Eleanor de Clare

Eleanor de Clare (3 October 1292 – 30 June 1337) was the wife of the powerful Hugh Despenser the younger. She was born in 1292 at Caerphilly in Glamorgan, Wales. She was the eldest daughter of Gilbert de Clare, 6th Earl of Hertford and 7th Earl of Gloucester, and Joan of Acre, daughter of Edward I and Eleanor of Castile; thus she was a granddaughter to Edward I of England. With her sisters, Elizabeth de Clare and Margaret de Clare, she inherited her father's estates after the death of her brother, Gilbert de Clare, 4th Earl of Gloucester at Bannockburn in 1314.

Marriage to Hugh Despenser the younger

In May 1306 at Westminster, Eleanor married Hugh le Despenser the Younger, the son of Hugh le Despenser, Earl of Winchester and Isabella de Beauchamp, daughter of William de Beauchamp, 9th Earl of Warwick. Her grandfather, King Edward I of England, granted Eleanor a maritagium of 2,000 pounds sterling. Eleanor and Hugh had nine children:

1. Hugh le Despencer, 2nd Baron le Despencer (1308–1349)
2. Gilbert le Despenser, (1309–1381).
3. Edward le Despenser, (1310–1342), soldier, killed at the siege of Vannes;http://patp.us/genealogy/bio/spencer.aspx; also said to have......
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