Mary de Bohun


Mary de Bohun was the first wife of King Henry IV of England and the mother of King Henry V. Mary was never queen, as she died before her husband came to the throne.

Early life

Mary was a daughter of Humphrey de Bohun, 7th Earl of Hereford by his wife Joan FitzAlan, a daughter of Richard FitzAlan, 10th Earl of Arundel and Eleanor of Lancaster. Through her mother, Mary was descended from Llywelyn the Great.
Mary and her elder sister, Eleanor de Bohun, were the heiresses of their father's substantial possessions. Eleanor became the wife of Thomas of Woodstock, 1st Duke of Gloucester, the youngest child of Edward III. In an effort to keep the inheritance for himself and his wife, Thomas of Woodstock pressured the child Mary into becoming a nun. 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.

Marriage and children

Mary married Henry—then known as Bolingbroke—on 27 July 1380, 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.
Her children were:
Mary de Bohun died at Peterborough Castle, giving birth to her last child, a daughter, Philippa of England. She was buried in the collegiate Church of the Annunciation of Our Lady of the Newarke, Leicester on 6 July 1394.

Ancestry