General Notes

The following bio on Joan is taken from BREWER'S BRITISH ROYALTY by David Williamson (c)1996 Cassell
      
       Joan of Acre was the 8th child of Edward I and his first wife Eleanor of Castile, and was born at Acre in Palestine in the spring of 1272 when her parents were taking part in the Crusades. She was married at Westminster Abbey on 30 April 1290 to Gilbert de Clare, 3rd Earl of Gloucester and 7th Earl of Hereford, the divorced husband of Alice de Lusignan, a half-sister of Henry III. Joan gave birth to a son and three daughters in quick succession before her husband died at Monmouth Castle on 7 December 1295 and was buried in Tewkesbury Abbey.      
       A little over a year later, in January 1297, Joan contracted a second marriage in secret to Ralph de Monthermer, who had been her first husband's esquire. When news of this marriage was made known to her father, he was so infuriated that he threw the crown or coronet he was wearing on the fire and ordered Ralph to be imprisoned at Bristol, at the same time confiscating all the lands and castles that Joan had inherited from her first husband. However, the Bishop of Durham acted as a mediator and the king accepted his new son-in-law by August 1297 when he was summoned to Parliament as Earl of Gloucester and Hereford in right of his wife. Joan had two sons and two daughters by her second marriage and died at Clare in Suffolk on 23 April 1307, being buried in the Augustinian priory there.
       The earldoms of Gloucester and Hereford passed to her son by her first husband, and Ralph de Monthermer was summoned to Parliament as Lord Monthermer. He married again and died on 5 April 1325, having had no issue by his second wife. b. 1272, Acre, Palestine d. 23 Apr 1307, Clare, Suffolk, Eng.


Notes for COUNTESS OF GLOUCESTER & Joan "of Acre"    Princess of ENGLAND: [livingston.FTW]

                   Joan of Acre died in April, 1307, but during her tenure of the inheritance of Gloucester important modifications were introduced in its administrative structure. After Isabella de Fortibus, dowager countess of Devon and Aumale (1262-93), Countess Joan stands as perhaps the best example in thirteenth century English history of the ability of a widow to run the estates and otherwise manage the complex affairs of a great comital house."
                   --- Michael Altschul, *A Baronial Family in Medieval England: The Clares, 1217-1314*, Baltimore MD (Johns Hopkins Press) 1965. p 38-39.





                   More About COUNTESS OF GLOUCESTER & Joan "of Acre" Princess of ENGLAND: Burial: April 26, 1307, Austin Friars' Church, Clare, Suffolk, England  Fact 3 (2): Sole mistress of estates of her son Gilbert during his minority.888 Fact 4 (2): She controlled them with marked ability.888 Fact 5 (2): She introduced important modifications to administration of the estate.88 Fact 6 (2): One of greatest examples in 13th century England of ability of women to govern.888 Marriage Notes for Sir Earl of Gloucester and Joan ENGLAND:
                   [livingston.FTW]

                   --- Michael Altschul, *A Baronial Family in Medieval England: The Clares, 1217-1314*, Baltimore MD (Johns Hopkins Press) 1965. p 37.

                   Even before the annulment (of Gilbert's 1st marriage), Earl Gilbert and King Edward I had discussed the possibility of a marriage into the royal family. In May 1290, after a long delay pending the annulment and the necessity for a subsequent papal dispensation, Gilbert married Edward's fifth child and second surviving daughter Joan, who had been born at Acre in Palestine in 1272. Joan of Acre was to outlive the Red Earl by some twelve years, but between 1290 and his death in 1295 they had a son and heir, the last Earl Gilbert, and three daughters, the eventual co heiresses of the Clare inheritance. (P) The children of Earl Gilbert the Red by his two marriages comprised the last generation of the Clare family.
                   Joan of Acre, on the other hand [as compared to Gilbert's first wife Alice de Lusignan], was a remarkably active woman in the dozen years following the Red Earl's death. By the terms of the marriage agreement of 1290, the entire inheritance was enfeoffed jointly on Gilbert and Joan. This meant that it would not be possible for her father Edward I to grant her only a third of the estates and control the rest himself during the long minority of her son Gilbert. Joan was thus sole mistress of the inheritance, and she controlled it with marked ability.
                   From same, p 148: "The marriage between Gilbert and Joan had long been planned and long delayed. Joan was Edward's second surviving daughter, born when her father was still on crusade in 1272. In 1276 Rudolf of Hapsburg, the German Emperor, had prosed a marriage between the girl and his son Hartmann. Negotiations were conducted in 1277 and 1278, but the whole project had to be abandoned when Hartmann was accidentally killed in December, 1281. In May, 1283, the king agreed to a marriage between his daughter and Earl Gilbert. The earl had been separated from Alice de Lusignan since 1271, but a formal annulment was now required, and the marriage was finally dissolved in May, 1285. The king and the earl still had to wait a papal dispensation for the new marriage, and it was only forthcoming in November, 1289.




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a daughter of Edward I?