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English Royalty
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Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester

Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester (1390 – February 23, 1447) was the fourth son of King Henry IV of England by his first wife, Mary de Bohun.

The place of his birth is unknown, but he was named after his maternal grandfather, Humphrey de Bohun, 7th Earl of Hereford. He was created Duke of Gloucester in 1414, and upon the death of his brother, King Henry V of England in 1422, became regent of the kingdom and protector to his young nephew, King Henry VI.

In about 1422 he married Jacqueline, Countess of Hainaut and Holland, daughter of William VI. Through this marriage Gloucester assumed the title "Count of Holland, Zeeland and Hainault", and briefly fought to retain these titles when they were contested by Jacqueline's cousin Philip III, Duke of Burgundy (see: War of Succession in Holland). They had a stillborn child in 1424.

The marriage was annulled in 1428, and Jacqueline died (disinherited) in 1436. Meanwhile, Gloucester remarried, his second wife being his former mistress, Eleanor Cobham. In 1441, Eleanor was tried and convicted of practising witchcraft against the king in an attempt to retain power for her husband. She died in prison.

The children of Humphrey and Eleanor Cobham:

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

Following his wife's conviction, Gloucester himself was arrested on a charge of treason. He died, or was assassinated, at Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk, a few days later.

After inheriting the manor of Greenwich, Duke Humphrey enclosed Greenwich Park and from 1428 had a palace built there on the banks of the Thames, known as Bella Court and later as the Palace of Placentia. The Duke Humphrey Tower surmounting Greenwich Park was demolished in the 1660s and the site was chosen for building the Royal Observatory.^[1] His name lives on in "Duke Humfrey's Library", part of the Bodleian Library in Oxford, to which the Duke donated the nucleus of its collection. He was also a patron of literature, notably of the poet John Lydgate.

1. ^ Jennings, C. (2001). Greenwich: the place where days begin and end, Abacus. ISBN 0349112304. pp. 8-9; 171