General Notes

[1771067.ged]
Lord Despenser, Earl of Gloucester
Executed via hanging, drawn & quartered.
Supposedly the "boyfriend" of King Edward II.
Fled with Edward II upon rebell ion of Queen Isabella and Roger Mortimer.
Captured with the king, then tried and hanged.
Earl of Gloucester. Lord of Glamorgan on Eleanor's brother's deat h.
Granted forfeited estates of wife's half sister Joan when Joan declared r
ebel.
Wealth enormously increased by Eleanor's 1/3 share of the de Clare esta
tes.
Said fortune increased enormoously by violence in 1321-6.
Estates & fo rtune forfeited in 1326, partially restored in 1328.
Buried in Tewkesbury Abb ey.
2nd Lord Despenser.
Michael Altschul, *A Baronial Family in Medieval England: The Clares,
1217-1314*, Baltimore MD (The Johns Hopkins Press) 1965, concerning the
partition of the de CLARE estates after the death of the last Gi lbert, p
170-171: "Hugh Despenser and Eleanor [Gilbert's sister] received the l
ordship of Glamorgan, the most important of all the Clare holdings, along
with Rotherfield in Sussex and scattered manors in Devon and Somerset. In
addition, each heir acquired two-ninths of the liberty of Kilkenny in
Ireland, although t here is no evidence that any of them every visited
it. (P) The death of the cou ntess in the summer of 1320 completed the
division of the estates among th heir s. Maud probably died on July 2,
and the properties she held in dower must have been partitioned shortly
thereafter. Each received an equal portion of her thi rd of Kilkenny.
More importantly, Despenser obtained a substantial share of the honor of
Gloucester, including the manor and town of Tewkesbury, the manor of
Bushley and the castle and manor of Hanley in Worcester, and other
demesne land s in Berkshire, Oxford, and Buckingham. The partition of the
Clare estates has been described as "the most important territorial
upheaval of the reign."
[Den ham-Young *Vita Edwardi Secundi, pp xii-xiii*]"
Ancestral Roots of Certain A merican Colonists Who Came to America bef
1760
Author: Frederick Lewis Weis
P ublication: 7th ed Genealogical Publishing, Baltimore 1992
Plantagenet Ances try of 17th Century Colonists
Author: David Faris
Publication: Genealogical P ublishing Co., Baltimore, MD, 1996