Eleanor Cobham (abt. 1400 - 1452)

Ancestors

Wife of Humphrey (Lancaster) of Gloucester KB KG — married 1428 (to 1441) in England

Died 7 Jul 1452 at about age 52 in Beaumaris Castle, Anglesey, Wales

Biography

Eleanor Cobham (c.1400 – 7 July 1452), became Duchess of Gloucester when she married her lover, Humphrey of Gloucester, son of Henry IV. She was tried for witchcraft and sorcery, and indicated for high treason in 1441. She confessed to having used charms to make her husband love and marry her, and to having consulted sorcerers that she might bear husband a legitimate heir. On her conviction, she was forced to perform humiliating public penances in London, her marriage annulled, and was sentenced to perpetual imprisonment.

Following the death of her husband in February 1447, several of his followers including his illegitimate son, Arthur, and Roger Chamberlain, Knt., were tried for attempting to deliver his former wife, Eleanor, from prison and for designing to place the Duke on the throne. With one exception, the duke's followers were convicted, and then hanged at Tyburn, cut down alive, striped naked, a knife passed over their naked bodies, and then pardoned.^[1]

Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, the only royal to be buried in the Abbey in 1447, was welcomed into the fraternity and the Book of Benefactors states that when his second wife, Eleanor was welcomed into the fraternity she donated fine altar cloths and vestments to the Abbey. And on one occasion, after her toothache had been miraculously cured when she prayed at the shrine of St Albans, she sent a gold tooth to be hung by the reliquary in gratitude. ^[2]

Death

Eleanor, former Duchess of Gloucester, died a prisoner at Beaumaris Castle, Anglesey, Wales, 7 July 1452.^[3]

Sources

1. ↑ Royal Ancestry
2. ↑ Book of Benefactors of St Albans https://www.stalbanscathedral.org/Blog/the-book-of-benefactors-of-the-monastery-of-st-albans
3. ↑ Royal Ancestry

• Royal Ancestry D. Richardson 2013 Vol. III p. 508-512, Vol. II, page 270
• Wikipedia: Eleanor, Duchess of Gloucester
• Surrey Archaeological Collections (Lovell Reeve & Co., London, 1864) Vol. 2, Page 157: "Eleanor Cobham, Wife of Humphrey Plantagenet, Duke of Glouchester"