not improbably be identified with the elaborate 'Ordinances for watch and ward of Calais' in Cotton MS. (Faust. E. vii. 89-102 b). These ordinances were apparently drawn up before 1532, and have been printed at length in the 'Chronicle of Calais' published by the Camden Society, pp. 140-62. Warton states, on the authority of Oldys, that Henry, lord Berners, translated some of Petrarch's sonnets, but the statement is probably wholly erroneous (Hist. Engl Poet. iii. 58).
Holbein painted a portrait of Berners in his robes as chancellor of the exchequer (Walpole, Anecdotes of Painting, ed. Wornum, i. 82). The picture is now at Keythorpe Hall, Leicestershire, in the possession of the Hon. H. Tyrwhitt Wilson. It was engraved for the Early English Text Society's reprint of 'Huon of Burdeux' (1884).
[Dugdale's Baronage, ii. 132-3; Marshall's Genealogist's Guide; Burke's Peerage; Foster's Peerage; Bale's Cent. Script, ix. 1; Wood's Athenæ Oxon. (Bliss), i. 72; Brewer's Letters and Papers of Henry VIII, 1509-1534; Utterson's Memoir of Berners in his reprint of the Froissart (1812); Walpole's Royal and Noble Authors, i. 239-45; Fuller's Worthies; Introduction to the Early English Text Society's reprint of Huon of Burdeux, ed. S. L. Lee.]
BOURCHIER, Sir JOHN (d. 1660), regicide, grandson and heir of Sir Ralph Bourchier, of Benningborough, Yorkshire, appears in 1620 in the list of adventurers for Virginia as subscribing 37l. 10s. In the following year, having complained of the lord-keeper for giving judgment against him in a lawsuit, he was censured and obliged to make a humble submission (Lords' Journals, iii. 179-92). He suffered more severely in a contest with Strafford concerning the enclosure of certain lands in the forest of Galtre, near York. Sir John attempted to assert his claims by pulling down the fences, for which he was fined and imprisoned. Directly the Long parliament met he petitioned, and his treatment was one of the minor charges against Strafford (Rushworth, Strafford's Trial, p. 146; see also Straff. Corr. i. 86-88, ii. 59). His name also appears among those who signed the different Yorkshire petitions in favour of the parliament, and a letter from him describing the presentation of the petition of 3 June 1642 on Heyworth Moor, and a quarrel between himself and Lord Savile on that occasion, was printed by order of the House of Commons (Commons' Journals, 6 June 1642). He entered the Long parliament amongst the 'recruiters' as member for Ripon (1645).[1] In December 1648 he was appointed one of the king's judges, and signed the death-warrant. In February 1651, and again in November 1652, he was elected a member of the council of state, and finally succeeded in obtaining a grant of 6,000l. out of the estate of the Earl of Strafford, but it is not evident what satisfaction he actually obtained (Commons' Journals, 31 July 1651). At the Restoration he was, with the other regicides, summoned to give himself up, and the speaker acquainted the House of Commons with his surrender on 18 June 1660 (Journals). While the two houses were quarrelling over the exceptions to be made to the act of indemnity, Bourchier died, asserting to the last the justice of the king's condemnation. 'I tell you it was a just act; God and all good men will own it' (Ludlow's Memoirs, ed. 1751, p. 358). Sir John's son, Barrington Bourchier, having aided in the Restoration, obtained a grant of his father's estate (Cal. of State Papers, Dom., 1661, p. 557).
[Noble's Regicides and House of Cromwell, ii. 36; the Fairfax Correspondence (Civil Wars), i. 338, contains a letter from Sir John Bourchier to Lord Fairfax on the want of ministers in Yorkshire.]
BOURCHIER or BOUSSIER, ROBERT (d. 1349), chancellor, the eldest son of John Bourchier [q. v.], a judge of common pleas, began life in the profession of arms. He was returned as a member for the county of Essex in 1330, 1332, 1338, and 1339. In 1334 he was chief justice of the king's bench in Ireland. He was present at the battle of Cadsant in 1337. He sat in the parliament of 1340 (Rolls of Parliament, ii. 113). When on his return to England the king displaced his ministers, he committed the great seal, which had long been held by Archbishop Stratford and his brother, the Bishop of Chichester, alternately, to Bourchier, who thus became, on 14 Dec. 1340, the first lay chancellor. His salary was fixed at 500l., besides the usual fees. In the struggle between the king and the archbishop, Bourchier withheld the writ of summons to the ex-chancellor, interrupted his address to the bishops in the Painted Chamber, and on 27 April 1341 urged him to submit to the king. When the parliament of 1341 extorted from the king his assent to their petitions that the account of the royal officers should be audited, and that the chancellor and other great officers should be nominated in parliament, and should swear to obey the laws, Bourchier declared that he had not assented to these articles, and would
- ↑ amended to 1647 in revised edition. (Wikisource contributor note)
