Mary de Bohun

Mary de Bohun
Countess of Northampton Countess of Derby (by courtesy)
Mary as a child in the Psalter of Mary de Bohun
Born	c. 1369/70
Died	4 June 1394 Peterborough Castle, Kingdom of England
Burial	6 July 1394 The Collegiate Church of the Annunciation of Our Lady of the Newarke, Leicester
Spouse	Henry Bolingbroke ​ (m. 1381)​
Issue	Henry V, King of England Thomas, Duke of Clarence John, Duke of Bedford Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester Blanche Philippa, Queen of Denmark, Norway and Sweden
Father	Humphrey de Bohun, 7th Earl of Hereford
Mother	Joan Fitzalan

Mary de Bohun (c. 1369/70^[a] – 4 June 1394) was the first wife of Henry Bolingbroke, Earl of Northampton and Hereford and the mother of King Henry V. Mary was never queen, as she died before her husband came to the throne as Henry IV.

Mary was a daughter of Humphrey de Bohun, 7th Earl of Hereford (1341–1373) by his wife Joan Fitzalan (1347/8–1419),^[2] a daughter of Richard FitzAlan, 10th Earl of Arundel, and Eleanor of Lancaster.

Mary and her elder sister, Eleanor de Bohun, were the heiresses of their father's substantial possessions.^[1] Eleanor became the wife of Thomas of Woodstock, 1st Duke of Gloucester, the youngest child of Edward III.^[1] In an effort to keep the entire inheritance for himself and his wife, Thomas of Woodstock pressured the child Mary into becoming a nun.^[3] In a plot with John of Gaunt, Mary's aunt took her from Thomas' castle at Pleshey back to Arundel whereupon she was married to Henry Bolingbroke, the future Henry IV.^[3]

Mary married Henry—then known as Bolingbroke—on 5 February 1381,^[4] at Arundel Castle. It was at Monmouth Castle, one of her husband's possessions, that Mary gave birth to her first child, the future Henry V, on 16 September 1386. Her second child, Thomas, was born probably at London shortly before 25 November 1387.^[5]

Her children were:^[b]

• Henry V, King of England (1386–1422)^[8]
• Thomas of Lancaster, Duke of Clarence (1387–1421)^[8]
• John of Lancaster, Duke of Bedford (1389–1435)^[8]
• Humphrey of Lancaster, Duke of Gloucester (1390–1447)^[8]
• Blanche of England (1392–1409)^[8] married in 1402 Louis III, Elector Palatine^[9]
• Philippa of England (1394–1430)^[8] married in 1406 Eric of Pomerania, King of Denmark, Norway and Sweden^[10]

Mary de Bohun died at Peterborough Castle, giving birth to her daughter Philippa.^[11] She was buried in the collegiate Church of the Annunciation of Our Lady of the Newarke, Leicester, on 6 July 1394.^[12][13][14]

• Allmand, Christopher (1992). Henry V. The University of California Press.
• Brown, Alfred Lawson; Summerson, H. (2010). "Henry IV [known as Henry Bolingbroke]". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/12951. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
• Given-Wilson, Chris (2016). Henry IV. Yale University Press.
• Goodman, Anthony (2013). John of Gaunt: The Exercise of Princely Power in Fourteenth-Century Europe. Routledge.
• Knighton, Henry (1995). Martin, G.H. (ed.). Knighton's Chronicle, 1337-1396. Clarendon Press.
• Luxford, Julian M. (2008). "The Collegiate Church as Mausoleum". In Burgess, Clive; Heale, Martin (eds.). The Late Medieval English College and Its Context. York Medieval Press.
• Mortimer, Ian (2007). The Fears of Henry IV. Random.
• Panton, James (2011). Historical Dictionary of the British Monarchy. Scarecrow Press.
• Richardson, Douglas (2011). Plantagenet Ancestry: A Study In Colonial And Medieval Families. Genealogical Publishing Company.
• Staley, Lynn (2006). Languages of Power in the Age of Richard II. The Pennsylvania State University Press.
• Ward, Jennifer C., ed. (1995). Women of the English Nobility and Gentry, 1066–1500. Manchester University Press.
• Ward, Jennifer (2006). Women in England in the Middle Ages. Hambledon Continuum.

• Document on Women and Spirituality from the University of the West of England – contains information on Mary de Bohun's spiritual life