|
||||||||||||||||||||
| Spouses | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Notes for Richard DE CLARE Earl of Gloucester | ||||||||||||||||||||
| "With the next generation, the Clare family reached he height ofits prominence in the thirteenth century. Earl Richard de Clarewas twice married, secretly in 1232 to Meggotta, daughter of thejusticiar Hubert de Burgh, who had Richard's custody during hisminority after 1230, and in 1237 to Maud, daughter of John deLacy, earl of Lincoln (d. 1240). There was no issue by theill-fated first marriage, but by Maud de Lacy Richard had threesons and four daughters. The eldest son and heir, Gilbert, wasborn on September 2, 1243, and was called Gilbert Goch ("theRed") after the fiery color of his hair. The Red Earl hadseisin of his estates in 1263-64 and was undoubtedly the singlemost powerful magnate of the realm, in the later years of HenryIII's reign and under King Edward I, until his death on December7, 1295. The second son, Thomas, born sometime between 1244 and1247, and the youngest, Bogo, born in 1248, had remarkablydissimilar but equally significant careers. Thomas, who died in1287, was a close friend of Edward I and one of the mostimportant members of the lesser baronage in his reign. Heentered royal service and in a manner reminiscent of hisancestor Strongbow a century earlier, succeeded in establishinghimself among the great Anglo-Irish magnates in the latethirteenth century by conquering the lordship of Thomond (modernCounty Clare). He left two legitimate sons who succeeded him,Gilbert (d. 1308) and Richard (d. 1318), a bastard son MasterRichard, who died in 1338, and two daughters, Maud, the wife ofRobert de Clifford of Westmoreland (d. 1314) and Robert deWelle, and Margaret, the wife of Gilbert de Umphraville (d.1307), son of the earl of Angus, and Bartholomew de Badlesmere(d. 1322). Thomas' brother Bogo, on the other hand, had whatmight conservatively be described as a colorful ecclesiasticalcareer, and by the time of his death in 1294 had made himselfthe most successful and notorious pluralist in the EnglishChurch. The careers of Earl Gilbert the Red's two brothers arewell documentemd, and are good examples of the ways in whichsuch men could progit from family influence and power; moreimportantly, they provide excellent illustrations of the kindsof opportunities available in contemporary society to youngermembers of great baronial houses. For these reasons, a detailedexamination of their careers has been reserved for a separatechapter (Chapter VI). (P) Of Earl Richard's four daughters,three married well, the fourth, Eglentina, dying in infancy in1257. The eldest, Isabel, born in 1240, was married in June1258 to an important nobleman, William, marquis de Montferrat.Earl Richard paid the marquis 4,000 marks to secure themarriage, and allowed him a choice of brides in addition. SinceIsabel was about eighteen and her surviving sisters each lessthan eight years old, the choice must have been easy. They weremarried at Lyons, and Isabel seems never to have returned toEngland. Montferrat was a lordship in northern Italy,technically a member of the Empire but subject to Provencal andAngevin influences. The marquis was a prominent figure on theGhibelline side in thirteenth century Mediterranean politics,but nothing further is known of Isabel. She probably diedsometime before 1271, since the marquis married a daughter ofKing Alfonso X of Castile in that year. The second daughter,Margaret, was born in 1250 and was unmarried at the time of herfather's death in 1262. In 1272, probably by arrangement withher mother Maud and her brothers Bogo and Earl Gilbert, she wasmarried to Edmund, son and heir of Richard of Cornwall by hissecond marriage. Margaret's marriage, however, was an unhappyone. She seems to have been pregnant in 1285, but eithermiscarried or had a stillborn child. Perhaps because she wasunable to have children thereafter, Edmund left her in 1289. Forthe next two or three years, efforts were made by such people asJohn Peckham, archbishop of Canterbury, and Bogo de Clare, toreconcile them, but they were unsuccessful and the marriage wasformally annulled in 1294. In 1300 Edmund died and Margaret wasassigned dower by Edward I. She did not remarry and lived inseclusion until her own death in 1312. The third daughter,Rohese, born in 1252, was married in 1270 to a member of thelesser baronage, Roger de Mowbray, lord of the Yorkshire baronyof Thirsk (d. 1297). Again, the marriage was arranged by hermother, the dowager Countess Maud, and her brother Bogo." ---Michael Altschul, *A Baronial Family in Medieval England: TheClares, 1217-1314*, Baltimore MD (Johns Hopkins Press) 1965. p34-36 From same, p 62-63: "Negotiations for the second marriage [ofRichard] began even before Megotta de Burgh's death in November,1237. As early as 1236, before the original match was publiclyrevealed, King Henry had entertained notions of marrying theheir to one of his French relatives. The plan apparently fellthrough, perhaps when news of the first marriage came out. Inthe fall of 1237, while Meggotta was still alive, John de Lacy,earl of Lincoln, offered 5,000 marks, a sum roughly equivalentto the gross annual value of the Clare inheritance, to haveRichard's marriage for his own daughter Maud. The earl wasundoubtedly moved by many of the same considerations that hadprompted the wife of Hubert de Burgh, although he had no need toresort to the drastic actions she had taken in 1232. He was thehighest, and perhaps the only, bidder, but Henry still desiredto marry Richard to a foreign kinsman. Through the efforts ofhis brother Richard of Cornwall, the stepfather of the youngheir, a compromise was effected. On October 26, 1237, Henryoffered the marriage to Hugh de Lusignan, count of La Marche,for one of his daughters, with the proviso that if the count didnot agree to the proposal by the following January, the earl ofLincoln could have it for 3,000 marks. Hugh de Lusignan did notagree, and on January 25, 1238, Richard de Clare was married toMaud de Lacy. (P) By the time of his second marriage, Richardwas almost sixteen. He was to remain a ward of the king until1243, when he came of age and was formally granted seisin of hisinheritance. His fortunes shed a grim light on the politicaland financial manipulations of the rights of wardship andmarriage, and on the impact of those rights on nationalpolitics. His own attitudes and personal feelings never emergeduring this entire period. As Powicke has remarked, "one wouldlike to know how Richard de Clare felt about it all." ---Michael Altschul, *A Baronial Family in Medieval England: TheClares, 1217-1314*, Baltimore MD (Johns Hopkins Press) 1965. p62-63 --- Michael Altschul, *A Baronial Family in Medieval England:The Clares, 1217-1314*, Baltimore MD (Johns Hopkins Press) 1965. p 92: "On July 15, 1262, the day after the king sailed to France, EarlRichard de Clare died. Two weeks later he was buried atTewkesbury Abbey. The earl had not played a conspicuous role inthe baronial movement since the settlement of 1261; he had beenin ill health for some months before his death, and rumorscirculated that he had been poisoned. [Footnote by Altschul:"E.g., Dunstable, p. 219' *Annales Cambriae*, pp. 99-100, where"Gilbert" is wrongly given for "Richard." These chronicles haveprobably confused the earl's natural death with the allegedpoison plot of 1258."]" [Was Richard maybe poisoned at theinstigation of Simon de Montfort or some of his allies?] Henryhad settled with the rebellious barons in 1261 (p 92). Richardde Clare had at first sided with the barons in the antiroyalistmovement which began in the summer of 1258 or thereabouts (p82-87), but appears to have withdrawn support shortly afterDecember 1258 (p 87). ============================== Gloucester, Richard de Clare, 7th Earl of, 8TH EARL OF CLARE,6TH EARL OF HERTFORD (b. Aug. 4, 1222--d. July 15, 1262, Eschemerfield, nearCanterbury, Kent, Eng.), the most powerful English noble of histime. He held estates in more than 20 English counties,including the lordship of Tewkesbury, wealthy manors inGloucester, and the great marcher lordship of Glamorgan. Hehimself acquired the Kilkenny estates in Ireland and thelordship of Usk and Caerleon in south Wales, making him thegreatest lord in south Wales; in Glamorgan especially he wasalmost an independent prince. Son of Gilbert de Clare (the 6th Earl), Richard succeeded to theearldoms in October 1230. He refused to help King Henry III onthe French expedition of 1253 but was with him afterward atParis. Thereafter he went on a diplomatic errand to Scotland andwas sent to Germany to work among the princes for the electionof his stepfather, Richard, Earl of Cornwall, as king of theRomans. About 1258 Gloucester became a leader of the barons intheir resistance to the king, and he was prominent during theproceedings that followed the Mad Parliament at Oxford in 1258.In 1259, however, he quarreled with Simon de Montfort, Earl ofLeicester; the dispute, begun in England, was renewed in France,and he was again in the confidence of the king. This attitude,too, was only temporary, and in 1261 Gloucester and Montfortwere again working in concord. Related Propaedia Topics The Kingdom of England and its continental dependencies from theNorman Conquest to the death of Edward I; Scotland, Wales, andIreland (1066-1307) Copyright (c) 1996 Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc. All RightsReserved http://www.tardis.ed.ac.uk/cgi/bct/gedlkup/n=royal?royal01890Newsflash: Buckingham Palace de Clare, Richard of Gloucester, Earl of Gloucester 2nd Born: 4 AUG 1222 Acceded: 1230 Died: 15 JUL 1262, Ashenfield Manor, Waltham, Canterbury Interred: 28 JUL 1262, Tewkesbury Abbey, Gloucester Notes: Earl of Hertford. Usk; Kilkenny. Father: de Clare, Gilbert of Gloucester, Earl of Gloucester 4,b. CIR 1180 Mother: Marshal, Isabella, Lady, b. 9 OCT 1200 Married 1232 to de Burgh, Margaret Married 25 JAN 1237 to de Lacy, Maude Child 1: de Clare, Isabel, b. MAY 1240 Child 2: de Clare, Gilbert "the Red", Earl Gloucester 3rd, b. 2SEP 1243 Child 3: de Clare, Thomas, Lord of Thomond, b. ABT 1245 Child 4: de Clare, Bogo, Clerk, b. 21 JUL 1248 Child 5: de Clare, Margaret of Gloucester, b. 1249 Child 6: de Clare, Rohese, b. 17 OCT 1252 Child 7: de Clare, Eglentina, b. 1257 Child 8: de Clare, Robert ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Version: 19 Aug 97 Author: Brian Tompsett Sources: seebibliography Copyright (c) 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997 | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Last Modified 7 Mar 1998 | Created 19 Aug 2001 by the BLACKADDER researchers: © on all pages |