Richard de Clare, 5th Earl of Gloucester

Coat of arms of Richard de Clare, 5th Earl of Gloucester

Richard de Clare, 5th Earl of Gloucester and 5th Earl of Hertford (born August 4, 1222 , † July 15, 1262 in Waltham ) was an English magnate .

Origin and youth

Richard de Clare came from the Anglo-Norman family Clare . He was the eldest son of Gilbert de Clare, 4th Earl of Gloucester and Hertford, and Isabel Marshal . Richard was only eight years old when his father died on October 25, 1230. On November 1st, King Henry III transferred. for a fee of 7,000 marks the administration of the Clare family's possessions as well as the guardianship and the right to marry the young heir to his justiciar Hubert de Burgh . Richard's mother married Richard of Cornwall , the king's brother , six months after the death of her husband . Richard grew up in de Burgh's household until he was overthrown and ostracized in the summer of 1232. The King de Burgh's rival Bishop Peter des Roches of Winchester was appointed as the new guardian of the young Richard, and the management of the Clare family's estates was entrusted to Peter de Rivallis , a nephew of the bishop. The king and probably Hubert de Burgh did not know that the young Richard was already married at this time. In the turmoil of the fall of de Burgh, his wife Margaret of Scotland sought refuge in Bury St. Edmunds, where she married ten-year-old Richard to their daughter Megotta, who was about the same age, probably to secure her daughter's future. However, the young couple continued to grow up separately, because Megotta probably lived in her mother's household, while Richard stayed in Peter des Roches' household until Peter des Roches lost his favor with the king in the summer of 1234 and was overthrown. Richard de Clare was henceforth brought up in the household of the king. In 1236 it was rumored that Richard de Clare was already married. The king declared the marriage null and void because it had taken place without his approval and began negotiations to remarry the young heir. Richard's bride Megotta died in November 1237. In the fall of 1237, John de Lacy, 1st Earl of Lincoln , had offered the king 5,000 marks for Richard's marriage to his daughter Maud. The king wanted to marry the wealthy heir to one of his relatives from Poitou and offered his stepfather, Count Hugo X. von Lusignan , to marry him to one of his daughters. Through the mediation of Richard of Cornwall, the stepfather of the young Richard de Clare, the Earl of Lincoln received the right to marry Richard de Clare to one of his daughters for a fee of 3,000 marks if Lusignan refused the offer. Lusignan refused, and on January 25, 1238, Richard de Clare married Maud de Lacy .

Fight in Wales

Even before he was declared of legal age in August 1243 for a fee of 1200 Marks, he took over unofficially rule over Glamorgan from his uncle Gilbert Marshal in 1240 or 1241 . Here he continued his father's fight against the Welsh lords, who were officially under the sovereignty of the Lords of Glamorgan, but actually ruled largely autonomously over the Glamorgan mountains and, in league with the Welsh princes of Gwynedd, endangered English rule. In 1242 there was a conflict between Gilbert de Turberville of Coity Castle , an Anglo-Norman liege of Richard, and the Welsh lords Hywel ap Maredudd of Meisgyn and Rhys ap Gruffydd of Senghenydd . Gilbert brokered a truce at a meeting at Cardiff Castle in late July 1242 . This was broken shortly afterwards by the Anglo-Norman Lord Richard Siward , who attacked the south of Meisgyn. In November 1242 Richard Siward was supposed to answer in court, but refused to keep the armistice. Then attacked Hywel ap Maredudd Kenfig Castle and other English possessions, where he was now supported by Richard Siward. In return, Richard de Clare occupied Hywel ap Maredudds lordship Meisgyn and Glynrhondda . Hywel ap Maredudd finally had to flee into exile in Gwynedd before 1246. In court, Richard de Clare was able to obtain in 1245 that Richard Siward was convicted of a peace-breaker and that his possessions fell to him. To secure his conquest of Meisgyn, he began building Llantrisant Castle . In 1245 Richard took part in the king's campaign against Lord Dafydd ap Gruffydd , which crushed the supremacy of the Princes of Gwynedd. During this campaign he was knighted in June 1245.

Traveling to tournaments, as a pilgrim and as an envoy

As Earl of Gloucester and Hertford , Richard de Clare quickly became one of the empire's leading magnates. He stood in the courtly spirit of his time and was known as a successful tournament fighter and promoter of court culture. After successfully enforcing his supremacy in Glamorgan, he made numerous and long journeys. Together with his brother William and William de Valence, 1st Earl of Pembroke , the king's half-brother, he took part in tournaments in France. In 1248 and 1249 he visited the Pontigny monastery in France, where the Archbishop Edmund Rich of Canterbury, canonized in 1246, was buried, and in 1250 Santiago de Compostela . He was also frequently on the road as an envoy for the king and his brother Richard of Cornwell. In 1254 he accompanied Queen Eleanore on her trip to France, where she met her husband, King Henry III, who had already left in Bordeaux in August 1253. met. Richard de Clare accompanied the royal couple on their further journey through the continent and took part in Burgos in October 1254 at the wedding of the heir to the throne Edward and the princess Eleanor of Castile .

Before traveling to Santiago in 1250, he had accompanied Richard of Cornwall on a trip to see Pope Innocent IV in Lyon . He traveled twice to Germany, where Richard of Cornwall was finally elected King of Germany in difficult negotiations in the double election of 1256/57 . In the negotiations, however, he only played a formal role. In negotiations with Count Hugo XI. of Lusignan he arranged in 1252 or 1253 that his eldest son Gilbert Lusignan's daughter Alice should be married. In August and September 1255, Gloucester led an English army to southern Scotland, which supported the overthrow of the Scottish government led by Walter Comyn, Earl of Menteith by Alan Durward .

Expansion of his possessions

After his uncle Anselm Marshal died childless at the end of 1245, he was able to assert an inheritance claim to part of the Marshal property through his mother, who died in 1240. Anselm's father, William Marshal , had acquired the holdings of a branch line of the Clares at the end of the 12th century through his marriage to Isabel de Clare, heiress to Richard de Clare, 2nd Earl of Pembroke . Now Richard de Clare was able to win back part of it. When the Marshal inheritance was divided, he received Usk in south-east Wales and Castle Walwyn in Pembrokeshire in July 1246 and Kilkenny , part of Leinster in Ireland, in the spring of 1247 . With Glamorgan, Usk and Wentloog he had a compact territory in Southeast Wales. 1254 he claimed from King Heinrich III. in vain the possession of Bristol , which had belonged to the Honor of Gloucester until 1213 , but was then taken over by King John . In 1257 there were new Welsh attacks on Glamorgan . Lord Llywelyn ap Gruffydd destroyed Llangynwyd Castle in Glynrhondda, whereupon the King appointed Richard de Clare commander of the English troops in Glamorgan and Pembrokeshire. However, the main fighting took place in the valley of the Tywi , where an English army suffered a crushing defeat at the Battle of Cymerau . The new Lord of Senghenydd, Gruffydd ap Rhys , allied with Llywelyn ab Gruffydd and threatened Glamorgan.

Role in the aristocratic opposition to the king

Richard de Clare never got around to facing this threat. 1258 he belonged with Simon de Montfort, 6th Earl of Leicester , to the core of an aristocratic opposition against King Henry III., With which he took political initiative unlike his father and grandfather. Despite occasional differences, he had got on well with the king and his French relatives, the Poitevins . He had married his heir to the daughter of a nobleman from Poitou. Matthew Paris ' claim that William de Valence, a half-brother of the king, tried to poison him and his brother William in July 1258 by Walter de Scotenay, the seneschal of Richard de Clare , is most likely false.

After Clare initially in the nobility opposition to King Henry III. was in the lead and after the Provisions of Oxford belonged to the 15-member Council of State that had taken over the government, he finally switched back to the side of the king. In November 1259 he traveled with the king to France, where the latter concluded the Treaty of Paris with the French king. He returned to England before the king in the spring of 1260 and prepared to regain the king's power. To this change of sides he was probably moved by the attacks of Llywelyn ap Gruffydd, who took advantage of the situation in England and expanded his power in the Welsh Marches . In addition, Richard de Clare developed an aversion to Simon de Montfort, the leader of the aristocratic opposition. In contrast to Richard de Clare, Montfort was uncompromisingly committed to his goals and seemed to want to finally oust the king from power, and ultimately Richard de Clare felt his way through the administrative and judicial reform that Montfort with the Provisions of Westminster at the local level had begun to be threatened in its power. However, after the king sought to fully regain his power in the spring of 1261 and also called back his exiled relatives, Montfort and Clare were reconciled. Together with other magnates he began to raise an army. However, the king was unwilling to compromise and, given his military superiority, the barons submitted to the king. King Henry III declared the Provisions of Oxford invalid in May 1262 and set sail for France in July 1262 to sue Simon de Montfort, who had also gone to France, from the French King Louis . The day after the king's departure, Richard de Clare died after several months of illness. He was buried at Tewkesbury Abbey .

Aftermath

1248 Clare had the priory of Clare founded that the first branch of the Augustinians was in England.

Although at the beginning of the aristocratic opposition he was a leader thanks to his position, his changes of sides in the further course of the conflict show that he was less indebted to the ideals of a legally legitimized government of Simon de Montfort, but rather sought his own power and his own advantages. His son and heir Gilbert de Clare played a crucial role during the Second War of the Barons that followed.

Family and offspring

His first marriage to Megotta de Burgh as a child had remained childless. From his marriage to Maud de Lacy he had the following children:

• Isabel de Clare (* 1240; † before 1271), ⚭ 1258 with Margrave Wilhelm VII of Montferrat
• Gilbert "the Red" de Clare (* 1243; † 1295), 6th Earl of Hertford and Gloucester
• Thomas de Clare, Lord of Thomond († 1287)
• Bogo de Clare (* 1248; † 1294)
• Margaret de Clare (* 1250; † 1312), ⚭ 1272 (divorced 1293) with Edmund, 2nd Earl of Cornwall
• Rohese de Clare (* 1252; † 1317), ⚭ 1270 with Roger de Mowbray, 1st Baron Mowbray
• Eglantina de Clare (* / † 1257)

literature

• Michael Altschul: A baronial family in medieval England. The Clares . The Johns Hopkins Press, Baltimore 1965

Web links

• Michael Altschul: Clare, Richard de, sixth earl of Gloucester and fifth earl of Hertford (1222-1262). 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
• Richard de Clare, 5th Earl of Gloucester on thepeerage.com , accessed August 25, 2015.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Michael Altschul: A baronial family in medieval England. The Clares . The Johns Hopkins Press, Baltimore 1965, p. 61
2. ^ Welsh Biography Online: Clare. Retrieved March 23, 2015 . 
3. ^ Michael Altschul: A baronial family in medieval England. The Clares . The Johns Hopkins Press, Baltimore 1965, p. 68
4. ↑ Michael Brown: The wars of Scotland, 1214-1371 . Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh 2004, ISBN 0-7486-1237-8 , p. 49.
5. ^ Michael Altschul: A baronial family in medieval England. The Clares . The Johns Hopkins Press, Baltimore 1965, p. 82
6. ^ Michael Altschul: A baronial family in medieval England. The Clares . The Johns Hopkins Press, Baltimore 1965, p. 83
7. ^ Michael Altschul: A baronial family in medieval England. The Clares . The Johns Hopkins Press, Baltimore 1965, p. 90
8. ↑ Clare Priory. Retrieved May 29, 2015 . 
9. ^ Michael Altschul: A baronial family in medieval England. The Clares . The Johns Hopkins Press, Baltimore 1965, p. 93

predecessor	Office	successor
Gilbert de Clare	Earl of Gloucester Earl of Hertford 1230-1262	Gilbert "the Red" de Clare