De Clare

The de Clare family of Norman lords were associated with the Welsh Marches, Suffolk, Surrey, Kent (especially Tonbridge) and Ireland. They were descended from Richard fitz Gilbert, who accompanied William the Conqueror into England during the Norman conquest of England.

Origins

The Clare family descends from Gilbert Crispin, Count of Brionne and Eu, whose father Godfrey was the eldest of the illegitimate sons of Richard I, Duke of Normandy. Gilbert was one of the guardians of William II, who became Duke of Normandy as a child in 1035. When Gilbert was assassinated in 1039 or 1040, his young sons Baldwin de Meules et du Sap and Richard de Bienfaite et d'Orbec fled with their guardians to Baldwin of Flanders; they returned to Normandy when William married Baldwin's daughter in 1053, and William took them into high favour.

After the conquest of England Richard received huge estates including Clare and Tonbridge, the estate whose name was normally coupled with his. According to Richard Mortimer, writing in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, he was "the founder of the English, Welsh, and Irish baronial family which historians usually call ‘of Clare’."Richard Mortimer, Clare, Richard de (1030x35–1087x90), magnate, in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, online by subscription.Historical sources are vague and sometimes contradictory about when the name de Clare came into common usage, but Richard fitz Gilbert (of...
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