Humphrey II de Bohun

Who is Humphrey II de Bohun?

Humphrey II de Bohun was an Anglo-Norman aristocrat, the third of his family after the Norman Conquest. He was the son and heir of Humphrey I and Maud, a daughter of Edward of Salisbury, an Anglo-Saxon landholder in Wiltshire. His father died around 1123 and he inherited an honour centred on Trowbridge, although he still owed feudal relief for this as late as 1130.

Shortly after the elder Humphrey's death, his widow and son founded the Cluniac priory of Monkton Farleigh in accordance with Humphrey's wishes. By 1130 the younger Humphrey also owed four hundred marks to the Crown for the Stewardship, which he had purchased. He appears in royal charters of Henry I towards 1135, and in 1136 he signed the charter of liberties issued by Stephen at his Oxford court.

In the civil war that coloured Stephen's reign Humphrey sided with his rival, the Empress Matilda after she landed in England in 1139. He repelled a royal army besieging his castle at Trowbridge, and in 1144 Matilda confirmed his possessions, granted him some lands, and recognised his "stewardship in England and Normandy". He consistently witnessed charters of Matilda as steward in the 1140s and between 1153 and 1157 he witnessed the charters of her son, then Henry II, with the same title.