"Gilbert de Clare the Red, Knt., Baron of Clare, Suffolk, 9th Earl of clare, 3rd Earl of Gloucester, 6th Earl of Hertford,
son and heir of Richard de Clare (of Magna Charta Surety descent and descendant of Charlemagne).
He first m. Alice de Lusignan in 1253, they had two daughters, and were divorced when he said she had become hypochondiracal
in 1271.
At the death of King Henry III on 16 Nov 1272, the Earl took the lead in swearing fealty to Edward I, who was then in Sicily
returning from the Crusade. He was Joint Guardian of England during the King's absence.
Proposals for his marriage to the King's daughter were made as early as May 1283. Their daughter Margaret is probably the
daughter born at Caerphilly Castle in October 1292, her mother having been purified there on 23 November following the birth
of a daughter."
GILBERT DE CLARE assisted EDWARD I in 1265 at the Battle of Evesham destroying Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester, who was
leader of the Barons' War and who had set up a military dictatorship. Their son, GILBERT, died young ending the male line
of this branch of the family. The family's inheritance passed to his three sisters.
GILBERT and JOAN were both descendants of RICHARD, 3RD DUKE OF NORMANDY.
Contemporary chronicle evidence and the testimony of Edward I's wardrobe accounts confirm that Joan's first child by
Gilbert, another Gilbert, was born in May 1291. The dates of birth of her last three children, all daughters, are not as
specifically recorded and must be recovered from the inquisitions post mortem taken following the death at Bannockburn in
1314 of their brother Gilbert, the last Clare earl of Hertford and Gloucester.
Only two of the sisters' births can be determined in this way, however. Elizabeth, the youngest, was born in November 1295,
only weeks before her father's death.
But it appears to have been the eldest of the the three sisters, Eleanor, who was born in October 1292 and not Margaret,
the second of the three. All contemporary record sources agree that Eleanor was the eldest, and as the human reproductive
cycle is fixed within certain limits there is, even biologically speaking, barely enough time between May 1291, when young
Gilbert was born, and October 1292 when it is alleged Margaret was born, for yet another child to have been born. If we
factor in the prevailing custom of a woman's confinement for a period of up to 60 days (two months) between the birth of a
child and her churching or purification, it becomes even less likely that Joan "of Acre" could have borne Gilbert in
May 1291, then Eleanor and then Margaret in October 1292.
Frances Underhill's biography of the youngest sister Elizabeth (to be published in November by St Martin's Press in New York)
date Eleanor's birth to October 1292, Margaret's c. 1295 and Elizabeth's in November 1295. [S504] [S11]
Notes: Princess of England. Known as Joan of Acre because of her birth place. Her parents were in Acre (Akko) because of the
Crusades. Her birth date and that of her daughter's are suspect. She may have been born in 1272.
Source: Haydn's Book of Dignities, p 10; Royal.zip (Compuserve)
Ancestral Roots of Sixty Colonists,... p 10
Joan of Acre, born Acre 1272, married 1st 2 May 1290, Gilbert de Clare, 3rd Earl
of Glocuester and 7th of Hertford, who died 7 Dec 1295; and 2ndly 1297 to Ralph
de Mouthermer, who in her lifetime became Earl of Gloucester and Hertford. She
died 2 April 1307, leaving issue. (Burke's Peerage, 1953, The Royal Lineage.)
Acre is a city and a port. Today it is in northwest Israel, north of Mount Carmel. The Hebrew is Akko or Accho. The ancient
name for the city is Ptolemais. per DSH