Richard de Clare Earl of Gloucester & Hertford 
Richard de Clare was born on August 4th, 1222 in Mellent, Gloucester, England. Richard de Clare's father was Gilbert de Clare Earl of Gloucester & Hertford and his mother was Isabella Marshal. His paternal grandparents were Sir Richard FitzRoger de Earl of Hertford and Amicia FitzRobert Cts de Gloucester; his maternal grandparents were Sir William Marshal Earl of Pembroke and Isabel de Clare Cts de Strigoil. He had two brothers and three sisters, named William, Gilbert, Amicia, Isabel and Agnes. He had four half-brothers and a half-sister, named Henry, Richard, Nicholas, John and Isabella. He died at the age of 39 on July 15th, 1262 in Ashenfield, Canterbury, Kent.Death Notes
Possibly poisoned by Peter de Savoy, a friend of Simon de Montfort.
General Notes
Source: A Baronial Family in Medievil England: The Clares, 1217-1314, Michael Altschul, The Johns Hopkins Press, Baltimore, 1965.
From same, p 92: "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 settlement 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appears to have withdrawn support shortly after December 1258 (p 87).
Richard de Clare, 6th Earl of Hertford and 2nd Earl of Gloucester, then in minority at the decease of his father in 1229. The wardship of this young nobleman was granted to the famous Hubert de Burgh, Earl of Kent, Justiciary of England, whose dau., Margaret, to the great displeasure of the king (Henry III), he afterwards (1243) clandestinely married but from whom he was probably divorced, for we find the king marrying him the next year to Maude, dau. of John de Lacy, Earl of Lincoln, in consideration whereof the said John paid to the crown 5,000 marks and remitted a debt of 2,000 more. His lordship, who appears to have been a very distinguished personage in the reign of Henry III, was one of the chief nobles present in Westminster Hall (40th Henry III) [1256], when Boniface, archbishop of Canterbury, with divers other prelates, pronounced that solemn curse, with candles lighted, against all those who should thenceforth violate Magna Carta. In two years afterwards, an attempt was made by Walter de Scotenay, his chief counsellor, to poison the earl and his brother William, which proved effective as to the latter, while his lordship narrowly escaped with the loss of his hair and nails. In the next year the earl was commissioned, with others of the nobility by the appointment of the king and the whole baronage of England, to the parliament of France to convey King Henry III's resignation of Normandy and to adjust all differences between the two crowns; and upon the return of the mission, his lordship reported proceedings to the king, in parliament. About this period he had license to fortify the isle of Portland and to embattle it as a fortress. It is reported of this nobleman that, being at Tewkesbury in the 45th Henry III [1261], a Jew, who had fallen into a jakes upon the Saturday, refusing to be pulled out in reverence of the Jewish sabbath, his lordship prohibited any help to be afforded him on the next day, the Christian sabbath, and thus suffered the unfortunate Israelite to perish. He d. himself in the July of the next year (1262), having been poisoned at the table of Peter de Savoy, the queen's uncle, along with Baldwin, Earl of Devon, and other persons of note. His lordship left issue, Gilbert, his successor, Thomas, Rose, and Margaret. The earl was s. by his elder son, Gilbert de Clare. [Sir Bernard Burke, Dormant and Extinct Peerages, Burke's Peerage, London, 1883, p. 119, Clare, Lords of Clare, Earls of Hertford, Earls of Gloucester]
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Richard de Clare, 7th Earl of Gloucester, 8TH EARL OF CLARE, 6TH EARL OF HERTFORD (b. Aug. 4, 1222--d. July 15, 1262, Eschemerfield, near Canterbury, Kent, Eng.), the most powerful English noble of his time. He held estates in more than 20 English counties, including the lordship of Tewkesbury, wealthy manors in Gloucester, and the great marcher lordship of Glamorgan. He himself acquired the Kilkenny estates in Ireland and the lordship of Usk and Caerleon in south Wales, making him the greatest lord in south Wales; in Glamorgan especially he was almost an independent prince.
Son of Gilbert de Clare (the 6th Earl), Richard succeeded to the earldoms in October 1230. He refused to help King Henry III on the French expedition of 1253 but was with him afterward at Paris. Thereafter he went on a diplomatic errand to Scotland and was sent to Germany to work among the princes for the election of his stepfather, Richard, Earl of Cornwall, as king of the Romans. About 1258 Gloucester became a leader of the barons in their resistance to the king, and he was prominent during the proceedings that followed the Mad Parliament at Oxford in 1258. In 1259, however, he quarreled with Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester; 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 Montfort were again working in concord. [Encyclopaedia Britannica CD, 1996, GLOUCESTER, RICHARD DE CLARE, 7TH EARL OF]
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Ancestor Pedigree Chart
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- b.1116 in Tunbridge Castle, Kent, England d.1173 in Oxfordshire, England
- b.BET. 1153 - 1162 in Tunbridge Castle, Kent, England d.30 Dec 1218
- b.BET. 1132 - 1137 in of Burkenham, Field Dalling, Norfolk d.24 Dec 1195 in Norfolk, England
- b.BET. 1180 - 1182 in Hertford, Hertfordshire, England d.25 Oct 1230 in Perres-Guirrec ( Penrose), Brittany, France
- b.1160 in Tewkesbury, Gloucester, England d.1 JAN 1224/25
- b.04 Aug 1222 in Mellent, Gloucester, England d.15 Jul 1262 in Ashenfield, Canterbury, Kent
- b.1146 in of Caversham, England d.14 May 1219 in Caversham, Berkshire, England
- b.09 Oct 1200 in Pembroke Castle, Wales d.15 JAN 1239/40 in Berkhamsted Castle, Hertfordshire, England
- b.BET. 1171 - 1173 in of Pembroke, Wales d.1220 in Pembroke, Wales
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Richard de Clare and Meggotta were married in a religious ceremony on September 21st, 1232.
Family Notes
See CP II:696-700, VII:140-141.
Richard de Clare and Maude de Lacy were married in a religious ceremony. They had four sons and four daughters, named Sir Gilbert the Red de, Bogo, Benedict, Sir Thomas de Clare, Isabel, Margaret, Rohese (Agnes) and Eglentiria.
Family Notes
Michael Altschul, *A Baronial Family in Medieval England: The Clares,
1217-1314*, Baltimore MD (Johns Hopkins Press) 1965. p 62-63:
"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. (P) 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."
--- Michael Altschul, *A Baronial Family in Medieval England: The Clares,
1217-1314*, Baltimore MD (Johns Hopkins Press) 1965. p 62-63.
Frederick Lewis Weis and Walter Lee Sheppard, Jr., *Ancestral Roots
of Certain American Colonists*, 7th edition, Baltimore MD (Genealogical
Publishing Co) 1992-3, p 67:
She was married to Sir Richard (3) de CLARE 8th Earl of Clare, etc (son of
Gilbert (2) de CLARE 7th Earl of Clare, etc and Isabel MARSHAL) about 25 Jan
1237/38. Sir Richard (3) de CLARE 8th Earl of Clare, etc was born on 4 Aug
1222. He died on 15 Jul 1262. "SIR RICHARD DE CLARE, b. 4. Aug. 1222, d.
15 July 1262, 8th Earl of Clare, Earl of Hertford and Gloucester; m. (2) ca.
25 Jan. 1237/8, MAUD DE LACY ... Countess of Lincoln, d. bef. 10 Mar. 1288/9."
[Custer February 1, 2002 Family Tree.FTW]
[merge G675.FTW]
Michael Altschul, *A Baronial Family in Medieval England: The Clares,
1217-1314*, Baltimore MD (Johns Hopkins Press) 1965. p 62-63:
"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. (P) 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."
--- Michael Altschul, *A Baronial Family in Medieval England: The Clares,
1217-1314*, Baltimore MD (Johns Hopkins Press) 1965. p 62-63.
Frederick Lewis Weis and Walter Lee Sheppard, Jr., *Ancestral Roots
of Certain American Colonists*, 7th edition, Baltimore MD (Genealogical
Publishing Co) 1992-3, p 67:
She was married to Sir Richard (3) de CLARE 8th Earl of Clare, etc (son of
Gilbert (2) de CLARE 7th Earl of Clare, etc and Isabel MARSHAL) about 25 Jan
1237/38. Sir Richard (3) de CLARE 8th Earl of Clare, etc was born on 4 Aug
1222. He died on 15 Jul 1262. "SIR RICHARD DE CLARE, b. 4. Aug. 1222, d.
15 July 1262, 8th Earl of Clare, Earl of Hertford and Gloucester; m. (2) ca.
25 Jan. 1237/8, MAUD DE LACY ... Countess of Lincoln, d. bef. 10 Mar. 1288/9."
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Children
Sir Gilbert the Red de Earl of Gloucester
Sir Gilbert the Red de was born on September 2nd, 1243 in Christchurch, Hampshire, England. He died at the age of 56 on December 7th, 1299 in Monmouth Castle, England.
Rohese (Agnes) de Clare
Rohese (Agnes) was born in 1252 in Tonebridge, Suffolk, England. She died after 1316.
Benedict de Clare
Benedict was born in 1254 in Tonebridge, Suffolk, England. He died at the age of 41 in 1295.
Sir Thomas de Clare Lord Thomond
Sir Thomas de Clare was born in of Thomond, Connaught, Ireland. He died on August 29th, 1287 in Clare, Ireland.
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