{40a} Thomas Bourchier, Archbishop of Canterbury, was of the blood royal of England, being a son of William Lord Bourchier, (Earl of Ewe in Normandy) and Anne his wife, daughter of Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester (sixth son of Edward III.), and Eleanor his wife, daughter of Humphry de Bohun, Earl of Hereford and Constable of England, and widow of Edmund Earl of Stafford. He was a brother of Henry Bourchier, Earl of Ewe, afterwards of Essex, and became Bishop of Ely, and afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, in 1454, and retained that see until he died, very aged, in 1486, having held it thirty-two years, and in the reigns of five kings. He was also Lord Chancellor and a cardinal. {40b} Called “Lord Cobham” by Hall and Holinshed; and by Sandford, p. 296; and “Edward Broke Lord Cobham” by Dugdale, in his _Baronage_, vol. ii. p. 159. But see Dugdale’s _Baronage_, vol. iii p. 281, where he is called “Sir Edward Brooke, Knight, called Sir Edward Brooke of Cobham,” the son of Sir Thomas Brooke and Joan his wife. According to Dugdale, he favoured the title of the Duke of York, upon his return out of Ireland, in the 29th year of Henry VI.; took part with the Earls of Salisbury and Warwick, on purpose to raise an army, which, under the pretence of removing evil counsellors from the King, might advance the duke to the throne. He fought against the Lancastrians at the first battle of St. Alban’s, in 1455; and, after the accession to the throne of Edward IV., attended him into the North, when the Lancastrians were endeavouring to make head again, and had got possession of some strong places in Northumberland, in 1462. He died in the fourth year of Edward IV., and was succeeded by John Brooke, his son and heir, who had first summons to Parliament by the title of Lord Cobham, in the twelfth year of Edward IV.; consequently, although the son was ennobled, there does not appear to be any good authority for Hall’s and Holinshed’s designating the father as Lord Cobham. “Now, as they passed through Kent, there came to them the Lord Cobham, John Gilford, William Pech, Robert Horne, and manie other gentlemen.”—Holinshed’s _Chronicles_, vol. i. fo. 653.