Sir George Bourchier English soldier who fought and settled in Ireland. Member of the Privy Council of Ireland

Privy Council of Ireland

The Privy Council of Ireland was an institution of the Kingdom of Ireland until 31 December 1800 and of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland 1801-1922...

, Member of the Irish Parliament

Irish House of Commons

The Irish House of Commons was the lower house of the Parliament of Ireland, that existed from 1297 until 1800. The upper house was the House of Lords...

.

Biography

George Bourchier was a the third son of the 2nd Earl of Bath

John Bourchier, 2nd Earl of Bath

Sir John Bourchier, 2nd Earl of Bath, PC was an Earl in the peerage of England. He also succeeded to the titles of 4th Baron FitzWarin, Baron of Daubeney and 4th Count of Eu....

 by his wife Eleanor. He went to western Ireland as a captain in 1570 and remained there throughout the Desmond Rebellions

Desmond Rebellions

The Desmond Rebellions occurred in 1569-1573 and 1579-1583 in the Irish province of Munster.They were rebellions by the Earl of Desmond – head of the FitzGerald dynasty in Munster – and his followers, the Geraldines and their allies against the threat of the extension of Elizabethan English...

; in 1573 he was seized by James FitzMaurice FitzGerald

James FitzMaurice FitzGerald

James Fitzmaurice Fitzgerald was a member of the 16th century ruling Geraldine dynasty in the province of Munster in Ireland. He rebelled against the crown authority of Queen Elizabeth I of England in response to the onset of the Tudor conquest of Ireland and was deemed an archtraitor...

, he was surrendered after Essex

Walter Devereux, 1st Earl of Essex

Walter Devereux, 1st Earl of Essex, KG , an English nobleman and general. From 1573 until his death he fought in Ireland in connection with the Plantation of Ulster, where he ordered the massacre of Rathlin Island...

 met the Earl of Desmond

Gerald FitzGerald, 15th Earl of Desmond

Gerald FitzGerald, 15th Earl of Desmond was an Irish nobleman and leader of the Desmond Rebellions of 1579.-Life:...

 near Waterford

Waterford

Waterford is a city in the South-East Region of Ireland. It is the oldest city in the country and fifth largest by population. Waterford City Council is the local government authority for the city and its immediate hinterland...

 that July; he was knighted by Sir William Drury

William Drury

Sir William Drury, Knt., was an English statesman and soldier,He was a son of Sir Robert Drury of Hedgerley in Buckinghamshire, and grandson of another Sir Robert Drury , who was speaker of the House of Commons in 1495. He was a brother of Dru Drury.He was born at Hawstead in Suffolk, and was...

, Lord Justice of Ireland, in September 1579. He continued to command forces, and was elected Member for King's County

County Offaly

County Offaly is a county in Ireland. It is part of the Midlands Region and is also located in the province of Leinster. It is named after the ancient Kingdom of Uí Failghe and was formerly known as King's County until the establishment of the Irish Free State in 1922. Offaly County Council is...

 1585-86; was Master of the Ordnance (Ireland) 1592; a Privy Councillor (Ireland); and was sometime High Commissioner for Ecclesiastical Causes. He died on 24 September 1605.

In 1589 he was granted 12800 acres (51.8 km²) of county Limerick.

He was one of the seven signatories of a letter from the Irish Executive to the Privy Council in England (dated 4 November 1591) which inclosed the petition of the Mayor and Corporation of Dublin offering the 28 acres (113,312.1 m²) All Hallows site for the foundation of a university (S.P.O., Ireland, Elizabeth vol. 1611-8). Trinity College Dublin was subsequently founded on 3 March 1592. He is listed, 11 March 1591/2, as an original Founder and Benefactor having donated £30, twice.

Family

George Bourchier Married Martha Howard (c. 1555-1598), daughter of William, 1st Lord Howard of Effingham

William Howard, 1st Baron Howard of Effingham

William Howard, 1st Baron Howard of Effingham , was the eldest son of Thomas Howard, 2nd Duke of Norfolk by his second wife, Agnes Tilney...

 by Margaret Gamage. Her brother was the Lord High Admiral Charles Lord Howard of Effingham

Charles Howard, 1st Earl of Nottingham

Charles Howard, 1st Earl of Nottingham , known as Howard of Effingham, was an English statesman and Lord High Admiral under Elizabeth I and James I...

.

Two of their sons, Charles (d. 17 September 1584) and Frederick-Philip (d. 8 March 1587), are buried in Kilkenny

Kilkenny

Kilkenny is a city and is the county town of the eponymous County Kilkenny in Ireland. It is situated on both banks of the River Nore in the province of Leinster, in the south-east of Ireland...

's cathedral of St. Canice

St Canice's Cathedral

St Canice's Cathedral , is a cathedral of the Church of Ireland in Kilkenny city, Ireland. It is in the ecclesiastical province of Dublin....

.

The first three sons died young, the fourth one, Sir John Bourchier, Kt, (knighted 24 March 1610/11), of the manor of Clare, co. Armagh

County Armagh

-History:Ancient Armagh was the territory of the Ulaid before the fourth century AD. It was ruled by the Red Branch, whose capital was Emain Macha near Armagh. The site, and subsequently the city, were named after the goddess Macha...

, died 25 March 1614 having been MP for county Armagh, 1613-14.

In 1614, therefore, Henry

Henry Bourchier, 5th Earl of Bath

Henry Bourchier, 5th Earl of Bath was an English Peer of the Realm, Lord Privy Seal, and landowner in counties Limerick, Armagh, Devon and Somerset-Biography:Sir Henry Bourchier was probably born and was certainly brought up in Ireland...

 the fifth son, inherited in Ireland from both his father and brother over 18000 acres (72.8 km²), and then when he became 5th Earl of Bath, on the death of his cousin the 4th Earl

Edward Bourchier, 4th Earl of Bath

Edward Bourchier, 4th Earl of Bath , was born 27 Aug 1575 in Somerset to William Bourchier, 3rd Earl of Bath and Elizabeth Russell. Edward was married twice first on 14 July 1623 to Dorothy St John, daughter of Oliver St John, 3rd Baron St John of Bletso and Dorothy Read. They had five children...

 aged 47 in March 1636/37, he could add Tawstock

Tawstock

Tawstock is a village and civil parish in North Devon in the English county of Devon. It has a population of 2,093.-Parish Church:St Peter's church is, unusually for Devon, a church largely of the 14th century. The plan is cruciform and the site is in the former park of the Earls of Bath...

 and 36 manors in Devon and Somerset to his name.

Further reading

• William Urwick, The Early History of Trinity College Dublin, 1591–1660, London & Dublin, 1892.
• McDowell & Webb, Trinity College Dublin, Cambridge University Press, 1982.
• G. E. Cokayne, Vicary Gibbs, The Complete Peerage, volume II, page 19, The St. Catherine Press, London, 1912 (the series was published: 1910-1959).
• Todd Gray (ed), Devon Household Accounts 1627-59 Part II, Devon and Cornwall Record Society, 1996.
• Fane de Salis MSS.
• John Bateman, Great Landowners, 1883.
• Rev. James Graves & John G. Augustus Prim, The History, Architecture, and Antiquities of the Cathedral Church of St. Canice, Kilkenny, Dublin, 1857.
• A Biographical History of England, from Egbert the Great to the Revolution: consisting of characters disposed in different classes, and adapted to a methodical catalogue of engraved British Heads: intended as an essay towards reducing our biography to system, and to a help to the knowledge of portraits: interspersed with a variety of anecdotes, and memoirs of a great number of persons, not to be found in any other biographical work. With a preface, shewing the utility of a collection of engraved portraits to supply the defect, and answer the various purposes, of medals, by the Rev. James Granger
  James Granger
  James Granger was an English clergyman, biographer, and print collector. He is now known as the author of the Biographical History of England from Egbert the Great to the Revolution .-Life:...
  
   (1723–1776), vicar of Shiplake
  Shiplake
  Shiplake is a village and civil parish about south of Henley-on-Thames in Oxfordshire, England on the River Thames.-History:The Church of England parish church of St. Peter and St. Paul dates from at least the 13th century, but in 1869 the Gothic Revival architect G.E. Street rebuilt the chancel,...
  
   in Oxfordshire. Fifth edition, volume IV out of VI, London, 1824. (First edition was 1769). (Page 78, a description of the Countess of Bath's portrait by Van Dyck).
• Oswald Barron, The Fanes, in Ancestor, January 1905, xii, 9-10.
• Oswald Barron, FSA (ed), Northamptonshire Families, (VCH), Archibald Constable, London, 1906.