NameRichard de Clare Earl of Gloucester ![](../img/i_tree.png)
Birth4 Aug 1222, Gloucester, Gloucestershire, England
Death15 Jul 1262, Canterbury, Kent, England
BurialTewkesbury Abbey
Spouses
Birthabt 1223, Lincoln, Lincolnshire, England
Deathbef 10 mar 1288/1289
Notes for Richard de Clare Earl of Gloucester
Notes:
Weis" "Ancestral Roots. . ." (54:30), (63:29). Earl of Gloucester and Hertford.
"With the next generation, the Clare family reached he height of its prominence in the thirteenth century. Earl Richard de Clare was twice married, secretly in 1232 to Meggotta, daughter of the justiciar Hubert de Burgh, who had Richard's custody during his minority after 1230, and in 1237 to Maud, daughter of John de Lacy, earl of Lincoln (d. 1240). There was no issue by the ill-fated first marriage, but by Maud de Lacy Richard had three sons and four daughters. Negotiations for the second marriage [of Richard] began even before Megotta de Burgh's death in November, 1237. As early as 1236, before the original match was publicly revealed, King Henry had entertained notions of marrying the heir to one of his French relatives. The plan apparently fell through, perhaps when news of the first marriage came out. In the fall of 1237, while Meggotta was still alive, John de Lacy, earl of Lincoln, offered 5,000 marks, a sum roughly equivalent to the gross annual value of the Clare inheritance, to have Richard's marriage for his own daughter Maud. The earl was undoubtedly moved by many of the same considerations that had prompted the wife of Hubert de Burgh, although he had no need to resort to the drastic actions she had taken in
1232. He was the highest, and perhaps the only, bidder, but Henry still desired to marry Richard to a foreign kinsman. Through the efforts of his brother Richard of Cornwall, the stepfather of the young heir, a compromise was effected. On October 26, 1237, Henry offered the marriage to Hugh de Lusignan, count of La Marche, for one of his daughters, with the proviso that if the count did not agree to the proposal by the following January, the earl of Lincoln could have it for 3,000 marks. Hugh de Lusignan did not agree, and on January 25, 1238, Richard de Clare was married to Maud de Lacy. By the time of his second
marriage, Richard was almost sixteen. He was to remain a ward of the king until 1243, when he came of age and was formally granted seisin of his inheritance. His fortunes shed a grim light on the political and financial manipulations of the rights of wardship and marriage, and on the impact of those rights on national politics. His own attitudes and personal feelings never emerge during this entire period. As Powicke has remarked, "one would like to know how Richard de Clare felt about it all."
. . . "On July 15, 1262, the day after the king sailed to France, Earl Richard de Clare died. Two weeks later he was buried at Tewkesbury Abbey. The earl had not played a conspicuous role in the baronial movement since the settle ment of 1261; he had been in ill health for some months before his death, and rumors circulated 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 have probably confused the earl's natural death with the alleged poison plot of 1258."]" [Was Richard maybe poisoned at the
instigation of Simon de Montfort or some of his allies? Henry had settled with the rebellious barons in 1261 (p 92). Richard de Clare had at first sided with the barons in the antiroyalist movement which began in the summer of 1258 or thereabouts (p 82-87), but appears to have withdrawn support shortly after December 1258 (p 87). Of Earl Richard's four daughters, three married well, the fourth, Eglentina, dying in infancy in 1257. The eldest, Isabel, born in 1240, was married in June 1258 to an important nobleman, William, marquis de Montferrat. Earl Richard paid the marquis 4,000 marks to secure the marriage, and allowed him a choice of brides in addition. Since Isabel was about eighteen and her surviving sisters each less than eight years old, the choice must have been easy. They were married at Lyons, and Isabel seems never to have returned to England. Montferrat was a lordship in northern Italy, technically a member of the Empire but subject to Provencal and Angevin influences. The marquis was a prominent figure on the Ghibelline side in thirteenth century Mediterranean politics, but nothing further is known of Isabel. She probably died sometime before 1271, since the marquis married a
daughter of King Alfonso X of Castile in that year. [See notes for the 2nd daughter, Margaret]. The third daughter, Rohese, born in 1252, was married in 1270 to a member of the lesser baronage, Roger de Mowbray, lord of the Yorkshire barony of Thirsk (d. 1297). Again, the marriage was arranged by her mother, the dowager Countess Maud, and her brother Bogo." --- Michael Altschul, *A Baronial Family in Medieval England: The Clares,1217-1314*, Baltimore MD (Johns Hopkins Press) 1965. pp 34-37 & 62-63 & 92.
Notes for Maud (Spouse 1)
Notes:
Weis" "Ancestral Roots. . ." (54:30), (63:29).
Gordon Fisher posted to soc.genealogy.medieval on 2 Apr 1997: Subject: Maud de LACY
"Maud de Lacy, widow of Richard, earl of Gloucester, outlived her husband by more than a quarter of a century, dying in March 1289. From 1262 until her death she held one-third of the Clare inheritance in dower, although her son EARL GILBERT the Red did successfully challenge the original composition of her dower portion, which was readjusted in 1267. Maud did not remarry, preferring to spend her long widowhood living off the revenues of her estates, contributing handsomely to ecclesiastical foundations, and helping to promote her children. Her activities on behalf of her daughters Margaret and Rohese have been noted [see note under her husband Richard], and she also attempted, with less success, to present her son Bogo to the church of Adlingfleet in Yorkshire. Her gifts to religious houses were numerous. In 1248 Earl RICHARD founded Clare Priory, the first house of Austin Friars in England, and after his death the countess continued his generosity with several grants of land to the priory. In addition, a scheme to found an Augustinian nunnery attracted her. In 1284 she refounded the priory of Canonsleigh in Devon. Canonsleigh was originally established for seven Augustinian canons by Walter de Clavill, a mesne tenant of the honor of Gloucester, but in 1284 Maud provided an annual gift of L200 for the support of an abbess and 40 canonesses of that order. She had originally had the idea of doing this for Sandleford Priory in Berkshire, but for some reason the plan fell through in 1274, and a decade later she refounded Canonsleigh instead. By 1286 the new nunnery was in existence, and the dispossessed canons were under royal protection." --- Michael Altschul, *A Baronial Family in Medieval England: The Clares,1217-1314*, Baltimore MD (Johns Hopkins Press) 1965. p 34-36
1. Gilbert de CLARE
2. Sir Thomas de CLARE
3. Bogo de CLARE*
4. Margaret de CLARE*
Notes for Margaret (Spouse 2)
Margaret of Kent
Notes:
Per Cokayne's "Complete Peerage" under RICHARD DE CLARE, V Earl of Gloucester, her marriage to RICHARD DE CLARE was a secret one. In 1239 Hubert [her father] was granted a pardon for the marriage.
Richard de Clare was married briefly to Meggotta, daughter of the justiciar Hubert de Burgh, who had Richard's custody during his minority after 1230