Richard de Clare

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate birth: Abt 1155
• Alternate death: Nov 1217
• Alternate death: 28 Nov 1217

Notes:

Earl of Hertford and of Gloucester. Also styled Earl of Clare.

Along with his son Gilbert, he was one of the 25 Magna Carta sureties.

Richard married Amice of Gloucester about 1180. Amice (daughter of William fitz Robert and Hawise of Leicester) died on 1 Jan 1225. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate death: Aft 10 Jul 1220

Family/Spouse: Roger de Lacy. Roger (son of John fitz Richard and Alice fitz Roger) was born about 1165 in of Halton, Runcorn, Cheshire, England; died on 1 Oct 1211; was buried in Stanlaw Abbey, Wirrall, Cheshire, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Maud married William de Briouze before 1198. William (son of William de Briouze and Maud de St. Valéry) died in 1210 in Windsor, Berkshire, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Hawise married Geoffrey de Say before 1215. Geoffrey (son of Geoffrey de Say and Alice de Cheyne) was born about 1180 in of Edmonton, Middlesex, England; died on 19 Aug 1230 in Poitou, Aquitaine, France; was buried in Hospital of St. Mary, Dover, Kent, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Earl of Hertford. Earl of Gloucester.

Along with his father, he was among the 25 Magna Carta sureties, as such excommunicated by Innocent III on 16 Dec 1215, despite the fact that he was by then among the group negotiating with the king for peace.

Fought on the side of Louis of France at the Battle of Lincoln, 19-20 May 1217; taken prisoner by his future father-in-law William Marshal and subsequently released, his lands restored. In later life, led various armies against the Welsh.

Gilbert married Isabel Marshal on 9 Oct 1217. Isabel (daughter of William Marshal and Isabel de Clare) was born on 9 Oct 1200 in Pembroke, Pembrokeshire, Wales; died on 17 Jan 1240 in Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire, England; was buried in Beaulieu Abbey, Hampshire, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

(Unknown married Alan fitz Roland between 1200 and 1205. Alan (son of Roland fitz Uchtred and Ellen de Morville) died about 2 Feb 1234; was buried in Dundrennan Abbey, Kircudbright, Scotland. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Also called John of Chester. Earl of Lincoln. Magna Carta surety.

Hereditary Constable of Chester; Keeper of Duninton Castle 1214; Constable of Whitchurch Castle 1233; Privy Councillor 1237; Sheriff of Cheshire 1237; Constable of Chester and Beeston Castles 1237.

"In 1218 he went on the Fifth Crusade with Earl Ranulf of Chester and was present at the siege of Damietta." [The Ancestry of Dorothea Poyntz, citation details below.]

John married Margaret de Quincy before 21 Jun 1221. Margaret (daughter of Robert de Quincy and Hawise of Chester) was born before 1217; died before 30 Mar 1266 in Hampstead, Middlesex, England; was buried in Church of the Hospitallers, Clerkenwell, London, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Maud married Henry de Tracy before May 1220. Henry (son of Oliver de Tracy and Eve Fitz Warin) was born in of Barnstaple, Devon, England; died before 21 Aug 1274. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate birth: Abt 1198
• Alternate death: Bef 16 Jul 1232, Bramber, Sussex, England
• Alternate death: Bef 18 Jul 1232
• Alternate death: 18 Jul 1232

Notes:

"He escaped from captivity with his three brothers in Jan. 1218, due to the influence of their uncle, Gilbert de Clare, Earl of Gloucester and Hertford. He promptly initiated proceedings in the king's court against his uncle, Reynold de Brewes. [...] JOHN DE BREWES, lord of Gower, was killed by a fall from his horse near Bramber, Sussex, shortly before 16 Jul 1232." [Royal Ancestry]

John married Margaret ferch Llywelyn in 1219. Margaret (daughter of Llywelyn Fawr ap Iorwerth and (One of the several mistresses of Llywelyn ap Iorwerth)) died in 1265. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Family/Spouse: Sibyl. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Amice married Baldwin de Revières in 1226. Baldwin (son of Baldwin de Revières and Margaret) died on 15 Feb 1245; was buried in Breamore Priory, Hampshire, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate death: 15 Jul 1262, Ashenfield, Waltham, Kent, England

Notes:

Earl of Gloucester; Earl of Hertford; High Marshal and Chief Butler to the Archbishop of Canterbury; Privy Councillor 1255, 1258; Warden of the Isle of Portland, Weymouth, and Wyke, 1257.

From the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography:

Richard de Clare was a minor at the time of his father's death, and heir to one of the greatest collections of estates and lordships in all of England and Wales. His wardship and marriage were thus matters of the keenest interest to the politically powerful and ambitious of the day. The justiciar Hubert de Burgh, using his position in the government of Henry III, managed to have custody of Richard assigned to himself. On Hubert's fall from power in 1232, the king transferred custody of both Richard and his lands to the new royal favourites, Peter des Roches, bishop of Winchester, and his nephew Peter des Rivaux. Hubert de Burgh's wife, in an apparent effort to rescue the family fortunes, secretly married Richard de Clare to her daughter Margaret; but the marriage was apparently never consummated, and was in any event mooted by Margaret's death in 1237. In the meantime both Peter des Roches and Peter des Rivaux had themselves fallen from power in 1234, and thereafter King Henry kept the wardship in his own hands, although allowing custody of at least some of the Clare lands to be secured by Richard de Clare's uncle Gilbert Marshal, earl of Pembroke. During this time the king began searching for a suitable marriage. A proposed arrangement with the great French comital family, the Lusignans, fell through, and in 1238 Richard de Clare was married to Maud, daughter of John de Lacy, earl of Lincoln. The prime mover in the marriage negotiations seems to have been the king's brother, Richard of Cornwall, who was Richard de Clare's stepfather, having married the widowed Isabel Marshal in 1231. Notwithstanding his marriage Clare remained the ward of the king until 1243, when he came of age and received both official seisin of his inheritance and formal dubbing to knighthood.

The complexities, intricacies, and rivalries involved in the story of Richard de Clare's wardship are an excellent case study of the stakes and resources at issue when contemplating the lives of the upper aristocracy in the thirteenth century. A connection to Richard de Clare was a prize well worth pursuing at full tilt. His inheritance was vast. [...] Richard de Clare was, by every criterion--annual income (close to £4000), knight's fees (nearly 500), and both the sheer number of and the strategic location of his estates and lordships--easily the richest and potentially the most powerful baron, next to the members of the immediate royal family, in the British Isles (excluding Scotland) as a whole.

From Wikipedia:

He joined in the Barons' letter to the Pope in 1246 against the exactions of the Curia in England. He was among those in opposition to the King's half-brothers, who in 1247 visited England, where they were very unpopular, but afterwards he was reconciled to them.

In August 1252/3 the King crossed over to Gascony with his army, and to his great indignation the Earl refused to accompany him and went to Ireland instead. In August 1255 he and John Maunsel were sent to Edinburgh by the King to find out the truth regarding reports which had reached the King that his son-in-law, Alexander III, King of Scotland, was being coerced by Robert de Roos and John Balliol. If possible, they were to bring the young King and Queen to him. The Earl and his companion, pretending to be two of Roos's knights, obtained entry to Edinburgh Castle, and gradually introduced their attendants, so that they had a force sufficient for their defense. They gained access to the Scottish Queen, who made her complaints to them that she and her husband had been kept apart. They threatened Roos with dire punishments, so that he promised to go to the King.

Meanwhile the Scottish magnates, indignant at their Castle of Edinburgh's being in English hands, proposed to besiege it, but they desisted when they found they would be besieging their King and Queen. The King of Scotland apparently traveled South with the Earl, for on 24 September they were with King Henry III at Newminster, Northumberland."

*****

In July 1258 Richard de Clare and his brother William both fell ill. The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography describes contemporary reports that this was due to an attempted poisoning, "supposedly instigated by King Henry's uncle, William de Valence, earl of Pembroke, in retaliation for Clare's support of the baronial reform movement; and Valence's purported agent in the plot, Clare's seneschal, Walter de Scoteny, was tried and hanged." William died, but Richard survived with the loss of his hair and nails. In 1259 Richard was appointed chief ambassador to the Duke of Brittany, presumably in hopes of frightening the duke by sending a hairless, nailless creature to his court. Three years later, Richard died at Ashenfield, Waltham, Kent, on the 15th, the 16th, or the 22nd of July 1262. It was again bruited about that he had been poisoned, this time by the Queen's uncle Peter of Savoy, but the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, noting that "the annals of Tewkesbury Abbey are the single most valuable literary source for the reconstruction of [de Clare] family history for this period", points out that "the silence of the Tewkesbury account on this point strongly indicates that such rumours were unfounded."

In a perfectly medieval series of postmortem events, Richard de Clare's body was borne to the Cathedral Church of Christ at Canterbury, where his entrails were buried before the altar of St. Edward the Confessor; it was then taken to the Collegiate Church of Tonbridge, Kent, where his heart was buried; finally, what remained of his body was taken to Tewkesbury Abbey in Gloucestershire where it was buried in the choir at his father's right hand.

Richard married Margaret de Burgh before 29 Sep 1236 in St. Edmundsbury Cathedral, Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk, England. Margaret (daughter of Hubert de Burgh and Margaret of Scotland) died in Nov 1237. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Richard married Maud de Lacy about 25 Jan 1238. Maud (daughter of John de Lacy and Margaret de Quincy) died before 10 Mar 1289. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate birth: 8 Nov 1226

Isabel married Robert de Brus in May 1240. Robert (son of Robert de Brus and Isabel of Huntingdon) was born about 1220 in of Annandale, Dumfriesshire, Scotland; died on 31 Mar 1295 in Lochmaben Castle, Dumfriesshire, Scotland; was buried on 17 Apr 1295 in Guisborough Priory, Yorkshire, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Also called Ellen.

Alan Fitz Roland, often called Alan of Galloway, married three times. His first wife was a daughter of Roger of Chester, who is often called Roger de Lacy. His second wife was Margaret of Scotland, daughter of David, Earl of Huntington. His third wife was a daughter of Hugh de Lacy, 1st Earl of Ulster.

The presence of two marriages to daughters of men called de Lacy, both of which daughters' names have been lost, has created understandable confusion. Many online sources show Alan Fitz Roland's daughter Ellen as a daughter of his third marriage. In fact she was a daughter of his first; her maternal grandfather was Roger of Chester, also called Roger de Lacy -- not Hugh de Lacy. To the best of our knowledge, Alan Fitz Roland's third marriage was without issue.

Family/Spouse: Roger de Quincy. Roger (son of Saher de Quincy and Margaret of Leicester) was born about 1195; was christened in Brackley, Northamptonshire, England; died on 25 Apr 1264. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate death: Between 1288 and 1289
• Alternate death: Aft 1288

Maud married Richard de Clare about 25 Jan 1238. Richard (son of Gilbert de Clare and Isabel Marshal) was born on 4 Aug 1222 in of Clare, Suffolk, England; died in Jul 1262 in Ashenfield, Waltham, Kent, England; was buried in Tewkesbury Abbey, Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate death: 5 Jun 1258

Notes:

Sometimes styled Earl of Lincoln.

Edmund married Alice di Saluzzo in May 1247 in Woodstock, Oxfordshire, England. Alice (daughter of Manfredo III di Saluzzo and Beatrice of Savoy) died between 4 Oct 1309 and 12 Jul 1311. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Family/Spouse: Guy de Bryan. Guy was born in of Laugharne, Carmarthenshire, Wales; died after 1267. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

"Sir William de Breuse, s. and h. of John de Breuse, Lord of Bramber and Gower, by Margaret, da. of Llewelyn ap Iorwerth, Prince of North Wales. He suc. his father in 1232, before 18 July, and was of full age before 15 July 1245. He was sum. cum equis et armis from 14 Mar. (1257/8) 42 Hen. III to 14 Mar. (1282/3) 11 Edw. I, and to attend the King at Shrewsbury, 28 June (1283) 11 Edw. I, by writs directed Willelmo de Breuse, Brehuse, or Brewes. He is recorded to have sat in the Parl. of Apr.-May 1290, whereby he may be held to have been Lord Brewose. He m., 1stly, Aline, da. of Thomas de Multon of Burgh-on-Sands, Cumberland, by Maud, da. and h. of Hubert de Vaux, of Gilsland in that co. He m., 2ndly, Agnes, da. of Nicholas de Moels, of Cadbury, Somerset by Hawise, widow of John de Botreaux, yr. da. and coh. of James de Newmarch, of Cadbury afsd. [See Moels.] He m., 3rdly, in or before 1271, Mary, da. of Robert de Ros of Helmsley, by Isabel, da. and h. of William d'Aubigny, of Belvoir. He d. 6 Jan. 1290/1 at Findon, West Sussex and was bur. at Sele Priory 15 Jan. His widow, whose dower was settled by deeds dated 21, 23 Mar. 1290/1, d. shortly before 23 May 1326." [Complete Peerage II:302, as corrected in Volume XIV.]

Family/Spouse: Agnes de Moels. Agnes (daughter of Nicholas de Moels and Hawise de Newmarch) died before 1271. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

William married Aline de Multon before 1253. Aline (daughter of Thomas de Multon and Maud de Vaux) died before 1268. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

William married Mary de Ros before 1272. Mary (daughter of Robert de Ros and Isabel d'Aubeney) died before 23 May 1326. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Richard married Alice le Rus before 9 Sep 1265. Alice (daughter of William le Rus and Agatha de Clere) was born about 1247; died before 28 Jan 1301; was buried in Woodbridge Priory, Suffolk, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Hawise married John Marshal after 1267. John (son of William Marshal and Pernel del Ortiay) was born about 1257 in of Hingham, Norfolk, England; died before 4 Dec 1282. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Agnes married Alexander de Cheyne about 1268. Alexander (son of Alexander de Cheyne) was born in of Titeburst in Aldenham, Hertfordshire, England; died before 22 May 1296. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Family/Spouse: Elizabeth. Elizabeth died after 1307. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Earl of Devon. Lord of the Isle of Wight.

Baldwin married Margaret of Savoy in 1257. Margaret (daughter of Thomas of Savoy and Béatrix di Fiesco) died before 14 May 1292. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate birth: Between 1245 and 1246, of Thomond in Connacht, Clare, Ireland
• Alternate birth: Between 1245 and 1246
• Alternate death: Feb 1288

Notes:

Constable of Colchester Castle; Steward of the Forest of Essex; King's Lieutenant in Gascony; Governor of London; Warden of the Forest of Dean; Constable of St. Briavel's Castle.

Studied at Oxford 1257-9.

"He joined his brother, Gilbert, against King Henry III and was knighted by Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester, before the Battle of Lewes 14 May 1264. He subsequently deserted the baronial cause with his brother, Earl Gilbert. In May 1265 Thomas arranged the gift of a speedy horse to Prince Edward, by means of which Prince Edward escaped from Simon de Montfort at Hereford. Thomas fought for the king at the Battle of Evesham 4 August 1265. In 1267 he took the cross at St. Paul's, London, being moved by the preaching of the papal legate, Ottobuono. [...] He went on crusade to the Holy Land with Prince Edward in 1271, and returned in 1272." [Royal Ancestry]

This Thomas de Clare was identified in early volumes of the Complete Peerage as a son of Sir Richard de Clare d. 1262, and then removed in volume 14 in the articles on Badlesmere and Clare. Despite this, it appears to be correct; Chris Phillips lays out the details here.

Thomas married Juliane fitz Maurice before 18 Feb 1275. Juliane (daughter of Maurice fitz Maurice and Maud de Prendergast) was born in of Offaly, Ireland; died before 24 Sep 1300. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate death: 1299

Notes:

Called "Red Gilbert" and "The Red Earl". Earl of Gloucester. Earl of Hertford. Steward of St. Edmund's Abbey. Held, among many other manors and lordships, the lordship of Glamorgan, one of the most wealthy holdings in the Welsh Marches. Built Caerphilly Castle.

A turbulent figure who fought on both sides of the Second Barons' War of 1263-64, first alongside Simon de Montfort at the battle of Lewes (where according to some accounts he personally took Henry III prisoner), and then on the side of the king, commanding one of the royal divisions at the decisive battle of Evesham where de Montfort was killed.

His subsequent relationships with Henry III and Edward I were complex and fraught. As one of the two or three most powerful non-royal individuals in the realm, he was both a desirable ally and also the very model of the kind of overweening subject that Edward was determined to tame -- and ultimately did.

As a side note, it is worth noting that while de Clare was still allied to the baronial party, he led the massacre of the Jews at Canterbury, which took place while other rebel leaders were conducting similar massacres in London. Ian Stone writes in "The Rebel Barons of 1264 and the Commune of London," quoted here: "The Dunstable annals report rumours that the Jews of London were preparing to betray the citizens: they had Greek fire to burn the city, copies of the keys to the city gates, and subterranean passages to each gate. Such tales were used to excuse an outbreak of looting and murder. One chronicler says that the Jews were suspected of betraying the barons and citizens, and almost all were killed. Another says that the Jewish quarter was pillaged, and any Jews who were caught were stripped, robbed and murdered. Estimates of the number killed range from 200 to 500, with the remainder forcibly converted or imprisoned (or, looking at it another way, the rest were saved by the justices and the mayor, who sent them to the Tower for protection). The chronicler Wykes, who tended to be less favourable to the baronial party, singled out the baronial leader John fitz John, who was said to have killed the leading Jew, Kok son of Abraham, with his own hands, and seized his treasure. Fitz John was then forced to share the proceeds with Simon de Montfort. It is possible that de Montfort was taking the Jewish treasure, not to enrich himself, but to finance his forces. At the same time, the cash of Italian and French merchants, deposited in religious houses around London, was also seized and taken to the city."

Gilbert married Alice de Lusignan in 1253. Alice (daughter of Hugh XI "le Brun" de Lusignan and Yolande of Brittany) was born after Oct 1236 in of Angoulême, Aquitaine, France; died in May 1290. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Gilbert married Joan of Acre in May 1290 in Westminster Abbey, Westminster, Middlesex, England. Joan (daughter of Edward I, King of England and Eleanor of Castile, Queen Consort of England) was born in 1272 in Acre, Palestine; died on 23 Apr 1307 in Clare, Suffolk, England; was buried in Austin Friars, Clare, Suffolk, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate birth: 1253
• Alternate birth: Aft 1254

Rose married Roger de Mowbray after 15 Jul 1270. Roger (son of Roger de Mowbray and Maud de Beauchamp) was born about 1257 in of the Isle of Axholme, Lincolnshire, England; died in 1296; was buried in Church of the Friars Preachers, Pontefract, Yorkshire, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Family/Spouse: John fitz Marmaduke. John (son of Marmaduke Fitz Geoffrey) was born in of Horden, Durham, England; died before 16 Aug 1311; was buried in Durham Cathedral, Durham, Durham, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Robert married Marjory of Carrick about 1273. Marjory (daughter of Neil and Isabel) was born about 1252; died before Nov 1292. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]