son of Edward Bourchier, 4th Earl of Bath he added the Bourchier seat of Tawstock in Devon and 36 other manors in Devon and Somerset to his name. Career Henry was knighted on 9 November 1621. He was appointed a member of the Privy Council on 8 August 1641. Civil War At the start of the Civil War, Bourchier was Devon's leading royalist. Although not Devonshire born and bred like many of his predecessor earls, he was the most senior noble resident in the county, and thus might have been expected, as later proved false, to wield "notable power and interest" among the local population. In June 1642, Bourchier's servants moved his household from his London townhouse in Lincoln's Inn Fields to Tawstock in Devon, but were ordered to travel lightly to avoid suspicion. On 19 July 1642 King Charles I, in an unconstitutional act and without the assent of Parliament, issued a commission of array for Devonshire to Henry Bourchier and 27 other nobles and leading gentlemen. This was designed to regain royal control over the county militia which Parliament had sought to control by its own unconstitutional enactment of Militia Ordinance without Royal Assent. The commissioners were required to organise, arm and train the county forces for purposes of defence against external or internal enemies of the kingdom. Bourchier arrived in Devon from York in August 1642 and his first act in putting his commission into effect was to visit the Exeter Assizes between 9–12 August 1642. His efforts were met with politeness but without enthusiasm. On 9 August 1642 an inquest into the looming civil conflict was held at the Exeter Assizes the jury of which appealed to Bourchier as a man of "eminency and known interest in his Majesty's favour to use his good offices toward an accommodation between his Majesty and Parliament and that war, the greatest and worst of evils, be not conceived and chosen for a means to heal our distempers rather than a parliament, the cheapest and best remedy". The local population viewed the commission of array as an act of royal aggression against them, whilst ignoring the royalist argument that it had been resorted to as a defence to the Militia Ordinance passed unconstitutionally by Parliament without Royal Assent. The two competing and contradictory orders had brought unrest and tension to the county. On 13 August 1642, in an attempt to