Eleanor, Duchess of Gloucester

For the earlier Duchess of Gloucester, see Eleanor de Bohun.

Eleanor Cobham
Duchess of Gloucester
Eleanor and her husband Humphrey in a 1431 illustration
Born	c. 1400 Sterborough Castle, Surrey, English
Died	7 July 1452 (aged c. 52) Beaumaris Castle, Anglesey, Wales
Spouse	Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester (m. bet. 1428–1431; ann. c. 1441)
Father	Sir Reynold Cobham
Mother	Eleanor Culpeper

Eleanor Cobham (c.1400 – 7 July 1452) was an English noblewoman, first the mistress and then the second wife of Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester. In 1441 she was forcibly divorced and sentenced to life imprisonment for treasonable necromancy, a punishment likely to have been politically motivated.

Early Life

Eleanor was the younger daughter of Sir Reynold Cobham (d. 1445), who lived at Sterborough in Surrey, and his first wife, Eleanor Culpeper (d. 1422), daughter of Sir Thomas Culpeper.

Mistress and wife to the Duke of Gloucester

In about 1422 Eleanor became a lady-in-waiting to Jacqueline d'Hainault, who had fled to England in 1421 and divorced her husband, John IV, Duke of Brabant. In 1423, Jacqueline married Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, the youngest son of King Henry IV, who since the death of his elder brother King Henry V was Lord Protector of the child king Henry VI and a leading member of his council. Jacqueline's divorce was only valid in England, and the marriage to Gloucester was arranged in haste and secret, but in 1424 Gloucester went to France to wrest control of his wife's estates in Hainault.

On his return to England in 1425 Eleanor became Gloucester's mistress. In January 1428, the Duke's marriage to Jacqueline was annulled, as Pope Martin V decreed that Jacqueline was still the wife of John IV, Duke of Brabant when she had remarried. Gloucester was then free to wed, and married Eleanor. Over the next few years the couple were the centre of a small but flamboyant court based at their principal residence La Plesaunce in Greenwich, surrounded by poets, musicians, scholars, physicians, friends and acolytes.

In 1435, Gloucester's elder brother, John, Duke of Bedford died, making Humphrey heir presumptive to the English throne. Gloucester also claimed the role of regent, hitherto occupied by his brother, but was opposed in that endeavour by the council. His wife Eleanor had some influence at court and seems to have been liked by Henry VI. In November 1435, Gloucester placed his whole estate in a jointure with Eleanor. Six months later, in April 1436, she was granted the robes of a duchess for the Garter ceremony.

Trial and imprisonment

The public penance of Eleanor Cobham from A Chronicle of England illustrated by J. W. E. Doyle 1864.

Eleanor consulted astrologers to try to divine her future, and therefore the royal succession, through her horoscope. The astrologers Thomas Southwell and Roger Bolingbroke predicted that Henry VI would suffer a life-threatening illness in July or August 1441. When rumours of the prediction reached the king's guardians, they also consulted astrologers who could find no such future illness in their astrological predictions, a comfort for the king, who had been troubled by the rumours. They also followed the rumours to their source and interrogated Thomas Southwell (physician and canon of St Stephen's Chapel in the palace of Westminster), Roger Bolingbroke (an Oxford scholar and member of Duke Humphrey's household) and John Home (Eleanor's personal confessor and canon of Hereford and St Asaph). Southwell and Bolingbroke were then arrested on charges of treasonable necromancy. Bolingbroke named Eleanor as the instigator by saying that she had ‘first stirrd himme’ to know ‘to what astate she sholde come.’ She had fled to sanctuary in Westminster Abbey so could not be tried by the law courts.

Eleanor, subject only to the ecclesiastical jurisdiction whilst in sanctuary, was examined by a panel of bishops headed by Henry Chichele, Archbishop of Canterbury. She denied most of the charges of witchcraft, heresy and treason. She confessed to obtaining potions from Margery Jourdemayne, "the Witch of Eye", explaining that they were potions to help her conceive and ‘forto have borne a child by hir lord, the duke of Gloucestre’.

Eleanor and her fellow conspirators were found guilty. Southwell died in the Tower of London, Bolingbroke was hanged, drawn and quartered, and Jourdemayne was burnt at the stake as a witch. Eleanor had to do public penance in London, divorce her husband and was condemned to life imprisonment with fitting accommodations in the royal castles and a royal pension of 100 marks a year.

On three market days in November 1441 she was forced to walk barefoot to three churches carrying a taper. Market days were chosen as they were busy, to maximize the humiliation. The marriage of Eleanor to duke Humphrey was dissolved through an imposed divorce, stripping her of her titles and rights to any of the duke’s wealth. This was as the bishops found that Eleanor had also used witchcraft to "enforce" Gloucester to "to loue her and to wedde her".

A sentence of perpetual imprisonment was imposed. In 1442, Eleanor was imprisoned at Chester Castle, then in 1443 moved to Kenilworth Castle. This move may have been prompted by fears that Eleanor was gaining sympathy amongst the Commons, for just a few months prior an unnamed Kentish woman had met with Henry VI at Black Heath and scolded him for his treatment of Eleanor, saying he should bring her home to her husband. The woman was punished by execution. In July 1446 Eleanor was moved to the Isle of Man, and finally in March 1449 to Beaumaris Castle in Anglesey, where she died on 7 July 1452.

Children

Eleanor's husband Humphrey had two known children, Arthur and Antigone. Sources are divided about whether they were born to Eleanor before the marriage, or were the offspring of an "unknown mistress or mistresses". Kenneth Hotham Vickers, Alison Weir and Cathy Hartley all suggest that Eleanor was their mother, though other authors treat their maternity as unknown. Antigone, however, had her first child in November 1436 suggesting she was born at the very latest in 1424, which may suggest that she was born before Eleanor became involved with Humphrey. Thus, Eleanor's children may have been:

• Arthur Plantagenet (died after 1447)
• Antigone Plantagenet, who married Henry Grey, 2nd Earl of Tankerville, Lord of Powys (c. 1419–1450) and then John d'Amancier.

Sources

• Du Fresne, Gaston Louis Emmanuel, Marquis de Beaucourt (1881). Histoire de Charles VII (6 vols). Vol. 5. Paris. p. 331.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
• Harriss, G. L. (January 2008) [2004]. "Eleanor [née Eleanor Cobham], duchess of Gloucester (c. 1400–1452)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/5742. Retrieved 24 February 2022.
• Hollman, Gemma (2019). Royal Witches: From Joan of Navarre to Elizabeth Woodville. Cheltenham: The History Press. ISBN 9780750989404.
• Lewis, C. P.; Thacker, A.T., eds. (2003). "The City of Chester: General History and Topography". Later medieval Chester 1230-1550: City and crown, 1350-1550', A History of the County of Chester. Vol. 5, part 1. pp. 55–58. Retrieved 3 February 2011.
• Richardson, Douglas (2011). Magna Carta Ancestry: A Study in Colonial and Medieval Families (2nd ed.). Genealogical Publishing. p. 293. ISBN 9781461045205.
• Weir, Alison (1999). Britain's Royal Family: A Complete Genealogy. London: The Bodley Head. ISBN 978-0-09-953973-5.

Further reading

• Hollman, Gemma (1 September 2020). Royal Witches: Witchcraft and the Nobility in Fifteenth-Century England. Pegasus Books. ISBN 978-1-64313-395-9.
• Royal Genealogical Data – University of Hull