 1295 - 1360 (65 years)
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| Name |
Elizabeth de Clare |
| Birth |
16 Sep 1295 |
Tewkesbury, England  [1, 2] |
| Gender |
Female |
| Death |
4 Nov 1360 [1, 2] |
| Burial |
Convent of Minoresses, Aldgate, London, England |
| Person ID |
I37715 |
Bob Juch's Tree |
| Last Modified |
31 Dec 2022 |
| Father |
7th Earl of Hertford, 3rd Earl of Gloucester Gilbert de Clare, 7th Earl of Gloucester, b. 2 Sep 1243, Christchurch, Hampshire, England d. 7 Dec 1295, Monmouth Castle, Monmouthshire, Wales (Age 52 years) |
| Relationship |
natural |
| Mother |
Joan "of Acre" Plantagenet, b. 1272, Acre, Palestine d. 23 Apr 1307, Clare, Suffolk, England (Age 35 years) |
| Relationship |
natural |
| Marriage |
30 Apr 1290 |
Westminster Abbey, London, Middlesex, England |
| Family ID |
F3440 |
Group Sheet | Family Chart |
| Family 1 |
Lord d'Amory Roger d'Amorie, b. Abt 1284, of Bletchingdon, Oxfordshire, England d. 13 Mar 1322, Tutbury Castle, Staffordshire, England (Age 38 years) |
| Marriage |
Bef 3 May 1317 [3, 4, 5] |
| Children |
| | 1. Eleanor d'Amory, b. Abt 1320, of Tutbury Castle, Staffordshire, England [natural] |
| | 2. Elizabeth d'Amory, b. May 1318, of Tutbury Castle, Staffordshire, England d. 1362 (Age 43 years) [natural] |
|
| Family ID |
F13848 |
Group Sheet | Family Chart |
| Last Modified |
31 Dec 2022 |
| Family 2 |
2nd Lord Verdon Theobold de Verdon, b. 8 Sep 1278, of Alton, Staffordshire, England d. 27 Jul 1316, Alton, Staffordshire, England (Age 37 years) |
| Marriage |
4 Feb 1315/16 |
England [6] |
| Children |
| | 1. Isabel de Verdun, b. 21 Mar 1316/17, Amesbury, Wiltshire, England d. 25 Jul 1349 (Age 32 years) [natural] |
|
| Family ID |
F13880 |
Group Sheet | Family Chart |
| Last Modified |
31 Dec 2022 |
| Family 3 |
John de Burgh, b. Abt 1297, Ulster, Ireland d. 18 Jun 1313, Galway, Connaught, Ireland (Age 16 years) |
| Marriage |
30 Sep 1308 |
Waltham Abbey, Essex, England [1] |
| Children |
|
| Family ID |
F13886 |
Group Sheet | Family Chart |
| Last Modified |
31 Dec 2022 |
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| Notes |
- Elizabeth de Burgh, Lady of Clare, (c. 1294-1360), foundress of Clare College, Cambridge, was the youngest daughter of Gilbert Clare Earl of Gloucester and Hertford (d. 1295) by his second marriage to Edward I's daughter Joan of Acre (1271-1307). She was married first to John Burgh (d. 1313), heir to the earldom of Ulster, to whom she bore her only son William. Following the childless death of her only brother Gilbert at Bannockburn in 1314, she became a great heiress and was abducted in 1316, probably with her consent, by Theobald Verdon, who died later the same year and to whom she bore a posthumous daughter Isabel. A daughter Elizabeth was born by her third marriage to Roger Damory, who died in 1321. Still only in her mid-twenties, with dowers from all three husbands and with an inheritance worth at least 2,000 a year, she was an obvious target both for marriage and for molestation by the Despensers, who defrauded her of her lordship of Usk. This was recovered after their overthrow and she did not marry again, taking a vow of chastity by 1344. At her death her inheritance descended to her granddaughter Elizabeth, wife of Edward III's son Lionel, Duke of Clarence, and thence passed to the Mortimers and house of York.
Elizabeth's widowhood is illuminated by the finest set of household accounts still surviving. These reveal that she lived in stately splendour at Clare in Suffolk, where she received a stream of visitors, including her kinsfolk Edward III and Queen Philippa. 250 people received her livery in 1343, many of them members of her household, and at least 3,000 a year and sometimes more was spent by her wardrobe and household. This was not because Elizabeth was extravagant; she ran her household and estates efficiently, obtained value for her money, and took a strong line with poachers. That 93 esquires took her livery indicates her role as a great local aristocrat, particularly in East Anglia, which also emerges from her religious patronage.
As an heiress, Elizabeth held estates in her own right, not for life, and could thus give generously to the Church without first saving up wealth, as her friend Mary of St Pol had to do. Already before her husbands' deaths, she had vowed to go on pilgrimage to Santiago and the Holy Land, a promise she was unable to fulfill, and from the early 1330s was giving property to Ely cathedral priory, Tremenhall and Anglesey priories, and West Dereham Abbey. Her attention was attracted by 1336 to the notoriously under-financed University Hall at Cambridge, which she was persuaded to take over as Clare Hall, to endow (1346), and for which she devised statutes in 1359. All this involved dealing tactfully but firmly with the university and unsatisfactory fellows. Clare College was the first college deliberately planned to include undergraduates. While Elizabeth's example may have prompted Mary of St Pol to found Pembroke College, certainly it was Mary who interested Elizabeth in the Franciscans. In 1343 Elizabeth gave a church to Mary's abbey of Franciscan nuns (Minoresses) at Denney, in 1347 she founded a Franciscan friary at the pilgrimage centre of Walsingham priory, from 1355 (like Mary) she was authorised to stay overnight in Minoress houses, and in 1360 her will asked for burial at the Aldgate house of Minoresses. Her influence helps explain the foundation of the final English house of Minoresses at Bruisyard by her granddaughter and her husband Clarence with nuns from Denney. [Michael Hicks, Who's Who in Late Medieval England, Shepheard-Walwyn Ltd, London, 1991]
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Elizabeth m. 1st, John de Burgh, son of Richard, Earl of Ulster, by whom she had issue, William, Earl of Ulster, who m. Maud, sister of Henry Plantagenet, Duke of Lancaster, and left a dau. and heiress, Elizabeth de Burgh, who m. Lionel Plantagenet, Duke of Clarence, K.G., and had an only dau. and heiress, Philippa Plantagenet, who m. Edward Mortimer, Earl of March. Elizabeth, widow of John de Burgh, m. 2ndly, Theobald de Verdon, and 3rdly, Roger d'Amory; by the last she had two daus., Elizabeth, m. to John, Lord Bardolph, and Eleanor, m. to John de Raleigh. [Sir Bernard Burke, Dormant and Extinct Peerages, Burke's Peerage, London, 1883, p. 120, Clare, Lords of Clare, Earls of Hertford, Earls of Gloucester]
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Elizabeth de Clare, the youngest sister of Gilbert de Clare, Earl of Hertford and Gloucester, m. John de Burgh, son of Richard, Earl of Ulster, and through this alliance the honour of Clare came into the possession of the de Burghs. The heiress of Clare left a son, William de Burgh, Earl of Ulster, who m. Maud, sister of Henry Plantagenet, Duke of Lancaster. [Sir Bernard Burke, Dormant and Extinct Peerages, Burke's Peerage, Ltd., London, 1883, p. 434, Plantagenet, Duke of Clarence]
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| Sources |
- [S1169] United Ancestries, Automated Archives, Inc., Automated Family Pedigrees - #1, (Name: CD-100, Banner Blue Software, 1994;).
- Details: B3D9-PM.
- [S1171] Brian Tompsett [http://www.dcs.hull.ac.uk/public/genealogy/royal], Directory of Royal Genealogical Data, (Name: University of Hull, Hull, UK;).
- [S1168] World Family Tree, (Name: Broderbund Software, Inc.;), Vol 1, Ed. 1, Tree #0986.
- [S1172] Kimberly Enfield, Enfield-Bryant Genealogy, Vol 1, Ed. 1, Tree #0986.
- [S1177] Automated Archives, Inc., Automated Family Pedigrees - #2, (Name: CD101, Banner Blue Software, 1994;).
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