Elizabeth de Clare

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Elizabeth de Clare; Historicizing portrait by John Farber, 1714

Elizabeth de Clare , Lady of Clare (also Elizabeth de Burgh ; born September 16, 1295 , † November 4, 1360 ) was an English noblewoman . After the death of her brother, she was one of the heiresses of the Clare family .

Origin and youth

Elizabeth was the youngest daughter of Gilbert de Clare, 6th Earl of Gloucester and his second wife Johanna , daughter of King Edward I. Her father was one of the richest and most powerful barons in England, but died in December 1295. After hers died Father's Elizabeth probably grew up with her mother and her second husband Ralph de Monthermer .

First marriage

In 1308 she accompanied her only brother Gilbert to Ireland, who married Maud , a daughter of the Earl of Ulster on September 29 , while on the following day she married John de Burgh , the earl's eldest son. However, her husband fell in a battle in Ireland on June 18, 1313. Elizabeth initially stayed in Ireland. Her brother Gilbert fell at the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314, leaving no descendants. According to the marriage contract that her father had signed with King Edward I , her mother's father, Elizabeth and her two sisters Eleanor and Margaret were now the sole heirs to their father's property. Her uncle King Edward II , however, postponed the division of the inheritance on the pretext of the possible pregnancy of Gilbert's widow Maud , and in view of the nobility opposition under the Earl of Lancaster , he tried to marry off the heiresses with loyal followers of his. He called Elizabeth of Ireland back to England and gave her Bristol Castle as her residence.

Second marriage

In Bristol, Elizabeth was kidnapped , presumably against her will, on February 3, 1316 by Theobald de Verdon, 2nd Baron Verdon , who married her the next day. However, Verdon died on July 27, 1316, and Elizabeth retired to Amesbury Priory . There she gave birth to a posthumous daughter, Isabel, on March 21, 1317 .

Third marriage and division of inheritance

Even during her pregnancy, King Edward II urged her to marry his courtier Roger Damory, 1st Baron Damory , whom she finally married on May 3, 1317. Her two sisters were also married to the king's followers. In 1317 the Clares' possessions were finally divided between her and her two sisters Eleanor and Margaret or their husbands. Elizabeth received most of the Honor of Clare with Clare Castle and Clare borough as the center and Cranborne and other estates in Dorset . In addition, she received a third of the Irish rule Kilkenny , these possessions were awarded to her on November 15, 1317 as her inheritance. A third of the property fell as a Wittum to Maud, her brother's widow. After their death in 1320 this Wittum was divided among the three sisters. Elizabeth received from it Usk and Caerleon in South East Wales.

Hereditary dispute with Hugh le Despenser

Hugh le Despenser , her sister Eleanor's husband, had risen to become a powerful baron by inheritance. In 1318 he became royal chamberlain and ousted Elizabeth's husband Roger Damory from his position at court. He asked Hugh de Audley , her sister Margaret's husband, to exchange the Welsh wentloog with him for inferior properties in England. To this end, he tried to acquire more properties in South Wales and thus build a contiguous territory in the Welsh Marches . This convinced Roger Damory, who had inherited Usk in South Wales after the death of Gilbert's widow in 1320, to defend himself against Despenser's ambitions, and he joined the rebellion of the Marcher Lords against Despenser in 1321 . After the revolt called Despenser War was initially successful and Despenser had to go into exile, the king was able to put down the revolt in early 1322. Roger Damory presumably died in Tutbury on March 12, 1322 , shortly after Tutbury Castle surrendered to the king. Elizabeth had previously been captured at Usk Castle and taken to Barking Abbey with her children . There she forced Hugh le Despenser to give her Usk in exchange for the inferior Gower , which he had acquired in the same year through a controversial contract. Elizabeth had to give Gower back briefly to the previous owner William de Braose , who then handed it over to Despenser's father . On November 2, 1322, Elizabeth regained her possessions in England, but the king refused any further compensation for the loss of her Welsh possessions. She therefore supported the return of Queen Isabella in the autumn of 1326, and after the overthrow of King Edward II and Hugh le Despenser, she received Usk back on February 26, 1327.

Coat of arms of Clare College, Cambridge containing the coat of arms of the Clare family

Next life

After the death of Roger Damory, she did not remarry. Since numerous bills and records from her household have been preserved, her subsequent life is well documented. She had numerous friends under the nobility and stayed in close contact with her children and grandchildren. Elizabeth supervised the administration of her extensive estates herself. In addition to her father's inheritance, she was mistress of Ulster through her marriage to John de Burgh , which she managed by proxy. As the widow of Theobald de Verdon, she owned other estates in England and Ireland than Wittum, and she had acquired some smaller estates through her marriage to Roger Damory. From these extensive estates she received income of £ 2723 in 1329 and £ 2368 in 1338. With this income she belonged to the wealthy aristocracy. Their main residences in East England were Clare, Anglesey near Cambridge and Great Bardfield in Essex . From time to time she visited Usk Castle in Wales, which she had further expanded. In 1352 she built a house on the outskirts of the Minorite Convent of Aldgate near London, in which she spent part of the year.

Elizabeth was known for her piety and a generous donor. In 1343 she took a vow of chastity. She made frequent pilgrimages to Canterbury , Walsingham and Bromholm . She considered especially monasteries and churches that were previously associated with the Clare family, with foundations, including Anglesey Abbey in Cambridgeshire and the Augustinian monastery in Clare. To the dismay of the Augustinian Canons in Walsingham, of which she was the patron, she founded a Franciscan monastery in the same place in 1347 . In 1336 she made a first, in 1338 another generous donation to University Hall , a college founded in Cambridge in 1326 . Her donation, however, only became legally valid after she became the principal patroness of the college in 1346, which was unofficially named Clare Hall as early as 1339 . In 1359 she issued another bylaw for the college. 500 years later, the college was officially renamed Clare College .

She was buried in the Minorite Church in Stepney outside Aldgate, which is no longer preserved. In her will, issued in 1355, she once again made generous donations to Clare College and the Minorite Convention at Aldgate in London.

The ruins of the Franciscan Monastery founded by Elizabeth de Clare in Walsingham

progeny

She had one child from each of her three marriages. From her marriage to John de Burgh she had a son:

From her marriage to Theobald de Verdon, she had a posthumous daughter:

From her marriage to Roger Damory, she had another daughter:

literature

  • Jennifer Ward: Elizabeth de Burgh, Lady of Clare (1295-1360). Household and Other Records. Boydell, Woodbridge 2014. ISBN 978-1-843-83891-3
  • Frances A. Underhill: For Her Good Estate. The Life of Elizabeth de Burgh . St. Martin's Press, New York 1999. ISBN 978-0-312-21355-8
  • Jennifer C. Ward: Clare, Elizabeth de (1294 / 5-1360). In: Henry Colin Gray Matthew, Brian Harrison (Eds.): Oxford Dictionary of National Biography , from the earliest times to the year 2000 (ODNB). Oxford University Press, Oxford 2004, ISBN 0-19-861411-X , ( oxforddnb.com license required ), as of January 2008

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Michael Altschul: A baronial family in medieval England. The Clares . The Johns Hopkins Press, Baltimore 1965, p. 170
  2. ↑ Usk Castle: The Castle… shaped by the 'best knight who ever lived'. Retrieved April 5, 2015 .
  3. ^ Clare College: College History. Retrieved April 5, 2015 .
personal data
SURNAME Clare, Elizabeth de
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Clare, Elisabeth de; Burgh, Elizabeth de
BRIEF DESCRIPTION English nobles
DATE OF BIRTH September 16, 1295
DATE OF DEATH November 4, 1360