 As the most senior resident nobleman in the county he was destined to play the leading role for the Royalist cause in Devon during the Civil War but before the outbreak of hostilities he was captured in 1642 and imprisoned by the Parliamentarians before he had organised his local forces.In the opinion of Clarendon (d. 1674) he was a man of "sour-tempered unsocial behaviour" who "had no excellent or graceful pronunciation" and "neither had or ever meant to do the king the least service".Henry Bourchier was born in 1587, probably in Ireland, where he lived during his childhood.