BOURCHIER, THOMAS (c. 1404-1486), English arch bishop, lord chancellor and cardinal, was a younger son of William Bourchier, count of Eu (d. 1420), and through his mother, Anne, a daughter of Thomas of Woodstock, duke of Gloucester, was a descendant of Edward III. Educated at Oxford and then enter ing the church, of ter holding some minor appointments, he became bishop of Worcester in 1434. In the same year he was chancellor of the University of Oxford, and in 1443 he was appointed bishop of Ely; then in April 1454 he was made archbishop of Canterbury, becoming lord chancellor of England early in 1455. Bourchier's short term of office as chancellor coincided with the opening of the Wars of the Roses, and at first he was not a strong partisan, although he lost his position as chancellor when Richard, duke of York, was deprived of power in Oct. 1456. Afterwards, in he helped to reconcile the contending parties, but when the war was renewed in 14J9 he appeared as a decided Yorkist ; he crowned Edward IV. in June 1461, and in 1465, his queen, Eliza beth Woodville. In 1457 Bourchier took the chief part in the trial of Reginald Pecock, bishop of Chichester, for heresy. In 1467 he was created a cardinal, and in 1475 he was one of the four arbitrators appointed to arrange the details of the treaty of Picquigny between England and France. After the death of Edward IV. in 1483, Bourchier persuaded the queen to allow her younger son, Richard, duke of York, to share his brother's resi dence in the Tower of London ; and although he had sworn to be faithful to Edward V., before his father's death, he crowned Richard III. in July 1483. He was, however, in no way impli cated in the murder of the young princes. The third English king crowned by Bourchier was Henry VII., whom he also married to Elizabeth of York in Jan. 1486. Bourchier died March 1486.
See W. F. Hook, Lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury, vol. v. (1860-84).