Sir William was Sheriff of Devon in 1400. He was buried before the great Cross in the choir of Newenham Abbey Church. Beside him was afterward laid Alice his second wife. This was during the abbacy of Leonard Houndalre, who presided over the Community 1402-13.
3131Sir William’s will, a lengthy document written in French, mentions “Alice my consort,” his son William, Thomas, son of John Bomville, his daughter Dame Katherine Cobham, and his daughter Dame Elizabeth Carew.
3131
According to one source,
3131 Alice had five husbands and was the mother of Elizabeth FitzRoger, wife of John Bonville:
“Early in the succeeding century Sir William [Bonville] married secondly Alice (whose surname has not been recovered), widow of Sir John Rodney, who died 19 Dec., 1400. Sir William Bonville was her fifth spouse, for she had wedded three husbands previous to Sir John Rodney. Firstly, John Fitz-Roger, lord of the manor of Chewton-Mendip, Somerset; by whom she had a daughter, Elizabeth, who married John Bonville, her last husband’s eldest son by his first wife; secondly, she married Sir Edmond de Clyvedon, of Clyvedon, Somerset, who died 13 Jany., 1375-6; and thirdly, as his second wife, Sir Ralph Carminow of Menheniot, Cornwall, who deceased 9 Oct., 1386. Sir Ralph who is said to have been “by a brase of Greyhounds pulled over a Cliff and died,” was buried in Menheniot church, where there is a small brass,--probably the earliest remaining in Cornwall--to his memory, thus enscribed--
Orate pro anima domini Radulphi Carmynon militis, cuius anime propirietur deus amen.
Lady Alice Bonville survived all her husbands nearly twenty years, and died 27 March, 1426.”
Cousin and heir of Sir John Merit, Jr.