Alianore de Lovayne

Alianore de Lovayne (27 March 1345- 5 October 1397) was an English aristocrat, suo jure heiress, and wife of Sir William Bourchier. Many of her Bourchier descendants would later play prominent roles in English history.
Family
Alianore was born on 27 March 1345 at Little Easton, Essex, England. She was the only surviving child of Sir John de Lovayne, of Little Easton, Broxted, Essex, and Bildeston, Suffolk, and his second wife, Margaret Weston, her elder sister Isabel having died at an early age.
Two months before her second birthday on 30 January 1347, her father died at Bildeston, leaving Alianore as the sole heiress to his many properties in the counties of Essex and Suffolk.
Marriage
In June 1359 at the age of fourteen, Alianore married Sir William Bourchier (1330-1375), the son of Robert Bourchier, 1st Lord Bourchier and Margaret Prayers. Upon their marriage, she conveyed her many properties to her husband, thus uniting two great landed families. This marked the beginning of several generations of Bourchiers, some of whom were to play prominent roles in English history. The couple had a son, William Bourchier, Count of Eu (1386-28 May 1420) who in turn married Anne of Gloucester ( April 1383- 16 October 1438) in 1405. William was Anne's second husband, and together they had five children, one of whom was the Cardinal Thomas Bourchier. William died at Troyes, France in 1420 while in the service of King Henry V.
Through her son William, Alianore was the ancestress of the notorious 16th century heiress Anne Bourchier, 7th Baroness Bourchier.
Alianore died on 5 October 1397 at the age of fifty-two. A manuscript records the death in 1397 of Dne Elionore de Bourgchier. She had outlived her husband Sir William by twenty-two years. Alianore was buried in Little Easton Church, where her canopied chest-tomb can be viewed in the sanctuary to the left of the altar.

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