William Bourchier, 3rd Earl of Bath
William Bourchier, 3rd Earl of Bath was Lord Lieutenant of Devon. His seat was at Tawstock Court, three miles south of Barnstaple in North Devon, which he rebuilt in the Elizabethan style in 1574, the date being sculpted on the surviving gatehouse.
Origins
He was born on 29 September 1557 in Devon, the eldest son of John Bourchier, Lord FitzWarin by his wife Frances Kitson, a daughter of Sir Thomas Kitson of Hengrave Hall, Suffolk and Margaret Donnington, Countess of Bath. Her elaborate monument with effigy exists in Tawstock Church. William succeeded to the earldom on the death of his grandfather, John Bourchier, 2nd Earl of Bath in 1561.Marriages and children
He married twice:- Firstly, in secret on 15 December 1578, to Mary Cornwallis, a daughter of Sir Thomas Cornwallis, of Brome Hall, Eye, Suffolk. The marriage was largely arranged by Sir Thomas Kytson, the young earl's uncle and Mary's brother-in-law. The marriage was subsequently repudiated, according to some sources because the earl's mother, Frances Kytson, by then remarried to William Barnaby, would not consent to the match. A lawsuit was commenced in May 1580 and the marriage was annulled by a judge on 28 April 1581.
- Secondly, in 1583 to Lady Elizabeth Russell, daughter of Francis Russell, 2nd Earl of Bedford, Lord Lieutenant of Devon, the wealthiest and most powerful man in Devon. One of his many manors was Bishops Tawton, the village and parish church of which is situated directly across the River Taw and is prominently visible from Tawstock Court. They had four children, as shown in effigies on the monument at Tawstock, and identified in the inscription :
- *John Bourchier, Lord FitzWarin, eldest son and heir apparent,. Baron FitzWarin was the courtesy title used by the eldest son and heir apparent of the Bourchier Earls of Bath.
- *Robert Bourchier, Lord FitzWarin, second son,
- *Edward Bourchier, 4th Earl of Bath, eldest surviving son and heir. Misrecorded in the unsigned Bourchier pedigree in the Heraldic Visitation of Devon, 1620, as "Ricus, D'ns Fitzwarren”.
- *Lady Frances Bourchier, died unmarried aged 25. In 1603 she joined the household of Princess Elizabeth. A monument to her survives in the Bedford Chapel, Chenies, Buckinghamshire. It consists of a plain slab of black marble supported by four white marble Doric columns which form a canopy to a second slab of black marble, under which is a step of black marble on the floor. Two heraldic lozenges on the lower slab are surmounted by an Earl's coronet, sculpted in relief in white marble. An inscription records the erection of the monument by Lady Anne Clifford "her deare cosen", daughter of Lady Margaret Russell and therefore her first cousin, and she is mentioned several times in Anne's diaries. The arms displayed are of Bourchier with ten quarterings and are the same as shown on the gatehouse of Tawstock Court.
Death and burial
He and his wife, Elizabeth, are buried in the choir of St. Peter's Church, Tawstock, Devon, where one can see their elaborate monument.Monument at Tawstock
A magnificent and sumptuous monument exists in St Peter's Church, Tawstock, incorporating recumbent effigies of William Bourchier, 3rd Earl of Bath and his wife Elizabeth Russell. It was restored in 1999 by Lawrence and Sue Kelland, mainly to replace the iron bands within the alabaster which threatened to rust and thereby expand to crack the stone. The iron was replaced with stainless steel and the monument was repainted. Kneeling to the left is their adult son and an infant child, whilst on the right kneels their adult daughter with a recumbent infantat her side. Two vines grow up on either side of the main effigies, on the dexter inhabited with heraldic escutcheons showing five generations of ancestry described by five shields of Bourchier impaling the arms of their wives. On the sinister vine are shown five similar escutcheons describing the ancestry of Elizabeth Russell over five generations as follows, from ground upwards:
- Gules, three herrings hauriant argent
- Sable, a griffin segreant between three cross crosslets fitchy argent
- Sable, three chevronnels ermine
- Sable, three dovecotes argent
- Argent, on a chief gules two mullets or
Crest
The Bourchier crest was explained by John Weever as follows:
"In the hall of the manor house of Newton Hall in this parish remaineth in an old painting two postures, the one for an ancestor of the Bourchiers, combatant with another, being a pagan king, for the truth of Christ, whom the said Englishman overcame and in memory thereof his descendants have ever since bore the head of the same infidel as also used the surname BOWSER, as I had it out of the collections of Augustin Vincent, Windsor Herald, deceased"
The Phrygian cap is an iconographical symbol of Oriental kings.
Epitaph
Above the couples' effigies is a black rectangular tablet inscribed in capital gold lettering with an epitaph in Latin as follows:
Ae S. Lege viator quae magnatum saxa rarissime loquuntur: vir probus et nobilis uter hic situs est. Guilielmus Bourgchier Comes Bathoniensis aeternitatem apud mortales meritus. Suavissimo connubio conjunxit nobilitatem et virtutem utranq dignitatem in omnibus constanter retinuit et ornavit. Vixit in hac ipsa Devonia cui datus est praefectus et provinciam triginta plus minus annis integerrime administravit. Deum tam privatis quam publicis officiis religiosissime coluit. Magnificum exemplum beneficentiae et hospitalitatis pauperumq et oppressorum acerrimus patronus. Deniq cum inoffensae foelicitatis cursum ad senium usq produxisset decessit e vivis incens et aeternum Devoniae suae desiderium 12.o Julii anno salutis 1623 aetatis vero suae 65.o. Uxorem duxit lectissimam foeminam sociam huius sepulchri Dnam Elizabetham Francisci Comitis Bedfordiensis filiam ex qua genuit Johem Robertum et Edwardum filios et Franciscam filiam e quibus Edwardum modo Comitem Bathoniensem solum reliquit superstitem ipsum clarissimae familiae suis quoq virtutibus et foelicissimo conjugio futurum ornamentum. Hoc fac et Vives
Translated into English thus:
"Sacred to eternity. Read O Traveller what stones of the great very seldom speak: Here lies a man both upright and noble, William Bourchier Earl of Bath, deserving of eternal memory amongst men. By a most pleasing marriage he joined virtue to nobility and in everything unswervingly preserved and adorned the dignity of both. He lived in this very county of Devon of which he was given the prefecture and for more or less thirty years he administered his province with the greatest integrity. He honoured God most religiously as well in private as in public duties. He was a great example of benificence and hospitality and a most keen patron of the poor and oppressed. At last when he had led on his life even to old age he departed from the living, to the great and lasting sorrow of Devon, on the twelfth of July in the year of Redemption 1623 and indeed in the 65th of his age. As wife he married the most select woman, his companion in this sepulchre, Elizabeth, daughter of Francis, Earl of Bedford, with whom he begat sons John, Robert and Edward and Frances a daughter, out of whom he left behind him only Edward, late Earl of Bath, himself about to be an ornament to his most famous family also in his virtues and from his most happy marriage. This do and thou shalt live"