It is also probable that the same volume contains another portrait of * Walsingham, p. 401. Dugd. Bar. ii. p. 173. Weever, p. 627..

In her will, dated, 1356, Elizabeth de Badlesmere, wife of William de Bohun, Earl of Northampton (the father and mother of the last Humphrey de Bohun), leaves to one of her sisters a set of beads of gold and jet.

this Prince, at plate 16. Sandford informs us, that on the north side of the tomb of King Edward III. was a statuette (a" weeper") of Thomas de Woodstock, and he adds, that his arms were on the same side of the tomb of Queen Philippa, his mother.* Both statuette and shield are now gone. This same author has figured two seals and a secretum of the Duke, with a seal of Alianore his Duchess. I propose to describe these scals, together with some other heraldic ensigns of the de Bohuns, in an Appendix to this Paper. I may here observe that the Duchess Alianore is introduced by Shakespear, as one of the dramatis persone in his RICHARD II.

Anne Plantagenet, eldest daughter of the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester, was affianced to Thomas, third Earl of Stafford, and after his early death she married his brother Edmund, the fifth Earl: the marriage was solemnized A.D. 1399, and in 1403 the Earl was killed at the battle of Shrewsbury. He left one son, Humphrey de Stafford, who succeeded him; and one daughter, Anne de Stafford, who was married first to Edmund Mortimer, fifth Earl of March, and secondly to John Holland, Duke of Exeter: by her second marriage she had an only son, Henry, second Duke of Exeter, who was involved in the ruin of the House of Lancaster, and was found dead in the sea, A.D. 1473; this most unfortunate nobleman married Anne, sister of Edward IV., from whom he was divorced.

After the death of the fifth Earl of Stafford, his widow married William Bourchier, who, A.D. 1419, was created Earl of Eu in Normandy. In the person of her eldest son by this marriage, Henry Bourchier,† was revived the de Bohun Earldom of Essex; and through the marriage of the grand-daughter of this Earl with Sir John Devereux, K.G., were descended the Earls of Essex and Viscounts Hereford, of the House of Devereux. By their marriages with the heiresses of the Lords Fitz-Warine and Berners, the younger brothers of Henry first Earl of Essex of the House of Bourchier, became William Bourchier, Lord Fitz-Warine, and John Bourchier, Lord Berners: these noblemen were seve rally succeeded by their sons.

*

In the year 1444, Humphrey de Stafford, K.G., grandson of

Sandford, pp. 177 and 172.

The fine brass to this Earl is figured by Waller.

Thomas de Woodstock and the Lady Alianore, seventh Baron and sixth Earl of Stafford, was created Duke of Buckingham; and, in 1460, he fell, fighting gallantly under the Lancastrian banner, at the battle of Northampton. He had married Anne, daughter of Ralph Neville, first Earl of Westmorland, by whom he had a numerous issue. His eldest son, Humphrey, Earl of Stafford, was killed, in 1445, at the first battle of St. Alban's, where his father-in-law, Edmund Beaufort, Duke of Somerset, also fell.

Henry de Stafford, K.G. son of Humphrey, Earl of Stafford, and Margaret Beaufort, his wife, succeeded his grandfather as second Duke of Buckingham, and was beheaded in the marketplace at Salisbury, A.D. 1483: he had married Katharine, sister of Elizabeth Woodville, Queen of Edward IV., by whom he had two sons and two daughters. His eldest son,

Edward de Stafford, K.G., was restored to all his father's honours, to which was added the office of Constable of England. This was the great Duke of Buckingham, the favourite and the victim of Henry VIII., who was beheaded on Tower-hill, May 17, 1521. With his attainder and execution, the fortunes of his princely and illustrious house sunk, never again to attain to any distinguished eminence, except indeed in a single instance, when once more (A.D. 1670) a distinguished nobleman, bearing the title of Viscount de Stafford, fell, through a most false charge, beneath the axe of the executioner. The last Duke of Buckingham had married Alianore, daughter of Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland, and was succeeded, as Lord Stafford, by Henry, his eldest son, who married Ursula, niece of Kings Edward IV. and Richard III. Two other Barons Stafford (the son and grandson of this Henry) followed in succession, when Edward, the fourth Baron, died without issue, and the barony devolved upon his kinsman, Roger, the son of Richard, himself the second son of Henry, Baron Stafford, and Ursula his wife. In 1639, this Roger Stafford was formally deprived of his rank as a Baron, by Charles I. on account of his poverty and abject condition; and in 1640 he died, having never married. Mary Stafford, his sister (who had married Sir William Howard, younger son of Thomas, Earl of Arundel), was created Baroness Stafford, and shortly after her husband was advanced to