Chapter 3: 

Margaret de Bohun (3 April 1311 – 16 Dec 1391)

19 generations between Margaret de Bohun and James Rupuha Elers

The lives of Margaret de Bohun and Hugh Courtenay

Source: Wikipedia

• Margaret de Bohun, Countess of Devon, (3 April 1311 – 16 December 1391) was the third daughter of Humphrey de Bohun, 4th Earl of Hereford, Lord Constable of England and his wife Elizabeth Plantagenet. 

• Some records say she had seventeen children but as four of them have no birth or death dates I have excluded them from this exercise.

• Margaret was left an orphan shortly before her eleventh birthday. Her father died on 16 March 1322 at the Battle of Boroughbridge, slain in an ambush by the Welsh. Her mother had died six years previously in childbirth. 

• On 11 August 1325, at the age of fourteen, Lady Margaret de Bohun married Hugh Courtenay, the future 10th Earl of Devon, Margaret had been betrothed to Hugh since 27 September 1314, aged three. The agreement was formally made on 28 February 1315, when she was not quite four years old. Her dowry included the manor of Powderham near Exeter.

• Lady Margaret died at the age of 80 and was buried at the Exeter Cathedral, Exeter, Devonshire.

• Hugh Courtenay, 10th Earl of Devon, 2nd Baron Courtenay, feudal baron of Okehampton and of Plympton, was born on 12 July 1303.

• He played an important role in the 100 Years War in the service of King Edward 111.

• His chief seats were Tiverton Castle and Okehampton in Devonshire.

• He was the second son of Hugh de Courtenay (1276-1340) and his wife Agnes de Saint John.

• He was made a Knight Banneret on 20 January 1327.

• In 1333 both Hugh and his father were at the Battle of Halidon Hill and in 1339 the pair were with the forces which repulsed a French invasion of Cornwall, driving the French back to their ships.

• On the death of his father on 23 December 1340, Hugh succeeded to the Earldom (of Devon) and was granted livery of his lands on 11 January 1341.

• Hugh died at Exeter on 2 May 1377 and was buried at the same cathedral as his wife.

• Their tomb is in the South Transept.

• Included in their family they had an Archbishop of Canterbury and six knights, of whom two were founder knights of the Order of the Garter.