Humphrey de Bohun, 2nd Earl of Hereford

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Coat of arms of the Bohun family

Humphrey de Bohun, 2nd Earl of Hereford , called the Good (* before 1208 ; † September 24, 1275 ), was an English magnate and hereditary Lord High Constable of England .

origin

Humphrey IV. De Bohun came from the Anglo-Norman family Bohun . He was the eldest son of Henry de Bohun, 1st Earl of Hereford and Maud de Mandeville , daughter of Geoffrey fitz Peter . His father died in June 1220. At the request of his great-uncle, King Alexander II of Scotland and the English barons, the still underage Bohun was allowed to take over his family's estates, which were mainly in the Welsh Marches and Wiltshire . These included Caldicot Castle in South Wales as well as part of the Honor of Trowbridge . Through the marriage of his grandfather Humphrey III. de Bohun with Margaret, sister of King William of Scotland , the Bohuns also owned considerable estates in Scotland.

Life

In February 1225, Bohun testified that the Magna Carta was recognized by King Henry III. Presumably in October 1225 the king made him Earl of Hereford . After the death of William Fitz-Geoffrey de Mandeville, 3rd Earl of Essex in 1227, Bohun's mother became the Earl's sister, Countess of Essex . After her death in August 1236, Bohun inherited her title and the Honor and Castle of Pleshey , Essex .

In 1227 Bohun was part of the alliance of the Earls of Cornwall , Chester and Pembroke , when they briefly united against King Henry III, but above all against Justiciar Hubert de Burgh. In 1230, however, he took part in the king's unsuccessful campaign in Brittany . In 1237 he made a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela in northern Spain. In 1239 he was one of the nine baptismal pastes used by Prince Edward , the king's eldest son. From 1239 to 1241 he served as Sheriff of Kent and Constable of Dover Castle . In 1242 he took part in the king's campaign in Poitou and in 1245 in the successful campaign in Wales . In 1246 he was one of the English barons who tried to defend the independence of the English Church in a letter to the Pope. In 1250 he vowed to undertake a crusade , but he made no concrete arrangements for it.

When in 1251 Simon de Montfort, 6th Earl of Leicester successfully defended himself before the king for his work as Seneschal of Gascony , Bohun became a supporter of Montfort. When Bohun took part in another king's campaign in Gascony in 1253, he was outraged by the way in which the Lusignans , the king's half-brothers, collectively punished groups of Welsh mercenaries without bringing their offenses to an ordinary court martial. As Lord High Constable Bohun would have presided over this court, which is why he returned to England angrily with other barons. In the Anglo-Welsh War from 1256 , after the British defeat in the Battle of Cymerau in 1257 , he defended the Welsh Marches with other barons against attacks by the Welsh.

Humphrey joined the aristocratic opposition under Simon de Montfort against the king in 1258 and participated in the drafting of the Provisions of Oxford . He was elected to the Council of Fifteen. Although he had ties to Gascony through his two wives, he was hostile to the king's French relatives and was therefore commissioned to enforce the banishment of the king's French relatives from England. In 1261, however, he fell out with Simon de Montfort and rejoined the king, who entrusted him with the administration of his Welsh possessions Usk and Glamorgan after the death of Richard de Clare, 5th Earl of Hertford between July 1262 and August 1263 . During the open Second War of the Barons , Bohun was captured as a supporter of the king at the Battle of Lewes in May 1264 , while his son Humphrey V had fought on the side of the rebellious barons. In the Battle of Evesham in 1265, in which the king was able to beat Montfort and the rebels decisively, his son was taken prisoner, in which he died in October 1265. Bohun then took the property of his son back under his administration. In 1265 he became royal administrator of the City of London and in 1266 he served as an arbitrator at the Dictum of Kenilworth , which was supposed to reconcile the opponents of the Second War of the Barons .

Bohun was a regular, but not lavish, patron of monasteries. He donated foundations to Llanthony Priory in Monmouthshire , to Walden Abbey , a Mandeville Abbey in Essex, and shortly before his death to the nuns of Lacock Abbey in Wiltshire. After his death he was buried in Llanthony Priory . Shortly before his death, Bohun had given the Honor of Pleshey to his younger son Henry de Bohun. Most of his property was inherited by his grandson Humphrey VI. , the son of Humphrey V.

Family and offspring

Bohun was married twice. In his first marriage he married Matilda in 1238, a daughter of Raoul de Lusignan, Count of Eu († 1219) and his wife Alice . His wife brought property in Kent with her as a dowry, she died on August 14, 1241 and was buried in Llanthony. His second marriage was to Matilda of Avebury, she died on October 8, 1273 in Sorges in the Dordogne . Bohun had at least four sons and four daughters from his marriages, although it is not known for all of them which marriage they originate from. From his first marriage he had the following children:

His other children included:

  • Henry de Bohun
  • John de Bohun
  • Savaric de Bohun

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ David Carpenter: The minority of Henry III . University of California Press, Berkeley 1990. ISBN 0-520-07239-1 , p. 266
predecessor Office successor
Henry de Bohun Lord High Constable
1220-1275 		Humphrey de Bohun
Henry de Bohun Earl of Hereford
1220-1275 		Humphrey de Bohun
New title created Earl of Essex
1236-1275 		Humphrey de Bohun
personal data
SURNAME Humphrey de Bohun, 2nd Earl of Hereford
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Humphrey de Bohun, 1st Earl of Essex
BRIEF DESCRIPTION English nobleman, Lord High Constable of England, crusader
DATE OF BIRTH 12th century or 13th century
DATE OF DEATH September 24, 1275