Humphrey III de Bohun

Humphrey III de Bohun (before 1144 – ? December 1181) was an Anglo-Norman nobleman and general who served Henry II as Constable. He was the son of Humphrey II de Bohun and Margaret of Hereford, the eldest daughter of the erstwhile constable Miles of Gloucester. He had succeeded to his father's fiefs, centred in Gloucestershire on Caldicot Castle, and in Wiltshire on Trowbridge Castle, by 29 September 1165, when he owed three hundred marks as relief. From 1166 onwards, he held his mother's inheritance, both her Bohun lands in Wiltshire and her inheritance from her late father and brothers.

As his constable, Humphrey sided with the king during the Revolt of 1173–1174. In August 1173, he was with Henry and the royal army at Breteuil on the continent and, later that same year, he and Richard de Lucy led the sack of Berwick-upon-Tweed and invaded Lothian to attack William the Lion, the King of Scotland, who had sided with the rebels. He returned to England and played a major role in the defeat and capture of Robert Blanchemains, the Earl of Leicester, at Fornham. By the end of 1174, he was back on the continent, where he witnessed the Treaty of Falaise between Henry and William of Scotland.

According to Robert of Torigni, in late 1181 Humphrey joined Henry the Young King in leading an army against Philip of Alsace, the Count of Flanders, in support of Philip II of France, on which campaign Humphrey died.^[1] He was buried at Llanthony Secunda.

Sometime between February 1171 and Easter 1175 Humphrey married Margaret of Huntingdon, a daughter of Henry, Earl of Northumbria, and widow since 1171 of Conan IV, Duke of Brittany. Through this marriage he became a brother-in-law of his enemy, William of Scotland. With Margaret he had a daughter, Matilda, and a son, Henry de Bohun, who, in 1187, while a minor in the custody of Humphrey's mother in England, was created Earl of Hereford. It has been suggested that Humphrey's widow was the Margaret who married Pedro Manrique de Lara, a Spanish nobleman, but there are discrepancies in this theory.^[2]

References

• Graeme White, "Bohun, Humphrey (III) de (b. before 1144, d. 1181)," Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004, accessed 20 December 2009.

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