Project Profile of the Month: Elizabeth de Clare
Elizabeth's origins were illustrious. Her father was Gilbert de Clare, Earl of both Gloucester and Hereford. Her mother was Joan of Acre, a daughter of Edward I. She was born in the 1290s.
She married three times, her husbands being John de Burgh (whose father was Earl of Ulster), Thebaud de Verdun (hereditary Constable of Ireland) and Roger Damory. In 1314 the death of her brother Gilbert brought her very substantial estates. Seven years later Gilbert's widow died and she inherited Usk Castle in Wales.
Hugh Despenser the Younger, Edward II's favourite, was greedy for some of her lands. She was arrested at Christmas 1321, and forced to sign a bond saying that she would not marry a fourth time, or alienate lands, without royal permission.
After Roger Damory's death in March 1322, Hugh Despenser had her rearrested and detained at Barking Abbey: threatened with death, she was made to give him much of the Welsh property she had inherited, including Usk Castle, in exchange for other (presumably less desirable) properties he held. Roger Damory, her third husband, had rebelled against Edward II, and as a result her lands were confiscated soon after. They were briefly restored in late 1322. A few weeks later Edward II ordered them to be seized again on the grounds that she had left his court without permission: there were probably suspicions that she might seek to join further opposition to the Despenser regime. It is not certain how far, or for how long, this order was enforced. Some lands were handed back to her in 1324. Usk Castle, Roger Damory's Irish estates and other properties were restored after the 1327 accession of Edward III.
Elizabeth's life seems to have been fairly undisturbed after that. In her latter years she devoted attention to placing University Hall, part of Cambridge University, on a better footing. Its finances were parlous and there were not enough teaching staff. She increased its resources. She negotiated with the ruling body of the University to enable poor students to be enrolled. But the Hall's financial position was still precarious and Fellows resorted to dubious means to supplement their income at the expense of the Hall as a whole. Elizabeth spent some years involved with the preparation of a new set of Statutes for the Hall to help remedy the problems, and these were finally introduced in 1359.
University Hall was renamed Clare Hall to recognise her involvement. (It is now Clare College.) Her overhaul of its statutes made it the first College in Oxford and Cambridge to take formally the structure of a community of Master, Fellows, graduates and undergraduates residing together.
Elizabeth died in 1360, soon after her reform of Clare Hall was effected.
Team News
The trail development team badged the following trails in October 2022:
