George Bouchier

George Bouchier or Bourchier (died 1643) was a wealthy merchant of Bristol who supported the royalist cause during the English Civil War.

Bourchier entered into a plot with Robert Yeamans, who had been one of the sheriffs of Bristol, and several others, to deliver that city, on 7 March 1643,^[1] to Prince Rupert, for the service of King Charles I; but the scheme being discovered and frustrated, he was, with Yeamans, after eleven weeks' imprisonment, brought to trial before a council of war. They were both found guilty and hanged, drawn and quartered in Wine Street, Bristol, on 30 May 1643.^[2][3][4]

In his speech to the populace at the place of execution Bouchier exhorted all those who had set their hands to the plough (meaning the defence of the royal cause) not to be terrified by his and his fellow-prisoner's sufferings into withdrawing their exertions in the king's service. There is a small portrait of Bouchier in the preface to William Winstanley's Loyall Martyrology, 1665.^[5]

Notes

1. All dates are in the Julian calendar with the start of year adjusted to 1 January (see Old Style and New Style dates).
2. Cooper 1886, p. 4.
3. Corry & Evans 1816, pp. 409,410.
4. Salmon 1730, p. 750.
5. Cooper 1886, pp. 409,410.

References

• Corry, John; Evans, John (1816). The History of Bristol, Civil and Ecclesiastical: Including Biographical Notices of Eminent and Distinguished Natives 1. W. Sheppard. p. 409,410.
• Dictionary of National Biography, Errata. 1904. p. 33.
• Salmon, Thomas (1730). Emlyn, Sollom, ed. A complete collection of state-trials, and proceedings for high-treason, and other crimes and misdemeanours: from the reign of King Richard II. to the end of the reign of King George I. With two alphabetical tables to the whole 1 (2 ed.). J. Walthoe senior. p. 750.

Attribution

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Cooper, Thompson (1886). "Bouchier, George". In Stephen, Leslie. Dictionary of National Biography 6. London: Smith, Elder & Co. p. 4. The following are referenced in the DNB article:
  • Clarendon's Hist. of the Rebellion (1843), 389;
  • Lloyd's Memoires (1677), 565;
  • Winstanley's Loyall Martyrology, 5;
  • Granger's Biog. Hist. of England (1824), iii. 110;
  • 'Barrett's Hist. of Bristol, 227, 228.

Further reading

• Seyer, Samuel (1823). Memoirs Historical and Topographical of Bristol and It's Neighbourhood: From the Earliest Period Down to the Present Time 2. printed for the author by J. M. Gutch. pp. 368,388. quotes at length Rev. Towgood. The Two State Martyrs, or the Murther of Master Robert Yeomans and Master George Bowcher, citizzens of Bristoll, committed on them by Nathaniel Fiennes...