In 1376, Eleanor married Thomas of Woodstock, 1st Duke of Gloucester.[3] Thomas was the youngest son of Edward III of England and Philippa of Hainault. Following their marriage, the couple went to reside in Pleshey Castle, Essex. According to Jean Froissart, Eleanor and her husband had the tutelage of her younger sister, Mary, who was being instructed in religious doctrine in the hope that she would enter a convent, thus leaving her share of the considerable Bohun inheritance to Eleanor and Thomas.[5]
Eleanor de Bohun was made a Lady of the Garter in 1384. She became a nun sometime after 1397 at Barking Abbey. Prior to her death, Eleanor divided her holdings among her children. [7] She died on 3 October 1399 and was buried in Westminster Abbey. Her executors included the chaplain in Pleshy, Essex.[8]
Eleanor appears briefly in Anya Seton's historical romance Katherine, based upon the life of Eleanor's sister-in-law Katherine Swynford, the third wife of John of Gaunt. She also appears in Act 1, Scene 2 of Shakespeare'sRichard II, where she unsuccessfully urges John of Gaunt to avenge her murdered husband.
^(...) because of the number of sons born to the higher nobility in the late fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, (...) The emphasis on agnatic lineage was reflected in the fact that the woman kept her natal family name when she married and did not become fully a member of her marital kin.[2]
