Matilda of Lancaster

Matilda of Lancaster (also Maud of Lancaster ; Matilda de Burgh, Countess of Ulster ; or Matilda Ufford ) (* around 1310, † May 5, 1377 in Bruisyard ) was an English noblewoman. Her two marriages tragically linked her to Ireland, where English influence was declining around that time.

origin

Matilda was a daughter of Henry Plantagenet, 3rd Earl of Lancaster and his wife Maud de Chaworth , so she came from a branch of the English royal family Plantagenet . Her oldest brother was Henry of Grosmont , who later became the 1st Duke of Lancaster.

Marriage to William de Burgh

In 1327 she was married to the minor William de Burgh, 3rd Earl of Ulster , grandson and heir to Richard Og de Burgh, 2nd Earl of Ulster , whose guardianship had been acquired by her father. After her husband came of age, he inherited the lordship of Ireland , but was soon drawn into the power struggles within the lordship and murdered in June 1333. Matilda fled to England with Elizabeth, the only child from her marriage to William. Most of her husband's Irish possessions subsequently fell into the hands of Irish rebels, other areas to which she could lay claim as Wittum were still in the possession of her mother-in-law, Elizabeth de Clare . As compensation, King Edward III gave her . the administration of lands that belonged to monasteries in France but had fallen under royal administration by the beginning of the Hundred Years War with France. Matilda managed to persuade the king that he forbade the 1337 royal justiciar of Ireland to pardon her husband's murderers. In 1339 she achieved that Hugh de Burgh , who had once belonged to her personal retinue, was appointed treasurer for Ireland. He tried, although only partially successful, to collect the outstanding leases from the Wittum due to her from the Irish nobles, including the powerful Énrí Ó Néill in Ulster .

Marries Ralph Ufford

In 1341, Matilda's daughter Elizabeth was married to Lionel of Antwerp , a younger son of the king. Before June 1343, she herself married Ralph Ufford , a knight of the royal household. In August of that year she was with her husband in Avignon , where Pope Clement VI. she released from a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela and confirmed further privileges to her and her husband. Shortly afterwards, the English king appointed her husband justiciar , i.e. the king's deputy, for Ireland. In July 1344 the couple arrived in Dublin with an army of 40 men-at-arms and 200 archers . Ufford immediately tried to regain royal authority in Ireland. After a campaign in Munster and Leinster, he led a campaign against Ulster in 1345, which had escaped English supremacy for over a decade. There he deposed the rebellious Énrí Ó Néill. Matilda was pregnant in Kilmainham near Dublin in November 1345 , shortly afterwards Ufford fell ill and died in Kilmainham in April 1346. Again Matilda had to flee Ireland with a toddler.

Retreat into religious life

In England, Edward III. again for Matilda's material supply. However Matilda handed over the defense of their interests, especially her brother in 1347 Henry of Grosmont and performed as Stiftsdame in the Augustinian Monastery of Campsey Ash in Suffolk , where her second husband Ralph Ufford had been buried. She made a foundation for a school in Campsey Ash, which was moved to Bruisyard in 1354 . Her son-in-law Lionel of Antwerp later founded a Franciscan convent there. In 1364, Matilda received papal permission to leave the monastery. By 1369 at the latest, she lived as a nun in Bruisyard Abbey , founded by her son-in-law , where she probably died. However, she was buried in Campsey Ash.

Descendants

Her first daughter Elizabeth de Burgh, 4th Countess of Ulster , who was married to Lionel of Antwerp, had died in 1363 , leaving behind a daughter, Philippa . Maud , the daughter from her marriage to Ralph Ufford, had married Thomas de Vere, 8th Earl of Oxford in 1350 and died after 1413.

Web links

• Robin Frame: Matilda of Lancaster, countess of Ulster (d. 1377). 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 2004
• Lady Matilda of Lancaster on thepeerage.com , accessed February 2, 2016.