Earl Gilbert De Clare GLOUCESTER

   Other names for Gilbert were WALES Prince, AQUITAINE Duke and ENGLAND King.

   Ancestral File Number: 84ZQ-CG. User ID: 19743150.

   General Notes:

Prince of WALES, Duke of AQUITAINE, King of ENGLAND Reigned 1307 Deposed 1327.


BOOKS
Robert the Bruce King of Scots, Ronald McNair Scott, Carroll & Graf Publishers Inc, New York, 1982
p28: "On 6 November 1290, Bruce was informed that on the pleadings presentedhe had failed to make out his case. On 7 November, by a document now in the British Museum, sealed by Bruce and Gilbert de Clare, Earl of Gloucester, he delegated his claim to the throne to his son, the Earl of Carrick, and his heirs..."
p29: "The Earl of Gloucester, holding Robert the Bruce by the hand, in sight of all, spoke thus to the King: 'Recollect O King what kind of judgement thou hast given today and know that thou must be judged at the last' , and straightaway at the Earl's bidding the aforesaid Robert Bruce withdrew, nor did he ever tender homage or fealty to John of Balliol."

Barber Grandparents: 125 Kings, 143 Generations, Ted Butler Bernard and Gertrude Barber Bernard, 1978, McKinney TX, p97: "461P Gilbert De Clare, Earl of Herts and Gloucester (S of 452, F of 467); married Princess Jane or Joan."

Kings and Queens of Great Britain, Genealogical Chart, Anne Taute and Romilly Squire, Taute, 1990: "Joan of Acre, Mar =1 (2) Gilbert De Clare Earl of Gloucester, Died 1295."

A History of the Plantagenets, Vol III, The Three Edwards, Thomas B Costain, 1958, Doubleday & Co p44: "In April 1290 the fiery-spirited, sloe-eyed Joanna of Acre married England's most powerful peer, second to the king in importance, Gilbert de Clare, Earl of Gloucester. Joanna, too, had been given in betrothal at the age of five, toPrince Hartman, son of the King of the Romans. Edward seems to have arranged future marriages for his daughters with no idea of permitting their consummation but as perhaps a help toward some political expediency of the moment. Also, it is often plain that he could not part with his dearly loved daughters. Poor Prince Hartman went skating one winter's day. The story is that he accidentally fell into open reaches where the water was deep, and drowned.
"Gilbert de Clare was not young when he married Joanna and took her to live at his country retreat in Clerkenwell, not far from the Tower, where the king and queen were again in residence. She left for her new home with great fanfare, laden with royal gifts...
"Joanna was but twenty-three when the old Earl of Gloucester died. After being a widow a year, she secretly married a completely unknown squire in her late husband's retinue, Ralph de Monthermer. Through this marriage he came possessed in his own right of the earldoms of Gloucester and Hertford..."

A History of The Plantagenets, Vol II, The Magnificent Century, Thomas B Costain, 1951, Doubleday & Co
p242: "...In 1253 [Richard Clare's] ten-year-old son Gilbert, called the Red becauseof the color of his hair, was married to Alice of Angouleme, daughter of Guy de Lusignan and therefore a stepniece of the King. The Earl of Gloucester took this alliance with royalty seriously, but as he was intensely proud and most tenacious of his rights as a leading peer, Henry had never been able to count on his support..."
p261: "...[Richard of Gloucester's] son, Gilbert the Red, was in his twentieth year and had become an ardent supporter of Simon de Montfort..."
p264: "Gilbert the Red had come back into the ranks. It was clear perhaps, to the leader that this twenty-year-old peer was already showing some of the defects of character which had made his father such a difficult partner. He had a tendency to sudden enthusiasms and to equally sudden processes of cooling off. If Simon had studied him with a prophetic eye he would have been slow to welcome this youth with his blazing pride and his tinderlike temper, seeing faintly in the future a fieldof battle where the sudden appearance on the other side of the three chevrons of the house of Clare would turn the tide. At the moment, however, the mercurial though brave young earl was a fiery adherent of the baronial leader and ready for anyrisk beside him..."
p270: "As shrewd in his untamed early manhood as Simon at the peak of his powers, Edward knew the weak spots in the baronial armor. He made the young men around Simon his special target. Roger de Leyburn was won back.That violent opportunist needed no more than a promise that the sins of the past would be forgiven to bring him into the royal camp. His influence being as strong as ever with the other members of the group, it was not long before Henry of Almaine and John de Warenne followed his example. The young Earl of Goucester, being of stouter fiber and owing his opinions to no other man, withdrew temporarily from the heat of things, leaving himself in a position to jump in either direction. Lesser members followed the trend, however, and appeared at Windsor to make their peace..."
p275: "...[William of Valence] marched south with his weary but triumphant followers and captured the twon of Winchelsea. Tonbridge Castle, which belonged to Gilbert of Gloucester, fell soon after.
"One of the prisoners taken at Tonbridge was Gilbert's wife, Alice of Angouleme, who was Edward's half cousin and a special favorite with both the prince and the King. Gossip had it, in fact, that the dark-eyed and vivacious Alice was a very special favorite; that as the young wife of the prince was still in France and would be cept there until things settled down in England, Edward had been solacing himself with the company of this fair Poitevin relative. There was probably some truth in the story because Edward had not seen his child wife for some time. The countess was released with great courtesy and, perhaps, inner regret..."
p278: "Simon de Montfort made hisdispositions for battle. His army was small, numbering perhaps a little in excess of four thousand men. The center was given to the command of Gilbert of Gloucester with two veteran campaigners to assist him, William of Montchesni and John Fitzjohn. The right wing was entrusted to Simon's two sons, Henry and Guy, assisted by John de Burgh and Humphrey de Bohun..."
p296: "The one who felt most bitterly about this was the Earl of Gloucester. This brave and mercurial young man hadin him a belief in the rightness of the cause but also, by way of inheritance from his less admirable father, a pride which took fire easily and a strain of hauteur which made a secondary role intolerable to him. He had played no more than a supporting part at Lewes, and since then he had felt himself being relegated more and more to the background. This preyed on his proud spirit. It was becoming a matter of time only until he would change sides as his father had done.
"It islikely that Simon de Montfort would have held his temperamental lieutenant in line if he had take pains to placate him, to bolster his pride. That he did not do so is not entirely to his discredit. He had his hands full with matters much more pressing and important than the coddling of a demanding young man of limited capacity. He was guiding the ship of state through one of the most tumultuous periods of English history...The injured feelings of a sulky young nobleman seemed, perhaps to the harried leader a minor problem. But minor it was not. The failure to keep the Earl of Gloucester at his right hand was the most disastrous of major mistakes..."
p305: "Disturbing information came to Simon's ears almost immediately thereafter. The Earl of Gloucester was in the Forest of Dean and had collected about him a considerable force of armed men...It was rumored, moreover, that the pair had opened communications with Mortimer and Leyburn, the ringleadersof the Seven Knights. Determined to bring matters to a head, Simon went to Gloucester, taking the King with him.
"The Earl of Gloucester attended the meeting but in his own manner. He came with a band of armed horsemenand campted on a wooded hillside just outside the walls of the town. The first night his campfires lighted up the sky, convincing evidence of the strength in which he had arrived. Counting the fires from his window in the royal castle, Simon ralized that Gilbert the Red had come in war and not in peace.
"A temporary arrangement was made between them... It was not very satisfactory to either side. Gilbert was still incensed over the preponderance of power which Simon held and what he believed was an unfair division of the spoils of victory, despite the fact that his own share had been quite enormous.
"At this juncture word reached the court at Gloucester that William of Valence and the Earl of Surrey, who had been among the refugees from Lewesto reach France in safety, had landed at Pembroke with a handful of men. This could mean one thing only, that the royalist supporters were preparing to renew the struggle. Simon knew full well that William of Valence would not thrust his effeminately handsome head into the lion's mouth in this way unless certain of adequate support. Before moving against the new arrivals Simon had a final talk with Earl Gilbert, finding him evasive and unfriendly and willing enough to let it be seenthat he could no longer be depended upon in the impending clash..."
p308: "From Wigmore, Edward rode to the rather squat Normand castle of Ludlow on the banks of the Jug, a distance slightly under ten miles. Here he found waiting for him the man he wanted to see above all others, Earl Gilbert of Gloucester. Roger de Mortimer was there also...Edward appreciated the importance of detaching Gilbert the Red from Simon de Montfort's side and he agreed readily enough when the stipulation was mad that the country must be governed in accordance with the Provisions of Oxford. On receiving this promise the young earl agreed to transfer his allegiance to the King's side..."
"...The defection of Gilbert of Gloucester had been a blow, but Simon had been half persuaded it would happen. What had shaken him was not the fact that the undependable young earl had turned his coat finally but the fury with which royalist sentiment had swept the West. Thsi he had not expected, being convinc- ed that to the people of England the royalist cause was a bankrupt one..."
p316: "[Battle of Evesham] Military experts disagree as to the roads they took and at what stage the army was divided into three parts; two flying wings being constituted and confided to the command of Gilbert of Gloucester and Roger de Mortimer. The fact remains that at some hour of the night, while his equally weary foes were slowly filing into the Vale of Evesham, that lovely and fertile strip of country, Edward found himself astride the road to Alcester and so between the two baronial armies. A little later the prince extended his line as far east as Offenham, after fording the eastern side of the loop at what came to becalled later Dead Man's Ait...
"The plan decided upon was simple, sound, and effective. Goucester was to take his wing down the west arm of the Avon to prevent a retreat toward the Severn. Mortimer was detailed to cross the east arm of the loop and not only block the one bridge across the river but get himself astride the London road, a minor role. Edward, with the bulk of the army, would drive straight against the baronial forces in the town.
"The trap had closed..." p333: "Toward the end of March 1267, Alice of Angouleme sent word secretly to the King that her husband, the Earl of Gloucester, was planning to seize London. No serious attention was paid to this warning at first...His visit there, it was believed, could have no more serious purpose than a discussion with the papal legate.
"The unfaithful wife had been correct, nevertheless. Earl Gilbert had been an unhappy man since the battle of Evesham, conscious of the hatred in which he was held by the old comrades he had abandoned, aware also that the King was seeking ways of escaping from the pledges to which he was committed. The young earl, it may be taken for granted, had a sincere belief in the princles which had led himinto the baronial camp in the first place. Now, seemingly, he was prepared to lift the mantle which had fallen from nobler shoulders and wear it himself. When he reached London it was with a sizable army in fighting order...
"Gilbert the Red camped at Southward but was unable to hold his men in hand. Terror gripped London...
"It is doubtful if the young earl intended to lead a second rebellion. His occupation of London was intended more likely as a warning to the King thatthe will to oppose him was not dead...
"After two months of occupation Gloucester found himself facing an army under the command of the King. Ottobuoni had been at work, however, and had convinced Henry of the wisdom of a pacific attitude.As a result a settlement of all outstanding points of dispute was reached. The terms of the Dictum would be carried out promptly and to the letter. The rights of London would be restored. On June 18 the King rode into London with the earl in his train.
"The violent gesture of Gilbert the Red seems to have had the desired effect. The air cleared. The turmoil throughout the country died down. The civil war had come to a final end.
"One effect of Goucester's drastic move wasa widening of the rift with his wife, leading shortly thereafter to a divorce."

A History of the English Speaking People Winston S Churchill Vol I The Birth of Britain Dodd Mead & Co p298:
"In their fatal preoccupation with their possession in France the English kings had neglected the work of extending their rule within the Island of Great Britain...Edward I was the first of the English kings to put the whole weight of the Crown's resources behind the effort of national expansion in the West and North...He took the first great step towards the unification of the Island. He sought to conquer where the Romans, the Saxons, and the Normans all in their turn had failed. The mountain fastnesses of Wales nursed a hardy andunsubdued race which, under the grandson of the great Llewellyn, had in the previous reign once again made a deep dint upon the politics of England. Edward, as his father's lieutenant, had experience of the Welsh. He had encountered them in war, with questionable success. At the same time he had seen, with disapproving eye, the truculence of the barons of the Welsh Marches, the Mortimers, the Bohuns, and in the South the Clares, with the Gloucester estates, who exploited their military privileges against the interests alike of the Welsh and English people. All assertions of Welsh independence were a vexation to Edward; but scarcely less obnoxious was a system of guarding the frontiers of England by a confederacy of robberbarons who had more than once presumed to challenge the authority of the Crown. He resolved, in the name of justice and progress, to subdue the unconquered refuge of petty princes and wild mountaineers in which barbaric freedom had dwelt sinceremote antiquity, and at the same time to curb the priviliges of the Marcher lords."

Political History of England 1216-1377, Vol III, T F Tout, AMS Press, 1905,
p110: "...At the same time the renewed dissensions of Leicester and Gloucester paralyzed the baronage...The death of Richard of Gloucester during 1262 increased Montfort's power. His son, the young Earl Gilbert, was Simon's devoted disciple, but he was still a minor and the custody of his lands was handed over to the Earl of Hereford..."
p115: "...The poverty of Montfort's host in historic families attested the complete disintegration of the party since 1263. Its strength lay in the young enthusiasts, who were still dominated by the strong personality and generous ideals of Leicester, such as the Earl of Gloucester, or Humphrey Bohun of Brecon, whose father, the Earl of Hereford, was fighting on the king's side..."
p119: "...[1264] In this assembly [following the Battle of Lewes] the final conditions of peace were drawn up, and arrangements made for keeping Henry under control for the rest of his life, and Edward after him, for a term of years to be determined in due course. Leiscester and Gloucester were associ- ated with Stephen Berkstead, the Bishop of Chichester, to form a body of three electors. By these three a Council of Nine was appointed, three of whom were to be in constant attendance at court; and without their advice the king was to do nothing..."
p123: "...[1265] The settlement between Montfort and Edward aroused the suspicions of the Earl of Gloucester. Gilbert of Clare was now old enough to think for himself, and his close personal devotion to Montfort could not blind him to the antagonism of interests between himself and his friend. He was gallant, strenuous, and high-minded, but quarrelsome, proud, and unruly, and his strong character was balanced by very ordinary ability. His outlook was limited, and his ideals were thoseof his class; such a man could neither understand nor sympathise with the broader vision and wider designs of Leicester...And behind the earl were his self-seeking and turbulent sons, set upon building up a family interest that stood directlyin the way of the magnate's claim to control the state. Thus personal rivalries and political antagonisms combined to lead Earl Gilbert on the same course that his father, Earl Richard, had traversed. The closest ally of Leicester became his bitterest rival..."
p124: "...Gloucester was the natural leader of the lords of the Welsh march. He was not only the hereditary lord of Glamorgan, but had received the custody of William of Valence's forfeited palatinate of Pembroke. He hadshown self-control in separating himself so long from the marcher policy; and his growing suspicion of the Montforts threw him back into his natural alliance with them...It was soon rumoured that [the marchers] were sure of a refuge in Gloucester's Welsh estates...Valence and Warenne hurried from Pembrokeshire and made common cause with Edward and Gilbert..."
p155: "...Even during the life of the old king, there had been war in the south between the Earl of Gloucester and Llewelyn..."
p161: "...[1282] A considerable part of the levies had to be despatched to the help of Earl Gilbert of Gloucester, who was charged with the reconquest of the vale of Towy. On June 17 as the earl's soldiers were returning, laden with plunder, to their headquarters at Dynevor, they were suddenly attacked by the Welsh at Llandilo, and were driven back on their base. Gloucester hastily retreated to Carmarthen. He was superseded by William of Valence, whose activity against the Welsh had been quickened by the loss of his son at Llandilo..."
p166: "...[1284] Alike in Gwynedd and in the vale of Towy, both in his castle building and in his town foundations, Edward was simply carrying on the traditions of earlier ages, and applying to his new lands those principles of government which, wince the Norman Conquest, had become the tradition of the marcher lords. Even in his architectural schemes there was nothing novel in Edward's policy. Gilbert of Gloucester at Caerphilly, and Payne of Chaworth at Kidwelly, had already worked out the pattern of `concentric' defences that were to find their fullest expression in the new castles of the principality. In each of these stronghold an adequate garrisonof highly trained and well- paid troops kept the Welsh in check..."
p172: "...Things had not gone well in England during Edward's absence [1289]...A fierce quarrel between the Earls of Gloucester and Hereford broke out with regard to theboundaries of Glamorgan and Brecon, and the private war between the two marchers proved more formidable to the peace of the realm than the revolt of the Welsh prince...A great cry arose for the king's return. In the Candlemas parliament of 1289Earl Gilbert of Gloucester met a request for a general aid by urging that nothing should be granted until Englishmen once more saw the king's face. Alarmed at this threat, Edward returned, and landed at Dover on August 12, 1289..."
p173:"...Fear of Edward drove nobles into obedience as well as ministers into honesty. Gloucester desisted unwillingly from his attacks on Brecon, and was constrained to divorce his wife and marry the king's daughter, Joan of Acre. In becoming the king's son-in-law, he was forced to surrender his estates to the crown, receiving them back entailed on the heirs of the marriage or, in their default, on the heirs of Joan..."
p174: "...Edward was bent on showing that he was master, and his new son- in-law and the Earl of Hereford became the victims of his policy. He forced the reluctant Gloucester to admit that the pretensions of the lord of Glamorgan to be the overlord of the bishop of Llandaff and the guardian of the temporalities of the see during a vacancy were usurpations. Seeing that his marcher prerogatives were thus rapidly becoming undermined, Gloucester put the most cherished marcher right to the test by renewing the private war with the Earl of Hereford which had disturbed the realm during Edward's absence. The king issued peremptory orders for the immediate cessation of hostilities. These mandates Hereford obeyed, but Gloucester did not. Resolved that law not force was henceforth to settle disputes in the march, Edward summoned a novel court at Ystradvellte, in Brecon, wherein a jury from the neighbouring shires and liberties was to decide the case between the two earls in the presence of the chief marchers. Gloucester refused to appear, and the marchers declined to take part in the trial, pleading that it was against their liberties. The case was adjourned to give the recalcitrants every chance, and after a preliminary report by the judges, Edward resolved to hear the suit in person. In October, 1291, he presided at Abergavenny over the court before which the earls were arraigned. They wer condemned to imprisonment and forfeiture. Content with humbling their pride and annihilating their privileges, Edward suffered them to redeem themselves from captivity by the payment of heavy fines, and before long gave them back their lands. The king's victory was so complete that neither of the earls could forgive it. In 1295, Gloucester died without opportunityof revenge; but Hereford lived on, brooding over his wrongs, and in later years signally avenged the trial at Abergavenny. Meanwhile the conqueror of the principality had shown unmistakably that the liberties of the march were an anachronism, since the marchers had no longer the work of defending English interests against the Welsh nation..."
p188: "...At the moment of the departure of John of Brittany [1294] a sudden insurection in Wales frustrated Edward's plans. All Wales wasripe for revolt. In the principality the Cymry resented the English rule, and the sulky marchers stood aloof in sullen discontent, while their native tenants, seeing in the recent humiliation of Gloucester and Hereford the degradation of all their lords, lost respect for such powerless masters. Both in the principality and in the marches, Edward's demand for compulsory service in Gascony was universally regarded as a new aggression..."
p189: "...As by a common signal all Walesrose at Michaelmas, 1294...Brecon rose against Hereford and Glamorgan against Gilbert of Gloucester. Morgan, the leader of the Glamorganshire rebels, loudly declared that he did not rebel against the king but against the Earl of Gloucester..." p223: "...The heavy hand of Edward fell upon earls...the extinction of several important baronial houses made this the easier...The Earl of Hereford died in 1299, and in 1302 his son and successor, another Humphrey Bohun, was bribed by a marriage with the king's daughter Elizabeth, the widowed Countess of Holland, to surrender his lands to the crown and receive them back, like the Earl of Gloucester in 1290, entailed on the issue of himself and his consort..."

The Later MiddleAges 1272-1485, George Holmes, 1962, Norton Library of England
p83: "...The famous quarrel betweeen the Earls of Hereford and Gloucester was settled in a parliament in 1292..." p89: "...At the beginning of [Edward I's] reign in 1272, the east and south of what is now Wales were held by English Marcher lords like the Clare earls of Gloucester, who held the lordship of Glamorgan; and the Bohun earls of Hereford, who held Brecon..."

The Lives of the Kings and Queens of England, Antonia Fraser, 1975, Alfred Knopf, p70: "Gilbert de Clare Earl of Gloucester, mar Joan (1), died 1295..."

Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1981, Vol V, p580, Gloucester Gilbert De Clare 6th Earl of: "Known as the Red Earl (1243-1295), Welsh nobleman who at first supported, and later desserted, the cause of the rebel leader Simon de Montfort in the civil war (1264-1265) between the baronial rebels and King Henry III of England. Gloucester's defection was a major factor in the collapse ofthe baronial movement."

The New Columbia Encyclopedia, 1975, p1094, Gloucester Gilbert De Clare 8th Earl of: "1243-1295, English nobleman, son of the 7th Earl. He married (1253) Alice de Lusignan, niece of Henry III, and succeeded to the Earldom in 1262. In the Baron's War he was at first a leader of the baronial party under Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester, and was a member, with Montfort and the bishop of Chichester, of the three-man provisional administration set up after the royal defeat at Lewes (1264). In 1265, however, he defected to the royalist side and aided Prince Edward (later Edward I) in the defeat of Montfort at Evesham. He seized London in 1267 to force from the King a more lenient settlement for the rebels. After Edward's accession (1272), Gloucester engaged in much fighting in Wales. His first marriage was annulled, and in 1290 he married Edward's daughter Joan. He also held the titles of Earl of Clare, and Earl of Hertford, as did his son by Joan, Gilbert de Clare, 9th Earl of Gloucester (1291-1314), who served Edward II faithfully and was killed at the battle of Bannockburn."

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ANCESTRY.COM
World Ancestral Chart No. 17450 Ancestors of Wayne G Thorpe and Olive Loraine Slade.

ANCESTRAL FILE
Ancestral File Ver 4.10 84ZQ-CG and 9LQ3-J0. Marriage dates to Joan PLANTAGENET 30 Apr 1290 Abbey Westminster and Abt 1298 FRANCE, resp. Also Benedict De CLARE 8503-M9 and IGI Marriage T990361-185-0884798 marriage date to Joan PLANTAGENET May 1290.

INTERNATIONAL GENEALOGICAL INDEX
IGI Birth T990361-185-0884798 Gilbert DECLARE Earl of Gloucester Father Richard DE CLARE Earl of Gloucester Mother Maud De LACY 2 Sep 1243 Christchurch Hampshire England.

IGI Marriage T990362-123-0884799 Gilbert DE CLARE Earl of Gloucester Spouse Joan Princess of England May 1290 Westminster Abbey Westminster London England.

IGI Birth T990361-186-08847798 Gilbert DE CLARE Earl of Gloucester Father Gilbert DE CLARE Earl of Gloucester Mother Joan Princess of ENGLAND 10 May 1291 Winchcomb Gloucester England.

   Marriage Information:

Gilbert married Countess Alice Luisignan Angouleme SURREY, daughter of Guy De LUSIGNAN, on 2 Feb 1252-1253 in , , England. The marriage ended in divorce.

   Marriage Information:

Gilbert also married Duchess Joan Acre GLOUCESTER, daughter of King Edward ENGLAND, I and Queen Eleanor Castile ENGLAND, on 30 Apr 1290 in Abbey, Westminster, London, Middlesex, England. (Duchess Joan Acre GLOUCESTER was born in 1272 in Acre, Jerusalem, Palestine, died on 23 Apr 1307 in Clare, Suffolk, England and was buried on 26 Apr 1307 in Church, Priory, Austin Friars, Clare, Suffolk, England.)