Eleanor de Bohun ★

1360s–1370s

Born around 1366, elder daughter and co-heiress of Humphrey de Bohun, 7th Earl of Hereford, and Joan FitzAlan. Married Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester, in 1376 and settled at Pleshey Castle, Essex.

1380s–1390s

Made a Lady of the Garter in 1384; had five children. Widowed when Thomas was murdered in 1397, she became a nun at Barking Abbey. Died on 3 October 1399 and was buried at Westminster Abbey.

Family Background

Eleanor de Bohun was born around 1365–1366, elder daughter and co-heiress of Humphrey de Bohun, 7th Earl of Hereford, and Joan FitzAlan, who herself descended from the FitzAlan and Lancaster families.

Marriage to Thomas of Woodstock

Eleanor married Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester, youngest son of Edward III, in 1376 when she was only around ten or eleven years old; the couple settled at Pleshey Castle in Essex. Eleanor and Thomas also took charge of Eleanor's younger sister Mary, with the expectation she would enter religious life so the sisters' shared Bohun inheritance would pass undivided to Eleanor's own children.

Life as Duchess of Gloucester

Eleanor was made a Lady of the Garter in 1384 and bore Thomas five children: Humphrey, later 2nd Earl of Buckingham; Anne, who married two successive Earls of Stafford and then William Bourchier; Joan; Isabel, who became an abbess near Aldgate; and Philippa.

Widowhood and Religious Life

Thomas was murdered in 1397, leaving Eleanor a widow at about thirty-one. Rather than remarry, she chose a religious path, becoming a nun at Barking Abbey in her final years.

Death

Eleanor died October 3, 1399, around age thirty-two or thirty-three, having divided her considerable holdings among her surviving children beforehand. She was buried at Westminster Abbey.