William came of a family with a tradition of public service: his great-grandfather Sir John Bourgchier had been a judge under Edward II, his grandfather Robert, Lord Bourgchier, had been the first layman ever to be appointed chancellor of England (1340-1) and his uncle John, 2nd Lord Bourgchier, had been made a Knight of the Garter for his outstanding achievements in the wars with France. The main line of the family, seated at Halstead in Essex, enjoyed an annual income of some £750, but William’s inheritance, though substantial, was worth much less than that. It was comprised entirely of his mother’s Lovayne estates: the manors of Bildeston, Hopton, Shelland and ‘Lovaynes’ in Drinkstone, Suffolk, together with Little Easton, Broxted and Aythorpe Roding in Essex. Most important was Little Easton which became the seat of this branch of the family. When Bourgchier inherited these properties after his mother’s death in 1397 they were worth about £150 a year, and after his own death they provided his widow with an annual income ranging over the years 1426-38 from £127 to £167.
Bourgchier and his parents before him were chief lords of the Essex manor of Wix, and as such he had as his feudal tenants Thomas of Woodstock, duke of Gloucester, and (later) Gloucester’s daughter Anne, countess of Stafford. Both persons played roles of major importance in his life. As a young man he entered the duke’s service, and on 6 May 1392 contracted to join the contingent going to Ireland where Gloucester was lieutenant. His wages were paid for three months, but in the event the duke was dismissed from his post and the company never left England. Two years later, however, Bourgchier did visit the province, joining the army for Richard II’s first expedition there, probably as one of Gloucester’s immediate retinue. Not long afterwards he was knighted, and the duke formally retained him for life with an annuity of 50 marks. After his lord’s arrest and murder in 1397 Bourgchier was required to serve on a royal commission to levy £2,000 from the commonalities of Essex and Hertfordshire — in effect a fine for local disaffection shown towards Richard and attachment shown to Gloucester. There can be little doubt where Bourgchier’s own sympathies lay. He was on good terms with the late duke’s adherent, Walter, 4th Lord Fitzwalter, and in 1398 he not only acted as a feoffee of that nobleman’s estates but also accompanied him to Ireland. His whereabouts in the following year are not recorded.
Henry IV confirmed Bourgchier’s life annuity from the duke of Gloucester in March 1400, undertaking that it should henceforth be paid by the royal Exchequer. Sir William then entered the service of the prince of Wales, Henry of Monmouth, who on 15 Oct. 1401 granted him as his bachelor a yearly rent of 50 marks charged on the lordship of Kirton, Lincolnshire. As a knight of the prince’s chamber Bourgchier evidently soon won his confidence: in May following the young Henry named him among those who were to negotiate for his proposed marriage to Katherine, sister of King Eric of Denmark, and at the same time he was empowered to treat for the marriage of Henry’s own sister Philippa to King Eric himself. Bourgchier was absent in Scandinavia from 29 June until January 1403, having returned home briefly in October for further instructions. Re-joining the prince’s household, from April to July 1403 he received wages of war as serving in the Welsh marches, and it is very likely that he fought at the battle of Shrewsbury. He was to return to that same theatre of war against the Welsh rebels in the following summer.
In the meantime, in October 1403, Bourgchier had assisted Anne, countess of Stafford (recently made a widow for the second time when Earl Edmund fell at Shrewsbury), to prepare the defences of her castle at Huntington on the Welsh border, and it may well have been then that their clandestine marriage took place. Whether the men of Essex knew about it when they elected him to Parliament later that winter is unclear, but if they did it can only have increased his popularity in the county, for Anne’s father had been well-loved there. The match was a stroke of great good fortune for Bourgchier, and suggests that he was a man of considerable personal charm. The countess Anne was of the highest lineage, being the only surviving child of her husband’s former patron, Thomas of Woodstock, a grand daughter of Edward III and of Humphrey de Bohun, earl of Hereford, the widow of two earls of Stafford, and a cousin of both Henry IV and the prince of Wales. When the marriage was revealed to the King the couple were fined ‘great sums’ payable to him personally in his Chamber (which penalties they were eventually to be pardoned in November 1405). In addition, they had to pay £135 as relief for the moiety of the earldoms of Hereford and Essex which Anne had inherited from her mother, although they were pardoned a further £100 owing for the earldom of Buckingham, which came to her from her father.
After his marriage Bourgchier remained in the company of his wife’s cousin Henry of Monmouth, and he was present at the surrender of the Welsh rebels at Aberystwith in September 1407. His wife’s estates on the borders of the principality made this area a matter of personal concern, and not only for fear of incursions from the west; Englishmen like Sir Robert Whitney II were also capable of fomenting ‘heynouses et horribles riotes et congregacions’ liable to jeopardize the collection of revenues. Bourgchier now took on the trusteeship of manors belonging to other marcher landowners such as Joan, Lady Fitzwalter and Burnell (d.1409); but his interests in Essex were not neglected, and in 1408 he assisted his wife’s grandmother Joan, countess of Hereford, to make a grant to St. Mary’s abbey, Coggeshall. Among the feoffees of his own estates at this time was Nicholas Bubwith, bishop of Bath and Wells. Bourgchier was well placed to secure at the Exchequer, in 1409, a lease of the landed holdings of the alien priories of Panfield, Essex, and Well Hall, Norfolk.
Henry of Monmouth’s accession to the throne in March 1413 offered an opportunity to Bourgchier to improve his situation still further. In July following he obtained the keeping of the manor and rectory of Felstead, Essex, belonging to Caen abbey, and he was subsequently permitted to deduct his Exchequer annuity of 50 marks from the farm due, at source. In August that year he sent a party of wrestlers to entertain the King at Windsor. He and the countess were now granted royal licence to receive profits from her dower lands in Ireland, notwithstanding the statutes against absentee landlords, and in December 1414 the King gave a favourable hearing to their claim to the lordship of Oakham, Rutland, as being part of Anne’s inheritance from Thomas of Woodstock. They agreed that Edward, duke of York, might continue to hold Oakham for life (as granted to him by the Crown after Woodstock’s murder) and save for the dower portion of Anne’s grandmother it duly fell to them at York’s death in 1415. Among their feoffees in these transactions were Anne’s kinsmen Henry Beaufort, bishop of Winchester, and Humphrey, duke of Gloucester.
In 1417 Bourgchier joined Henry V’s second expedition to France as a member of the King’s immediate retinue, and when mustered at Southampton he had a personal following of 39 lances and 125 ‘valets’ in his company. He played an important part in the subsequent conquest of Normandy and in September following, as a reward, he was granted the wardship of the French estates of the Hermanville family (up to the annual value of 420 crowns), together with the Gold Lion Inn in Caen. Through the summer of 1418 and the following winter he helped enforce the sieges of Louviers and Rouen, earning royal thanks early in 1419 when he was not only appointed captain of Dieppe but also received powers to accept the submission of the town and comte of Eu and to appoint officials there. The French count of Eu had been a prisoner in England since Agincourt and in June, faced with this nobleman’s continued refusal to pay homage, the King granted the comte in tail-male to Bourgchier. Eu was one of six comtes allotted by Henry V in this way to his most important supporters. Bourgchier’s stake in the conquered territories was further increased in January 1420 when the Hermanville estates were given to him and his male heirs outright.
The new count did not long enjoy his success. Aged about 46, he died at Troyes on 28 May 1420. His body was eventually brought back to England for burial in Llanthony priory near Gloucester, a house much favoured by his widow. In 1433 she arranged with her friend the prior for two masses to be said there every day in Bourgchier’s memory, and she also employed two chaplains at Little Easton to pray for his soul.