THOMAS

See also:

• BOURCHIER, ARTHUR (1864- )
• THOMAS BOURCHIER (c. 1404-1486)

BOURCHIER (c. 1404-1486)  , English archbishop, lord chancellor and cardinal, was a younger son of William Bourchier, count of Eu (d . 1420), and through his mother, Anne, a daughter of Thomas of Woodstock, duke of Gloucester, was a descendant of Edward III . One of his brothers was Henry, earl of Essex (d . 1483), and his grand-nephew was John, Lord Berners, the translator of Froissart . Educated at Oxford and then entering the church, he obtained rapid promotion, and after holding some minor appointments he became bishop of Worcester in 1434 . In the same year he was chancellor of the university of Oxford, and in 1443 he was appointed bishop of Ely; then in April 1454 he was made archbishop of Canterbury, becoming lord chancellor of England in the following March . Bourchier's short term of office as chancellor coincided with the opening of the Wars of the Roses, and at first he was not a strong partisan, although he lost his position as chancellor when Richard, duke of York, was deprived of power in October 1456 . Afterwards, in 1458, he helped to reconcile the contending parties, but when the war was renewed in 1459 he appears as a decided Yorkist; he crowned Edward IV. in June 1461, and four years later he performed a similar service for the queen, Elizabeth Woodville . In 1457 Bourchier took the chief part in the trial of Reginald Pecock, bishop of Chichester, for heresy; in 1467 he was created a cardinal; and in 1475 he was one of the four arbitrators appointed to arrange the details of the treaty of Picquigny between England and France . After the death of Edward IV. in 1483 Bourchier persuaded the queen to allowher younger son, Richard, duke of York, to share his brother's residence in the Tower of London; and although he had sworn to be faithful to Edward V. before his father's death, he crowned Richard III. in July 1483 . He was, however, in no way implicated in the murder of the young princes, and he was probably a participant in the conspiracies against Richard . The third English king crowned by Bourchier was Henry VII., whom he also married to Elizabeth of York in January 1486 .

The archbishop died on the 3oth of March 1486 at his residence, Knole, near

Sevenoaks, and was buried in Canterbury cathedral . See W . F . Hook, Lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury (186o-1884) .