Margaret de Bohun, Countess of Devon
Margaret de Bohun, Countess of Devon (3 April 1311 – 16 December 1391) was the granddaughter of King Edward I and Eleanor of Castile, and the wife of Hugh Courtenay, 10th Earl of Devon (1303–1377). Her seventeen children included an Archbishop of Canterbury and six knights, of whom two were founder knights of the Order of the Garter. Unlike most women of her day, she received a classical education and was a lifelong scholar and collector of books. Early life. Lady Margaret de Bohun was born on 3 April 1311 at Caldecote, Northamptonshire, the third  daughter and seventh child of Humphrey de Bohun, 4th Earl of Hereford, Lord Constable of England by his wife Elizabeth of Rhuddlan, the youngest daughter of King Edward I and Eleanor of Castile. Her paternal grandparents were Humphrey de Bohun, 3rd Earl of Hereford and Maud de Fiennes. She was named after her maternal step-grandmother, Margaret of France, the second queen consort of Edward I. Margaret was left an orphan shortly before her eleventh birthday. On 16 March 1322 at the Battle of Boroughbridge, her father was slain in an ambush by the Welsh. Her mother had died six  years previously in childbirth. Together with her siblings she received a classical education under a Sicilian Greek, Master Diogenes. As a result, Margaret became a lifelong scholar and avid book collector. On 11 August 1325, at the age of fourteen, Lady Margaret married Hugh de Courtenay, the future 10th Earl of Devon, to whom she had been betrothed since 27 September 1314. Her dowry included the manor of Powderham near Exeter. The marriage agreement was formally made on 28 February 1315, when she was not quite four years old. The first Earl of Devon promised that upon the marriage he  would enfeoff his son and Margaret jointly with 400 marks' worth of land, assessed at its true value, and in a suitable place. Margaret assumed the title of Countess of Devon on 23 December 1340. Her eldest brother John de Bohun (23 November 1306 – 20 January 1336) succeeded as 5th Earl of Hereford in 1326, having married Alice Fitzalan, daughter of the 9th Earl of Arundel in 1325. She had a younger brother William de Bohun (1312–1360), who was created 1st Earl of Northampton in 1337 by King Edward III. He married Elizabeth de Badlesmere, by whom he had two  children. Margaret's elder sister Lady Eleanor de Bohun (17 October 1304 – 7 October 1363) married, in 1327, her first husband, James Butler, 1st Earl of Ormonde. They were the ancestors of Anne Boleyn and Catherine Parr. Hugh and Margaret had 17 known children, most of whom reached adulthood. Their descendants include members of the British royal family and former British Prime Minister, Sir Winston Churchill. Their family chantry was expanded at Naish Priory in the family's manor of Coker in Somerset, at the end of the 14th century when it was owned by her most notable son, William  Courtenay, Archbishop of Canterbury. Margaret died on 16 December 1391 at the age of eighty. She is buried in Exeter Cathedral. Marriage and issue. On 11 August 1325, in accordance with a marriage agreement dated 27 September 1314, she married Hugh Courtenay, 10th Earl of Devon (1303–1377), by whom she had eight sons and nine daughters: