William Bourchier, 3rd Earl of Bath (29 September 1557 – 12 July 1623) was Lord Lieutenant of Devon. His seat was at Tawstock Court, three miles south of Barnstaple in North Devon, which he rebuilt in the Elizabethan style in 1574, the date being sculpted on the surviving gatehouse.
He was born on 29 September 1557 in Devon, the eldest son of John Bourchier, Lord FitzWarin (died 1557) (who died shortly after his birth, having predeceased his own father John Bourchier, 2nd Earl of Bath (died 1561) by his wife Frances Kitson (died 1586), a daughter of Sir Thomas Kitson (died 1540) of Hengrave Hall, Suffolk and Margaret Donnington, Countess of Bath. Her elaborate monument with effigy exists in Tawstock Church. William succeeded to the earldom on the death of his grandfather, John Bourchier, 2nd Earl of Bath in 1561.
Firstly, in secret on 15 December 1578, to Mary Cornwallis, a daughter of Sir Thomas Cornwallis (1518–1604), of Brome Hall, Eye, Suffolk. The marriage was largely arranged by Sir Thomas Kytson, the young earl's uncle and Mary's brother-in-law. The marriage was subsequently repudiated, according to some sources because the earl's mother, Frances Kytson, by then remarried to William Barnaby, would not consent to the match. A lawsuit was commenced in May 1580 and the marriage was annulled by a judge on 28 April 1581.
Secondly, in 1583 to Lady Elizabeth Russell, daughter of Francis Russell, 2nd Earl of Bedford, Lord Lieutenant of Devon, the wealthiest and most powerful man in Devon. One of his many manors was Bishops Tawton, the village and parish church of which is situated directly across the River Taw and is prominently visible from Tawstock Court. They had four children, as shown in effigies on the monument at Tawstock, and identified in the inscription (see below):
John Bourchier, Lord FitzWarin, eldest son and heir apparent, (bap 24 Sep 1585 at Tawstock, buried March 1586/7 at Tawstock). Baron FitzWarin was the courtesy title used by the eldest son and heir apparent of the Bourchier Earls of Bath.
Robert Bourchier, Lord FitzWarin, second son, (bap 3 Mar 1587/8 at Tawstock, buried 27 May 1588 at Tawstock)
Edward Bourchier, 4th Earl of Bath (1590–1636), eldest surviving son and heir. Misrecorded (or mistranscribed) in the unsigned Bourchier pedigree in the Heraldic Visitation of Devon, 1620, (Vivian, p. 107) as "Ricus, D'ns Fitzwarren”.
Lady Frances Bourchier (1587–1612), died unmarried aged 25. In 1603 she joined the household of Princess Elizabeth. A monument to her survives in the Bedford Chapel, Chenies, Buckinghamshire. It consists of a plain slab of black marble supported by four white marble Doric columns which form a canopy to a second slab of black marble, under which is a step of black marble on the floor. Two heraldic lozenges on the lower slab are surmounted by an Earl's coronet, sculpted in relief in white marble. An inscription records the erection of the monument by Lady Anne Clifford (1590–1676) "her deare cosen", daughter of Lady Margaret Russell and therefore her first cousin, and she is mentioned several times in Anne's diaries. The arms displayed are of Bourchier with ten quarterings and are the same as shown on the gatehouse of Tawstock Court.
He and his wife, Elizabeth, are buried in the choir of St. Peter's Church, Tawstock, Devon, where one can see their elaborate monument.
A magnificent and sumptuous monument exists in St Peter's Church, Tawstock, incorporating recumbent effigies of William Bourchier, 3rd Earl of Bath and his wife Elizabeth Russell. It was restored in 1999 by Lawrence and Sue Kelland, mainly to replace the iron bands within the alabaster which threatened to rust and thereby expand to crack the stone. The iron was replaced with stainless steel and the monument was repainted. Kneeling to the left is their adult son and an infant child, whilst on the right kneels their adult daughter with a recumbent infant
at her side. Two vines grow up on either side of the main effigies, on the dexter inhabited with heraldic escutcheons showing five generations of ancestry described by five shields of Bourchier impaling the arms of their wives. On the sinister vine are shown five similar escutcheons describing the ancestry of Elizabeth Russell over five generations as follows, from ground upwards:
Gules, three herrings hauriant argent (Herringham)
Sable, a griffin segreant between three cross crosslets fitchy argent (Froxmere)
Sable, three chevronnels ermine (Wyse )
Sable, three dovecotes argent (Sapcote)
Argent, on a chief gules two mullets or (St John)
At the top above the recumbent couple, the two vines meet at which point is displayed an escutcheon of Bourchier impaling Russell. On the top of the cornice to the dexter is shown a large escutcheon of the Bourchier arms, on the sinister the arms of Russell. Above the couple is a black tablet inscribed in capital gold lettering with an epitaph. On the base is a further tablet containing a mix of anagram, chronogram and epigram, to be deciphered by the viewer. At the feet of the Earl is his crest of the head in profile and shoulders of a bearded oriental man wearing a Phrygian cap with a pointed tasselled top flopped over. At the feet of his wife is a goat statant argent armed and unguled or, the crest of Russell, now with horns broken off.
The Bourchier crest was explained by John Weever (died 1632) as follows: