This post was inspired by a PM I received from blog commenter Paul. Cheers, Paul! :) I searched the Patent Rolls for entries that fell on the anniversary of my birth (the Patent Rolls are so full of great historical info, I find them addictive - I can spend hours browsing).
The 700th anniversary of my birthday fell at the end of Henry III's reign. A few days after the actual day, on 18 July 1272, a man with the unfortunate name of Noel le Cuntes, merchant of Amiens, "has licence touching the carrying of wool, until Michaelmas". A few days before, there's this entry, which highlights Henry III's annoyance with the citizens of London, who had sided with his enemy (and brother-in-law) Simon de Montfort in the Barons' Wars:
"Commission to Ellis de Hertford and William de Middelton, setting forth that whereas in the time of the late disturbance in the realm, the king, because those of the city of London were of his enemies, gave all their goods then in Lenn to Edward his son and the said goods have been dispersed by some of that town and others to the loss of the said Edward, he has appointed them to enquire by oath etc. into whose hands these goods have come and who detain them, and to take the goods from the detainer to the use of his son. He has commanded the sheriffs of London to provide jurors."
The 650th anniversary fell in Edward II's reign, 1322. There are several entries on my birthday:
"Mandate to William Bacon to deliver by indenture the castle of Somerton to Thomas de Grey, to whom the king has committed, during pleasure, the custody thereof, so that he be answerable for the issues thereof at the Exchequer."
Somerton Castle in Lincolnshire was given to Edward II in 1309 by Anthony Bek, Bishop of Durham, who had built it. Edward and Queen Isabella stayed there in January/February 1316, while Edward was attending Parliament in Lincoln. Isabella had recently become pregnant with their son John of Eltham.
"The like [mandate to commissioners of array] to John de Britannia, earl of Richmond, to muster his contingent for Richmondshire on the following Sunday at some certain place." (How sweetly vague!)
"Protection with clause volumnis for one year for Richard de Middelton, ' paneter,' king's yeoman." 'Paneter' presumably means pantler, the household official in charge of the pantry - that is, bread, cheese and napery (table linen).
"Pardon to Arnold Michol, merchant of Besatz, an adherent of Thomas, sometime earl of Lancaster." Lancaster, Edward II's first cousin, had been executed on 22 March 1322. I have no idea where 'Besatz' is.
The day after my birthday: "Grant to Hugh le Despenser, the younger, Lord of Glamorgan and Morgannou, reducing the levy to be made from his lordships from 1,000 footmen to 600." Despenser, in the spring and summer of 1322, was beginning his career as Greatest Tyrant and Extortionist of the Fourteenth Century.
The same day: "Mandate to Andrew de Hartcla, earl of Carlisle, warden of the Marches of Scotland, as the king does not wish the said levies to muster at Newcastle upon Tyne, to assemble the levies of Cumberland, Westmoreland and Lancaster for the repulse of the Scots who are about to invade the Marches; he is to warn all the men of the Marches to drive their cattle for safety to the parts of Richemund, Clyveland or other places in the county of York."
The beginning of yet another of Edward II's fruitless campaigns against the Scots. Poor Andrew Harclay (Harcla or Hartcla) was created earl of Carlisle by Edward II on 25 March 1322, in gratitude for his victory over the earl of Lancaster and his allies at the Battle of Boroughbridge on 16 March. But he met Robert Bruce, without permission, to negotiate peace between England and Scotland, which - although his intentions were almost certainly honourable - Edward II saw as treason. It didn't help that Harclay had made an enemy of the younger Despenser. He suffered the traitor's death on 3 March 1323, less than a year after he had been created earl. His head was sent to Edward II at Knaresborough, for inspection. (Ewww!) Harclay's body parts were left hanging in Carlisle, Newcastle, York, Shrewsbury and London until his sister was finally granted permission to collect and bury them - in 1328.
6oo years before I was born fell late in Edward III's reign. There are no entries on my birthday, but this one was close:
"Charter indented between the king and John, king of Castile and Leon, duke of Lancaster, touching lands &c. granted to the latter in exchange for the earldom of Richmond and the honor, castles, manors and lands pertaining thereto. And be it remembered that one part of this indenture remaining with the king was delivered to Richard de Ravensere, clerk, on 19 July."
The John here was John of Gaunt, Edward III's third son, who claimed the thrones of Castile and Leon through his wife Constanza.
And finally, 550 years before my birth, near the end of Henry V's reign:
"The like [commission of oyer and terminer] to William Cheyne, John Martyn and Thomas Broun, on complaint by Thomas Gyfie of Dodebroke, co. Devon, that Henry Fortescue and John Sayer and other evildoers besieged and broke his houses at Dodebroke, searched for him in them to kill him, pursued him to the full market of the town with drawn swords, assaulted, wounded and ill-treated him there, and lie in ambush to kill him so that he dare not approach his houses."
Unlawful breaking and entering, violence, and the threat of murder: a very typical entry in the Patent Rolls! :)
28 October, 2007
24 October, 2007
Photos of the Marches (6)
Ludlow Castle, Shropshire
Entrance to the inner bailey, originally twelfth century, and much added to in later centuries. The gables were cut in the wall in the sixteenth century.
Just inside the inner bailey, on the right of the gate above (where the gables are) the Judges' Lodgings were built in the 1570s and early 1580s, up against the original wall, when Ludlow was used as the headquarters of the Council of the Marches, disbanded 1641.
That's me, peering inside one of the buildings.
Above: the splendid Northern Range was built in the 1280s, i.e., around the time that Edward II and Roger Mortimer were born, by Roger's father-in-law Peter de Geneville (died 1292). In the middle, with the steps leading up to it, is the Great Hall, with an undercroft beneath it. On the left, the orginal solar block. The upper floor is a later addition - you can see the difference in the stone - and is known as Prince Arthur's Chamber.
The door leads to a flight of steps, with a window [right]...
Ludlow Castle was built (or rather, begun to be built) by Walter de Lacy in 1086. Later, it passed from the Lacys to the Genevilles, and then to Roger Mortimer, who married Joan de Geneville in 1301. In the fifteenth century it passed to Richard, Duke of York, the son of Anne Mortimer, and then to his son King Edward IV, when it became Crown property. Edward IV's son and heir the future Edward V lived at Ludlow in the 1470s and early 1480s, as did Edward IV's grandson Arthur, Prince of Wales, son of Henry VII and Elizabeth of York, at the beginning of the 1500s, with his wife Catherine of Aragon. Arthur died here on 2 April 1502, at the age of only fifteen and a half, less than six months after his wedding to Catherine. His funeral, which lasted two days, was held in the church of St Lawrence in Ludlow. His heart was buried in the church, and his body was taken in solemn procession the thirty-five miles to Worcester Cathedral, where his chantry chapel still exists.
A couple of the steep, narrow, winding stone staircases at Ludlow. The castle has lots of these, and I climbed nearly all of them, which is no mean feat when steep, narrow, winding staircases bring you out in a cold sweat.
A couple of the steep, narrow, winding stone staircases at Ludlow. The castle has lots of these, and I climbed nearly all of them, which is no mean feat when steep, narrow, winding staircases bring you out in a cold sweat.
Here's a couple of photos of the large outer bailey, taken from the keep, or Great Tower. In the Middle Ages, this area would have contained the stables, workshops, storerooms, etc.
Next to the tree in the second photo, you can see the remains of a chapel founded by Roger Mortimer in 1328, to give thanks for his escape from the Tower of London in 1328. Two chaplains were hired to celebrate daily service for the souls of King Edward III, Queen Philippa, Queen Isabella, the Bishop of Lincoln, and "the said Roger and Joan his wife".
This is the round chapel of St Mary Magdalene, probably built in the early 1100s, in the inner bailey. In Tudor times, a chancel was added which connected the chapel to the wall - you can still see the marks on the ground. 
Two figures on the wall of the chapel - I wonder if Roger Mortimer and Joan de Geneville looked at these while they were worshipping?
The thirteenth-century Mortimer's Tower, in the outer bailey, and the moat surrounding the inner bailey. The moat was always dry, and filled with sharp stakes, bramble bushes, etc.
Entrance to the inner bailey, originally twelfth century, and much added to in later centuries. The gables were cut in the wall in the sixteenth century.
Just inside the inner bailey, on the right of the gate above (where the gables are) the Judges' Lodgings were built in the 1570s and early 1580s, up against the original wall, when Ludlow was used as the headquarters of the Council of the Marches, disbanded 1641.
That's me, peering inside one of the buildings.
Above: the splendid Northern Range was built in the 1280s, i.e., around the time that Edward II and Roger Mortimer were born, by Roger's father-in-law Peter de Geneville (died 1292). In the middle, with the steps leading up to it, is the Great Hall, with an undercroft beneath it. On the left, the orginal solar block. The upper floor is a later addition - you can see the difference in the stone - and is known as Prince Arthur's Chamber.After 1320, Roger built a magnificent new solar block to the right of the Great Hall. This conveniently solved a thorny problem in 1328, when Roger and his mistress Queen Isabella came to Ludlow to celebrate the wedding of two of Roger and Joan's daughters, along with fifteen-year-old Edward III and Queen Philippa. Normally, poor Joan would have been forced into the humiliating position of having to cede precedence and give up the best chambers to Isabella, her husband's mistress - in her own castle! However, the arrangement allowed her to remain in her own chambers while Isabella was accommodated in the other block. How Joan and Isabella felt about the situation cannot of course be known, but there's a situation crying out to be written up in fiction. (And I'd give a lot to know where Roger slept that night.)
There are two buildings, a solar block and the Garderobe Chamber, built outside the curtain wall. The buildings on the far right date from Tudor times, and you can see the battlements clearly in that photo, too.
The Garderobe Tower, accessed from the solar block, was luxurious. Every chamber had its own garderobe (toilet), a great luxury in the early fourteenth century.
The door on the left is the entrance to the chamber, while the one on the right leads to the garderobe...
The door on the left is the entrance to the chamber, while the one on the right leads to the garderobe...
The door leads to a flight of steps, with a window [right]...
And at the top, there's the garderobe. The blurry photo (it was pretty dark in there) shows the garderobe in another chamber, with the window to one side instead of behind, as in the photo with the steps
.
I'm sure there was some kind of plank or rug arrangement - it hardly seems likely that people had to sit on the bare stone!
.I'm sure there was some kind of plank or rug arrangement - it hardly seems likely that people had to sit on the bare stone!
Ludlow Castle was besieged by King Stephen in 1139. It was besieged again in 1646, during the Civil War, by a Parliamentary force, a mere half a millennium later. The castle was abandoned in the late seventeenth century, and in the 1760s, the government considered demolishing it. Fortunately for posterity, it was decided that this would be too expensive, and it was leased to the Earl of Powis instead.
Some more photos of Ludlow:
I have a few dozen more pics, so if anyone's interested in seeing them, just let me know.
18 October, 2007
Women of Edward II's reign: Elizabeth de Clare
Continuing my series on women of Edward II's reign, here's a post on his niece Elizabeth de Clare, founder of Clare College, Cambridge - also known as Elizabeth de Burgh, her first husband's name. I'm focusing more here on her life during Edward II's reign, as her later life from 1330 to 1360 is very well-documented (and this is an Edward II blog...;) Elizabeth lived to be sixty-five and was widowed three times by the age of twenty-six.
Elizabeth was born, probably in Tewkesbury, on 16 September 1295, as the fourth and youngest child of Gilbert 'the Red' de Clare, Earl of Gloucester, and Edward I's daughter Joan of Acre. Her siblings were Gilbert, Eleanor, and Margaret. Elizabeth's father Gilbert died on 7 December 1295 at the age of fifty-two, when Elizabeth was only a few weeks old. Her mother Joan was then twenty-three, made a secret marriage to Ralph de Monthermer in early 1297, and bore his first child in October of that year. In addition to her three full siblings, Elizabeth had two half-sisters and two half-brothers from her mother's marriage to Monthermer, and two half-sisters from her father's first marriage to Alice de Lusignan - the elder of whom, Isabel, was some thirty-three and a half years her senior.
Little is known of the childhood of the de Clare sisters. Elizabeth probably attended the weddings of her sisters Eleanor and Margaret to Hugh Despenser the Younger in May 1306 and Piers Gaveston in November 1307 respectively, and was eleven when her mother Joan died in April 1307. Her uncle Edward II acceded to the throne shortly afterwards. Unlike her sister Eleanor, Elizabeth was never close to her uncle, though she was a good friend of her aunt by marriage Queen Isabella, who was probably very close to the same age.
On 30 September 1308, just two weeks after her thirteenth birthday, Elizabeth married John de Burgh at Waltham Abbey, in the presence of her Uncle Edward, and probably Queen Isabella. John was the eldest son and heir of Richard de Burgh, Earl of Ulster, though little else is known about him. He was probably born sometime between 1285 and 1290, and became his father's heir when his elder brother Walter died in 1304. At the same time, Elizabeth's seventeen-year-old brother Gilbert married John's sister Maud (or Matilda). He had been betrothed to one of her sisters, but his agents reported that Maud was prettier! There were many de Burgh sisters: the eldest, Elizabeth, was Queen of Scots, and others were Countesses of Louth, Kildare and Desmond. John Multon, the son of yet another de Burgh sister, was betrothed to Elizabeth de Clare's niece Joan Gaveston.
Presumably, John de Burgh returned to Ireland shortly after the wedding. Elizabeth, almost certainly because of her extreme youth, remained in England. I'm not certain, but it seems that she lived at Amesbury Priory in Wiltshire with her Aunt Mary, Edward II's sister, a nun there. Elizabeth left England on 15 October 1309, aged fourteen and one month, to embark on married life in another country. Coincidentally, her sister Margaret did spend the period 1308 to 1309 in Ireland - in exile with her husband Piers Gaveston.
As so often with medieval heirs who died in the lifetimes of their fathers, John de Burgh is very obscure, and as so often with medieval married women, Elizabeth mostly disappears from the records. Her father-in-law the Earl of Ulster granted them lands and manors in, among other places, Antrim, Coleraine and Portrush, and a few manors in Connacht and Munster. Elizabeth founded an Augustinian friary in Ballinrobe, now in County Mayo.
John and Elizabeth's only child, William Donn ('Brown', i.e., a reference to his hair colour), was born on 17 September 1312, the day after Elizabeth's seventeenth birthday, two months before his cousin Edward III was born, and three months after the murder of Elizabeth's brother-in-law Gaveston. John de Burgh died on 18 June 1313 in Galway, in obscure circumstances, though it's possible that he was murdered by his own retainers. Elizabeth was a widow at seventeen. She would have had to adjust to the fact that she would not now become Countess of Ulster, and a further huge change in her life came a year later, when her brother Gilbert was killed at Bannockburn. Although his widow Maud claimed to be pregnant for nearly three years afterwards - I wonder what Elizabeth thought of the antics of her sister-in-law twice over - Gilbert's three sisters were joint heiresses to his vast lands and fortune.
In late 1315, Edward II ordered her back to England. Perhaps he already had a husband in mind for her; as she was a rich heiress, naturally he was determined that she should marry a man he could trust, as her lands would give her husband a great deal of power and influence (Eleanor de Clare's lands, which her husband Despenser used as his route to power, being a clear example).
In early 1316, while Edward II was at Parliament at Lincoln, Theobald de Verdon abducted Elizabeth from Bristol Castle where Edward had accommodated her, and married her, on 4 February 1316. He was seventeen years her senior, born September 1278, and had previously been married to Roger Mortimer's sister Maud, who died in 1312 (I've written a post on their daughters).
Whether Elizabeth consented to the marriage or not is uncertain, but it's probable that she did. Verdon was Justiciar of Ireland and they may have arranged their marriage while there, as Verdon later told Edward II. There's no record of Elizabeth claiming otherwise.
Edward II was furious, and fined them a large sum (for the king to fine the nobility for marrying without his permission was perfectly normal in the Middle Ages). No doubt, a lot of faces fell when the news was announced; an incredibly eligible heiress was off the marriage market.
However, Elizabeth was soon back on it. Verdon died less than six months after their illicit wedding, on 27 July 1316, leaving three daughters by Maud Mortimer and a pregnant Elizabeth. She gave birth to her daughter Isabella at Amesbury Priory in March 1317, eight months after Verdon's death. At the time of her second widowhood, she was still only twenty.
Edward II was determined to marry her to his current favourite, Sir Roger Damory - indeed, this may have been his intention as early as 1315. Verdon's funeral took place in September 1316; even before this, Edward was writing to Elizabeth, trying to cajole her into marrying Damory, even describing her as his 'favourite niece', which certainly wasn't true - in fact, it was a bare-faced lie - in an attempt to make her do what he wanted.
Edward II and Damory visited Elizabeth at Amesbury during her pregnancy to put further pressure on her to marry, as did Queen Isabella, most probably. With her Aunt Mary the nun adding her voice to the chorus, Elizabeth gave in and agreed to marry the man who may have been her uncle's lover. In fact, she had little choice. Rich noblewomen were incredibly vulnerable to abduction and forced marriage (not only Elizabeth, but her sister Eleanor, her sister Margaret's daughter Margaret Audley, and Alice de Lacy suffered this fate between 1316 and 1336) and to remain unmarried was unthinkable. Her brother was dead and the only man powerful enough to protect her was her uncle, Edward II. The only alternative would have been to renounce her inheritance and take the veil - and while her brothers-in-law Despenser and Hugh Audley would have been delighted to see their share of the inheritance dramatically increased, at twenty-one Elizabeth had no wish to shut herself away in a convent. Perhaps she could have taken a vow of chastity - as she did a few years later - so that she couldn't be forced into marriage, but no doubt she was unwilling to further antagonise her uncle.
When Elizabeth and Damory's wedding took place is, oddly, unknown. Her sister Margaret married Hugh Audley at Windsor on 28 April 1317, and probably Elizabeth's took place around the same time. She gave birth on 21 March, and I would assume that she married as soon as her churching was over, forty days after childbirth, that is, 30 April. It's even possible, though unlikely, that the ceremony took place while she was still pregnant with Verdon's daughter. She and Damory were certainly married by 3 May, when a grant of land was made to "Roger Damory and Elizabeth his wife, the king's kinswoman".
The de Clare lands were finally partitioned in November 1317. As was customary, the sisters' husbands took control of the lands, and performed homage to Edward II for them. Elizabeth and Damory received Usk and Caerleon in South Wales, lands in Ireland, many manors in East Anglia, and other lands in Kent, Essex, Norfolk, Dorset, Hertfordshire, Somerset, Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire. Edward II continued to shower Damory with gifts of lands, money and wardship.
Elizabeth and Damory's only child, Elizabeth, was born a little over a year after the marriage, shortly before 23 May 1318. Although Elizabeth was only twenty-two and would remain married to Damory for almost four more years, this would be her last child, and it's possible that she had a very difficult birth and was unable to have more children. Damory very probably had several illegitimate sons, but little Elizabeth would be his only heir. Even if their marriage was unhappy, Damory - like all medieval landowners - needed a son, so it's hard to imagine that he didn't perform the necessary Marital Duty, his relationship with Edward II notwithstanding.
Damory's date of birth is unknown, but he was a few years older than Elizabeth; his father Robert died in 1285. Whether he was married before Elizabeth is unknown, but seems likely, given that he was over thirty in 1317. However, he had no other legitimate children. He was far below Elizabeth in rank, though he had been knighted in 1306, and served in the retinue of Elizabeth's brother Gilbert, Earl of Gloucester - so Elizabeth may have met him before.
Damory was a younger son, with no hope of inheriting his father's lands; the Vita Edwardi Secundi calls him a "poor and needy knight who by his industry and valour had received the king's special favour", though it's clear that his rapid rise to a very influential position at court by 1317 had little to do with his "valour" and everything to do with his personal relationship with Edward II. Elizabeth's biographer Frances Underhill describes Damory harshly but accurately as "a grasping, reckless mediocrity with a petty crook's mentality" - proving once again that Edward II was a desperately poor judge of character. After Gilbert's death at Bannockburn, Damory transferred to Edward II's service, apparently because he had come to the king's attention by his bravery during the battle. Certainly he was an excellent soldier, which was about the only thing he had going for him (except in Edward II's eyes).
After 1318, Elizabeth's brother-in-law Despenser began his rise to power via Edward II's wayward affections; despite the fact that Edward had known him most of his life and had never shown the slightest hint of liking for him before, Despenser somehow managed to make Edward infatuated with him. Damory was slowly pushed out of favour, though he accompanied Edward to France in the summer of 1320. Despenser's land-grabbing is well-known, though Damory and Elizabeth weren't his victims at first. However, Despenser's actions in Wales threatened and alarmed Damory; as the Vita states, he "could have no affection for his deadly rival". Damory was still on good enough terms with Edward II to be allowed to hunt in royal forests in January 1321, but by March had moved into a position of opposition to Edward and alliance with the Marcher lords, which led to his death a year later. Whether Elizabeth supported his actions or not, or to what extent she might have encouraged him, is not of course known.
In March 1322, Damory was captured at Tutbury, Staffordshire, and sentenced to death for his part in the Marcher campaign. Edward II respited the death sentence, but Damory died anyway on 12 March, of wounds sustained in fighting against the royal army. Edward allowed him to be buried honourably at Ware in Hertfordshire. Elizabeth de Clare was a widow for the third time at the age of twenty-six; she was captured at her castle of Usk a few days before Damory's death, and imprisoned at Barking Abbey, with her children. By her uncle. She heard of Damory's death while at Barking.
Later that year, Elizabeth was freed and her lands restored to her - unlike her sister Margaret, who had pleaded successfully with Edward II for the life of her husband Hugh Audley, and spent the rest of his reign imprisoned at Sempringham Priory. However, Elizabeth's troubles were far from over. Hugh Despenser's appalling treatment of wealthy widows, and more particularly his sister-in-law Elizabeth, is well-documented elsewhere, so I won't go into it here, except to reiterate that Edward II's toleration and even encouragement of Despenser's treatment of his (Edward's) own niece reflects extremely badly on him. Despenser's quasi-legal chicanery in depriving Elizabeth of much of her rightful inheritance was typical of his methods, and it says much about Elizabeth's strength of character and determination that she did her best to stand up to him and her uncle.
Edward invited Elizabeth to spend Christmas 1322 with him at York. However, it soon became clear that this was not out of a desire for her company, or to restore her dower and jointure lands, as she hoped. Edward's aim was to try to force Elizabeth to exchange her lordship of Usk (worth £770 a year) for Despenser's lordship of Gower (worth £300 a year; Despenser's determination to gain control of Gower in 1321 was the main cause of the Despenser War). Elizabeth fled York in fear, but some of her council members were arrested, and she returned. Edward told her that if she refused the exchange, "she will hold nothing of him" - a potent threat by a man so infatuated with one person he was prepared to disinherit his own niece and anyone else who got in Despenser's way, a man who had lost all sense of reality and fairness, a man consumed by harsh vindictiveness. Edward II's behaviour - towards Elizabeth, and many other people - was shocking and completely unjustifiable. And it's worth noting that in 1324, Elizabeth also lost Gower to Despenser. Even so, she suffered far less than many others in and after 1322, perhaps because of Edward's remembered fondness for Damory, perhaps because Elizabeth's powerful father-in-law the Earl of Ulster was still alive. She never lost her English lands, presumably because Hugh Despenser wasn't much interested in owning lands in England, instead concentrating his efforts on his empire-building in Wales.
Understandably, Elizabeth supported the 1326 invasion of Isabella and Roger Mortimer, and may have had foreknowledge of when it would come, as in May 1326 she took the risk of writing out an indictment of Edward II and Despenser, which she kept hidden; had it been discovered, she may well have been arrested for treason. She described Despenser's dealings with her and Edward's acquiesence in them, though most of her venom was directed at Despenser, who by then, aware that an invasion was coming, was offering her compensation, a "ploy to deceive the people", as Elizabeth wrote.
Her lordship of Usk was restored to her in February 1327, by her friend Queen Isabella; in this, she was luckier than Isabella's aunt Alice de Lacy, some of whose lands were granted to Mortimer. After 1330, until her death in 1360, Elizabeth lived the life of a very great lady, travelling between her vast estates, helping the poor, being visited by a large number of noble men and women. After 1330/31, she appears to have had no contact with her sister Eleanor, Despenser's wife - perhaps inevitably. Although she and their other sister Margaret sometimes wrote to each other, there's little evidence of visits, or closeness - surprisingly, as Margaret was also a Despenser victim. Elizabeth cared for their half-brother Edward de Monthermer for years, arranged his funeral, and had a strong sense of family: clearly not a vindictive woman, she was close to her Despenser nieces and nephews and did a great deal for them, not taking out her hatred of their father on them. In December 1327, when she attended Edward II's funeral, she left her young daughters in the care of Isabella Hastings - Despenser's sister.
Elizabeth always used her first husband's name, de Burgh, through her two subsequent marriages and her widowhood (however, it's Clare College, not Burgh College, at Cambridge). In her will, she calls herself Elizabeth de Burg, dame de Clare (meaning the manor of Clare in Suffolk, not her maiden name) and a letter of her brother-in-law Despenser in 1322 calls her la dame de Bourg. She became a grandmother in the early 1330s, still only in her mid-thirties. By the time she died in 1360, she was a great-grandmother several times over - one of her great-grandchildren was Philippa of Clarence, granddaughter of Edward III. In later life, one of her most trusted confidants for many years was Nicholas Damory, who may have been Roger Damory's nephew, and a young man named Roger Damory lived in her household from 1331 to 1336 - perhaps another nephew, though he may have been Damory's illegitimate son. On 12 March every year, the anniversary of Damory's death, Elizabeth gave out alms and food to the poor. She didn't do this on the anniversaries of her other husbands' deaths, though maybe that's only because she thought Damory's soul needed more help!
Two of Elizabeth's children pre-deceased her: William, Earl of Ulster, was killed in 1333, and her daughter Isabella de Verdon died in 1349, perhaps of plague. Even Elizabeth Damory didn't outlive her by long. All of Elizabeth's children have modern-day descendants.
Lady Elizabeth de Clare died on 4 November 1360, at the age of sixty-five, and was buried at the friary of The Minoresses Without Aldgate, London. Her will is dated 25 September of that year, and is extremely long - she left bequests to many dozens of people. She called her husbands Mons'r John de Bourgs, Mons'r Theobaud de Verdon, Mons'r Roger Dammory, mes Seignours ("my lords"), and left her daughter Elizabeth Damory a carriage, a bed of green velvet striped with red and minever-lined coverlets, and hangings of tawny worsted decorated with blue popinjays and cockerels.
Very much is known about Elizabeth's later life, thanks to the survival of many of her household records, and anyone interested in her - or in the lives of medieval noblewomen in general - should read Frances A. Underhill's excellent biography For Her Good Estate: The Life of Elizabeth de Burgh.
Elizabeth was born, probably in Tewkesbury, on 16 September 1295, as the fourth and youngest child of Gilbert 'the Red' de Clare, Earl of Gloucester, and Edward I's daughter Joan of Acre. Her siblings were Gilbert, Eleanor, and Margaret. Elizabeth's father Gilbert died on 7 December 1295 at the age of fifty-two, when Elizabeth was only a few weeks old. Her mother Joan was then twenty-three, made a secret marriage to Ralph de Monthermer in early 1297, and bore his first child in October of that year. In addition to her three full siblings, Elizabeth had two half-sisters and two half-brothers from her mother's marriage to Monthermer, and two half-sisters from her father's first marriage to Alice de Lusignan - the elder of whom, Isabel, was some thirty-three and a half years her senior.
Little is known of the childhood of the de Clare sisters. Elizabeth probably attended the weddings of her sisters Eleanor and Margaret to Hugh Despenser the Younger in May 1306 and Piers Gaveston in November 1307 respectively, and was eleven when her mother Joan died in April 1307. Her uncle Edward II acceded to the throne shortly afterwards. Unlike her sister Eleanor, Elizabeth was never close to her uncle, though she was a good friend of her aunt by marriage Queen Isabella, who was probably very close to the same age.
On 30 September 1308, just two weeks after her thirteenth birthday, Elizabeth married John de Burgh at Waltham Abbey, in the presence of her Uncle Edward, and probably Queen Isabella. John was the eldest son and heir of Richard de Burgh, Earl of Ulster, though little else is known about him. He was probably born sometime between 1285 and 1290, and became his father's heir when his elder brother Walter died in 1304. At the same time, Elizabeth's seventeen-year-old brother Gilbert married John's sister Maud (or Matilda). He had been betrothed to one of her sisters, but his agents reported that Maud was prettier! There were many de Burgh sisters: the eldest, Elizabeth, was Queen of Scots, and others were Countesses of Louth, Kildare and Desmond. John Multon, the son of yet another de Burgh sister, was betrothed to Elizabeth de Clare's niece Joan Gaveston.
Presumably, John de Burgh returned to Ireland shortly after the wedding. Elizabeth, almost certainly because of her extreme youth, remained in England. I'm not certain, but it seems that she lived at Amesbury Priory in Wiltshire with her Aunt Mary, Edward II's sister, a nun there. Elizabeth left England on 15 October 1309, aged fourteen and one month, to embark on married life in another country. Coincidentally, her sister Margaret did spend the period 1308 to 1309 in Ireland - in exile with her husband Piers Gaveston.
As so often with medieval heirs who died in the lifetimes of their fathers, John de Burgh is very obscure, and as so often with medieval married women, Elizabeth mostly disappears from the records. Her father-in-law the Earl of Ulster granted them lands and manors in, among other places, Antrim, Coleraine and Portrush, and a few manors in Connacht and Munster. Elizabeth founded an Augustinian friary in Ballinrobe, now in County Mayo.
John and Elizabeth's only child, William Donn ('Brown', i.e., a reference to his hair colour), was born on 17 September 1312, the day after Elizabeth's seventeenth birthday, two months before his cousin Edward III was born, and three months after the murder of Elizabeth's brother-in-law Gaveston. John de Burgh died on 18 June 1313 in Galway, in obscure circumstances, though it's possible that he was murdered by his own retainers. Elizabeth was a widow at seventeen. She would have had to adjust to the fact that she would not now become Countess of Ulster, and a further huge change in her life came a year later, when her brother Gilbert was killed at Bannockburn. Although his widow Maud claimed to be pregnant for nearly three years afterwards - I wonder what Elizabeth thought of the antics of her sister-in-law twice over - Gilbert's three sisters were joint heiresses to his vast lands and fortune.
In late 1315, Edward II ordered her back to England. Perhaps he already had a husband in mind for her; as she was a rich heiress, naturally he was determined that she should marry a man he could trust, as her lands would give her husband a great deal of power and influence (Eleanor de Clare's lands, which her husband Despenser used as his route to power, being a clear example).
In early 1316, while Edward II was at Parliament at Lincoln, Theobald de Verdon abducted Elizabeth from Bristol Castle where Edward had accommodated her, and married her, on 4 February 1316. He was seventeen years her senior, born September 1278, and had previously been married to Roger Mortimer's sister Maud, who died in 1312 (I've written a post on their daughters).
Whether Elizabeth consented to the marriage or not is uncertain, but it's probable that she did. Verdon was Justiciar of Ireland and they may have arranged their marriage while there, as Verdon later told Edward II. There's no record of Elizabeth claiming otherwise.
Edward II was furious, and fined them a large sum (for the king to fine the nobility for marrying without his permission was perfectly normal in the Middle Ages). No doubt, a lot of faces fell when the news was announced; an incredibly eligible heiress was off the marriage market.
However, Elizabeth was soon back on it. Verdon died less than six months after their illicit wedding, on 27 July 1316, leaving three daughters by Maud Mortimer and a pregnant Elizabeth. She gave birth to her daughter Isabella at Amesbury Priory in March 1317, eight months after Verdon's death. At the time of her second widowhood, she was still only twenty.
Edward II was determined to marry her to his current favourite, Sir Roger Damory - indeed, this may have been his intention as early as 1315. Verdon's funeral took place in September 1316; even before this, Edward was writing to Elizabeth, trying to cajole her into marrying Damory, even describing her as his 'favourite niece', which certainly wasn't true - in fact, it was a bare-faced lie - in an attempt to make her do what he wanted.
Edward II and Damory visited Elizabeth at Amesbury during her pregnancy to put further pressure on her to marry, as did Queen Isabella, most probably. With her Aunt Mary the nun adding her voice to the chorus, Elizabeth gave in and agreed to marry the man who may have been her uncle's lover. In fact, she had little choice. Rich noblewomen were incredibly vulnerable to abduction and forced marriage (not only Elizabeth, but her sister Eleanor, her sister Margaret's daughter Margaret Audley, and Alice de Lacy suffered this fate between 1316 and 1336) and to remain unmarried was unthinkable. Her brother was dead and the only man powerful enough to protect her was her uncle, Edward II. The only alternative would have been to renounce her inheritance and take the veil - and while her brothers-in-law Despenser and Hugh Audley would have been delighted to see their share of the inheritance dramatically increased, at twenty-one Elizabeth had no wish to shut herself away in a convent. Perhaps she could have taken a vow of chastity - as she did a few years later - so that she couldn't be forced into marriage, but no doubt she was unwilling to further antagonise her uncle.
When Elizabeth and Damory's wedding took place is, oddly, unknown. Her sister Margaret married Hugh Audley at Windsor on 28 April 1317, and probably Elizabeth's took place around the same time. She gave birth on 21 March, and I would assume that she married as soon as her churching was over, forty days after childbirth, that is, 30 April. It's even possible, though unlikely, that the ceremony took place while she was still pregnant with Verdon's daughter. She and Damory were certainly married by 3 May, when a grant of land was made to "Roger Damory and Elizabeth his wife, the king's kinswoman".
The de Clare lands were finally partitioned in November 1317. As was customary, the sisters' husbands took control of the lands, and performed homage to Edward II for them. Elizabeth and Damory received Usk and Caerleon in South Wales, lands in Ireland, many manors in East Anglia, and other lands in Kent, Essex, Norfolk, Dorset, Hertfordshire, Somerset, Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire. Edward II continued to shower Damory with gifts of lands, money and wardship.
Elizabeth and Damory's only child, Elizabeth, was born a little over a year after the marriage, shortly before 23 May 1318. Although Elizabeth was only twenty-two and would remain married to Damory for almost four more years, this would be her last child, and it's possible that she had a very difficult birth and was unable to have more children. Damory very probably had several illegitimate sons, but little Elizabeth would be his only heir. Even if their marriage was unhappy, Damory - like all medieval landowners - needed a son, so it's hard to imagine that he didn't perform the necessary Marital Duty, his relationship with Edward II notwithstanding.
Damory's date of birth is unknown, but he was a few years older than Elizabeth; his father Robert died in 1285. Whether he was married before Elizabeth is unknown, but seems likely, given that he was over thirty in 1317. However, he had no other legitimate children. He was far below Elizabeth in rank, though he had been knighted in 1306, and served in the retinue of Elizabeth's brother Gilbert, Earl of Gloucester - so Elizabeth may have met him before.
Damory was a younger son, with no hope of inheriting his father's lands; the Vita Edwardi Secundi calls him a "poor and needy knight who by his industry and valour had received the king's special favour", though it's clear that his rapid rise to a very influential position at court by 1317 had little to do with his "valour" and everything to do with his personal relationship with Edward II. Elizabeth's biographer Frances Underhill describes Damory harshly but accurately as "a grasping, reckless mediocrity with a petty crook's mentality" - proving once again that Edward II was a desperately poor judge of character. After Gilbert's death at Bannockburn, Damory transferred to Edward II's service, apparently because he had come to the king's attention by his bravery during the battle. Certainly he was an excellent soldier, which was about the only thing he had going for him (except in Edward II's eyes).
After 1318, Elizabeth's brother-in-law Despenser began his rise to power via Edward II's wayward affections; despite the fact that Edward had known him most of his life and had never shown the slightest hint of liking for him before, Despenser somehow managed to make Edward infatuated with him. Damory was slowly pushed out of favour, though he accompanied Edward to France in the summer of 1320. Despenser's land-grabbing is well-known, though Damory and Elizabeth weren't his victims at first. However, Despenser's actions in Wales threatened and alarmed Damory; as the Vita states, he "could have no affection for his deadly rival". Damory was still on good enough terms with Edward II to be allowed to hunt in royal forests in January 1321, but by March had moved into a position of opposition to Edward and alliance with the Marcher lords, which led to his death a year later. Whether Elizabeth supported his actions or not, or to what extent she might have encouraged him, is not of course known.
In March 1322, Damory was captured at Tutbury, Staffordshire, and sentenced to death for his part in the Marcher campaign. Edward II respited the death sentence, but Damory died anyway on 12 March, of wounds sustained in fighting against the royal army. Edward allowed him to be buried honourably at Ware in Hertfordshire. Elizabeth de Clare was a widow for the third time at the age of twenty-six; she was captured at her castle of Usk a few days before Damory's death, and imprisoned at Barking Abbey, with her children. By her uncle. She heard of Damory's death while at Barking.
Later that year, Elizabeth was freed and her lands restored to her - unlike her sister Margaret, who had pleaded successfully with Edward II for the life of her husband Hugh Audley, and spent the rest of his reign imprisoned at Sempringham Priory. However, Elizabeth's troubles were far from over. Hugh Despenser's appalling treatment of wealthy widows, and more particularly his sister-in-law Elizabeth, is well-documented elsewhere, so I won't go into it here, except to reiterate that Edward II's toleration and even encouragement of Despenser's treatment of his (Edward's) own niece reflects extremely badly on him. Despenser's quasi-legal chicanery in depriving Elizabeth of much of her rightful inheritance was typical of his methods, and it says much about Elizabeth's strength of character and determination that she did her best to stand up to him and her uncle.
Edward invited Elizabeth to spend Christmas 1322 with him at York. However, it soon became clear that this was not out of a desire for her company, or to restore her dower and jointure lands, as she hoped. Edward's aim was to try to force Elizabeth to exchange her lordship of Usk (worth £770 a year) for Despenser's lordship of Gower (worth £300 a year; Despenser's determination to gain control of Gower in 1321 was the main cause of the Despenser War). Elizabeth fled York in fear, but some of her council members were arrested, and she returned. Edward told her that if she refused the exchange, "she will hold nothing of him" - a potent threat by a man so infatuated with one person he was prepared to disinherit his own niece and anyone else who got in Despenser's way, a man who had lost all sense of reality and fairness, a man consumed by harsh vindictiveness. Edward II's behaviour - towards Elizabeth, and many other people - was shocking and completely unjustifiable. And it's worth noting that in 1324, Elizabeth also lost Gower to Despenser. Even so, she suffered far less than many others in and after 1322, perhaps because of Edward's remembered fondness for Damory, perhaps because Elizabeth's powerful father-in-law the Earl of Ulster was still alive. She never lost her English lands, presumably because Hugh Despenser wasn't much interested in owning lands in England, instead concentrating his efforts on his empire-building in Wales.
Understandably, Elizabeth supported the 1326 invasion of Isabella and Roger Mortimer, and may have had foreknowledge of when it would come, as in May 1326 she took the risk of writing out an indictment of Edward II and Despenser, which she kept hidden; had it been discovered, she may well have been arrested for treason. She described Despenser's dealings with her and Edward's acquiesence in them, though most of her venom was directed at Despenser, who by then, aware that an invasion was coming, was offering her compensation, a "ploy to deceive the people", as Elizabeth wrote.
Her lordship of Usk was restored to her in February 1327, by her friend Queen Isabella; in this, she was luckier than Isabella's aunt Alice de Lacy, some of whose lands were granted to Mortimer. After 1330, until her death in 1360, Elizabeth lived the life of a very great lady, travelling between her vast estates, helping the poor, being visited by a large number of noble men and women. After 1330/31, she appears to have had no contact with her sister Eleanor, Despenser's wife - perhaps inevitably. Although she and their other sister Margaret sometimes wrote to each other, there's little evidence of visits, or closeness - surprisingly, as Margaret was also a Despenser victim. Elizabeth cared for their half-brother Edward de Monthermer for years, arranged his funeral, and had a strong sense of family: clearly not a vindictive woman, she was close to her Despenser nieces and nephews and did a great deal for them, not taking out her hatred of their father on them. In December 1327, when she attended Edward II's funeral, she left her young daughters in the care of Isabella Hastings - Despenser's sister.
Elizabeth always used her first husband's name, de Burgh, through her two subsequent marriages and her widowhood (however, it's Clare College, not Burgh College, at Cambridge). In her will, she calls herself Elizabeth de Burg, dame de Clare (meaning the manor of Clare in Suffolk, not her maiden name) and a letter of her brother-in-law Despenser in 1322 calls her la dame de Bourg. She became a grandmother in the early 1330s, still only in her mid-thirties. By the time she died in 1360, she was a great-grandmother several times over - one of her great-grandchildren was Philippa of Clarence, granddaughter of Edward III. In later life, one of her most trusted confidants for many years was Nicholas Damory, who may have been Roger Damory's nephew, and a young man named Roger Damory lived in her household from 1331 to 1336 - perhaps another nephew, though he may have been Damory's illegitimate son. On 12 March every year, the anniversary of Damory's death, Elizabeth gave out alms and food to the poor. She didn't do this on the anniversaries of her other husbands' deaths, though maybe that's only because she thought Damory's soul needed more help!
Two of Elizabeth's children pre-deceased her: William, Earl of Ulster, was killed in 1333, and her daughter Isabella de Verdon died in 1349, perhaps of plague. Even Elizabeth Damory didn't outlive her by long. All of Elizabeth's children have modern-day descendants.
Lady Elizabeth de Clare died on 4 November 1360, at the age of sixty-five, and was buried at the friary of The Minoresses Without Aldgate, London. Her will is dated 25 September of that year, and is extremely long - she left bequests to many dozens of people. She called her husbands Mons'r John de Bourgs, Mons'r Theobaud de Verdon, Mons'r Roger Dammory, mes Seignours ("my lords"), and left her daughter Elizabeth Damory a carriage, a bed of green velvet striped with red and minever-lined coverlets, and hangings of tawny worsted decorated with blue popinjays and cockerels.
Very much is known about Elizabeth's later life, thanks to the survival of many of her household records, and anyone interested in her - or in the lives of medieval noblewomen in general - should read Frances A. Underhill's excellent biography For Her Good Estate: The Life of Elizabeth de Burgh.
16 October, 2007
Photos of the Marches (5)
Stokesay Castle, Shropshire
The half-timbered gatehouse, below, was built around 1640.
Stokesay is just outside the small town of Craven Arms, about eight miles from Ludlow. It was built by the rich wool merchant Lawrence of Ludlow in the 1280s - that is, around the time that Edward II was born. Although the castle (really it's a fortified manor house, not a castle) had some defensive capabilties, it was primarily intended as a comfortable residence, not far from the Welsh border, with little chance of an attack from that direction, after Edward I's conquest of Wales.
Stokesay is of particular interest, as it's hardly changed or been added to since the thirteenth century.
The half-timbered gatehouse, below, was built around 1640.
You can see more photos and information about Stokesay here and here, including the interior. Brilliantly, we managed to visit it on a day when it was closed.
Next to the castle is the Church of
St John the Baptist, built around 1150.
There's an extremely unusual and rather wonderful war memorial in the churchyard, dedicated to the men of the parish who died in both World Wars.
St John the Baptist, built around 1150.
There's an extremely unusual and rather wonderful war memorial in the churchyard, dedicated to the men of the parish who died in both World Wars.Clun Castle, Shropshire
Tucked away in a remote corner of Shropshire, about sixteen miles from Ludlow and fifteen miles from Roger Mortimer's seat at Wigmore, Clun Castle was originally built about 1140 to 1150 and passed to the Fitzalans, t
he earls of Arundel.
he earls of Arundel.
Unfortunately, there's little left of this formerly magnificent Marcher castle. There are more pictures and information here - when I was there, much of the ruins were covered in scaffolding, and while I was delighted to see that efforts are being made to stop them deteriorating further, it did tend to ruin the photo opportunities somewhat.
Roger Mortimer attacked and captured Clun in May 1321, during the Despenser War (the Earl of Arundel, Edmund Fitzalan, was an ally of Edward II and Despenser). In January 1322, the castle was taken from Mortimer by a Welsh force led by his enemy, Sir Gruffydd Llwyd.
This board shows Clun as the Fitzalans would have known it:15 October, 2007
Photos of the Marches (4)
Lower Brockhampton
Lower Brockhampton, just outside Bromyard in Herefordshire and about a dozen miles from Worcester, is a moated manor house built sometime between 1380 and 1400, in Richard II's reign, by the Domulton family. It stands in an estate of about 1700 acres, a hilly, wooded and incredibly pretty area.
The funny little building on the left is the gatehouse, which dates to about 1530.
Lower Brockhampton looks almost too perfect to be real (but is! ;) The information leaflet says "the building is a south-facing two-bay open hall with a large contemporary east wing. It has been suggested that there was a similar wing on the west side of the hall..." The Great Hall (you're not allowed to take photos inside, unfortunately) dates from the late fourteenth century, with some sixteenth- and seventeenth-century additions, for example the fireplace, chimney, the two bedrooms which are accessed from the Minstrels' Gallery, and the staircase leading to them - originally the upper chamber above the Hall was an undivided area and was reached by an external staircase.
Around 1765, the Barneby family, who had inherited Brockhampton, moved to another house on the estate
:
:The chapel behind the medieval manor house, which was built around 1180 - Brockhampton is first mentioned in 1166, and presumabl
y an earlier house stood on the site - was abandoned and used as a barn.
y an earlier house stood on the site - was abandoned and used as a barn.
More pictures of Lower Brockhampton and its estate:
