Henry Bourchier, 5th Earl of Bath

Henry Bourchier, 5th Earl of Bath
Henry Bourchier, 5th Earl of Bath, portrait c. 1638–1643, private collection.
Born1587
Died(1654-08-16)16 August 1654
Tawstock, Devon, England
SpouseRachel Fane
Parent(s)Sir George Bourchier
Martha Howard
Canting arms of Bourchier: Argent, a cross engrailed gules between four water bougets sable
Marble panel with relief sculpture of heraldic achievement of Henry Bourchier, 5th Earl of Bath, detail from his monument in Tawstock Church, Devon. The escutcheon shows 53 quarterings (as on the monument to William Bourchier, 3rd Earl of Bath in the same church), with supporters, dexter: an heraldic tiger argent; sinister: a falcon argent beaked and membered or the wings elevated vulned gules.[1] Above is the crest of Bourchier: A man's head in profile proper ducally crowned or with a pointed cap gules; below the motto of Bourchier: Bon Temps Viendra ("the right time will come")

Henry Bourchier, 5th Earl of Bath (1587 – 16 August 1654) of Tawstock in Devon, was an English peer who held the office of Lord Privy Seal and was a large landowner in Ireland in Limerick and Armagh counties, and in England in Devon, Somerset and elsewhere. Following his inheritance of the Earldom of Bath from his distant cousin, in 1637 he moved from his native Ireland to Tawstock Court in Devon,[2] a county previously unknown to him where he knew few people. As the most senior resident nobleman in the county he was destined to play the leading role for the Royalist cause in Devon during the Civil War but before the outbreak of hostilities, he was captured in 1642 and imprisoned by the Parliamentarians before he had organised his local forces. In the opinion of Clarendon (d. 1674) he was a man of "sour-tempered unsocial behaviour" who "had no excellent or graceful pronunciation" and "neither had or ever meant to do the king the least service".[3]

  1. ^ Supporters as surviving in stained glass window in cloister of Hengrave Hall, Suffolk, of arms of John Bourchier, 2nd Earl of Bath as blazoned by Rokewood, John Gage, The History and Antiquities of Suffolk: Thingoe Hundred, pp. 218–19 [1]
  2. ^ Gray 1996, p. xx.
  3. ^ Gray 1996, p. xix quoting from Clarendon's History of the Rebellion.