gency before him, the earl desired that he might be buried in the abbey of Wahlen in Essex, near the body of Elizabeth his late wife (jadys ma cumpaigne), and bequeathed the magnificent sum of one thousand marks for the general expenses of his funeral, charging his executors that the bodies of his father, mother, and wife, should be as honourably covered[1] as his own, and that there should be but one herce, of one course of lights over all their bodies. It may be observed that this natural and amiable desire of the testator to repose beside his nearest relatives was not eventually gratified. After the conflict at Boroughbridge, his corpse was conveyed to York, and interred in the church of the Friars Preachers. Among the numerous legacies in his will may be enumerated the gift of his "black charger, which he brought from beyond sea," to Bartholomew lord Badlesmere of Leeds castle in Kent, who was also one of the partizans of the earl of Lancaster, was captured like his chief at Boroughbridge, and hanged at Canterbury: his ignominious death may be partly attributed to the resentment of Queen Isabella, whom lady Badlesmere had refused to admit into the castle of Leeds, during her lord's absence.
To his sons Humphrey, Edward, William, afterwards earl of Northampton, and Eneas, he bequeaths two thousand marks each, to be employed according to the discretion of his executors. At the period of the will, two only of the earl's daughters were living, Alianore, afterwards the wife of James Butler, earl of Ormond, and Margaret, who was contracted to Hugh Courtenay, son of Hugh lord Courtenay subsequently first earl of Devon of his name. To Alianore he left two hundred pounds, for her "apparel" against her marriage, and to Margaret two hundred marks for the same purpose. Among the miscellaneous objects bequeathed by the earl are—to his eldest son all his armour, and "an entire bed of green powdered with white swans," the Bohun badge[2]. To master John Walewayn, one of his executors, a cup "stamped (emprenté) and embossed with fleurs-de-lis," which
- ↑ Covertz. That is, that their tombs should be hung with rich cloths.
- ↑ In 1399, Eleanor de Bohun, duchess of Gloucester bequeathed, to her son Humphrey, a psalter richly illuminated, with clasps of gold enamelled with white swans. Royal Wills, p. 181. See also the seal of Thomas, earl of Gloucester—engraved in Sandford's Genealogical History of England—the ground of which is a diaper of ostrich feathers and swans. The seal of his duchess on the same plate may be remarked.
