Gilbert FITZ RICHARD (bef1066-1117)

Individual Events and Attributes

Marriage

Individual Note

Gilbert Fitz Richard (died 1114/7) was son and eventual heir of Richard Fitz Gilbert of Clare and heiress Rohese Giffard. He succeeded to his father's possessions in England in 1091; his brother, Roger Fitz Richard, inherited his father's lands in Normandy. Gilbert's inheritance made him one of the wealthiest magnates in early twelfth-century England. He was the earl of Hertfordshire, but references rarely indicated the county; he was consistently called Earl Gilbert or Gilbert earl of Clare.

Gilbert may have been present at the suspicious death of William II in the New Forest in 1100. He was granted lands and the Lordship of Cardigan by Henry I, including Cardigan Castle. He founded the Cluniac priory at Stoke-by-Clare, Suffolk.

He married Adeliza/Alice de Claremont, daughter of Hugh, Count of Clermont, and Margaret de Roucy. She remarried one of the sons of Hervé de Montmorency after his death. They had at least eight children:

Walter de Clare, d. 1149

Adelize/Alice de Clare, d. 1163, m. (ca. 1105), Aubrey II de Vere, son of Aubrey I de Vere and Beatrice. She had 9 children and in her widowhood was a corrodian at St. Osyth's, Chich, Essex.

Margaret de Clare, d. 1185, m. (ca. 1108), Sir William de Montfitchet, Lord of Stanstead Mountfitchet.

Baldwin Fitz Gilbert de Clare, Lord of Bourne, d. 1154, m. Adeline de Rollos.

Richard Fitz Gilbert de Clare, d. 1136

Hervey de Clare

Gilbert Fitz Gilbert de Clare, d. 1148, 1st Earl of Pembroke

Rohese de Clare, d. 1149, m. (ca. 1130), Baderon of Monmouth[1]

NOTES:

1 G. E. Cokayne, et al., eds. The Complete Peerage, vol. 6, "Hertford"²

Sources