Eleanor de Bohun ★

Born Abt in England. She married 1376, to Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester. She died October 3, 1399.

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 three successive earls of Stafford and later 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.