Roger "the Good Earl" de Clare Earl of Hertford

  General Notes:

Weis' Ancestral Roots of Certain American Colonists Who Came to America Before 1700, 8th Edition, 246B:26, Roger de Clare, married Maud de St. Hilary, daughter and heir of James de St. Hilary by his wife Aveline. ¹⁶⁰

  Information about this person:

• Background Information. ¹⁴¹
Roger de Clare, Earl of Hertford, but generally styled Earl of Clare, brother and heir, appears to have been at once allowed the Earldom by Henry II. He was certainly an Earl in or before January 1155/56, when as Roger, Earl of Clare, he witnessed the charter of Henry II to Geoffrey de Mandeville, the younger. In 1157 and in the following years he was engaged against Rhys ap Gruffyd in Wales. In 1163, he disputed with the Archbishop of Canterbury the latter's claim for fealty in respect of Tonbridge Castle, which was held by the serjeanty of being High Steward. In this the King supported him, but Archbishop Hubert eventually recovered the fealty. In 1164 he took part in the Constitutions of Clarendon. In 1166 he certified his fees as 149, and in 1170 was a commissioner to enquire into the proceedings of the sheriffs in Kent, Surrey, Middlesex, Berks, Oxon and Beds.

Roger married Maud, daughter and heir of James de St. Hilary, by his wife Aveline. Roger died in 1173. His widow for the soul of her husband, Roger de Clare, Earl of Hertford, and for the souls of her ancestors, confirmed to the monks of Eynsham the gifts of Henry and of Roger Fitz Gerold. She married, 2ndly, William d'Aubigny, Earl of Arundel, who died 24 December 1193.

~Cokayne's Complete Peerage, 2nd Edition, (Hertford), Vol. VI, pp. 499-501

• Background Information. ⁹⁰²
Roger de Clare, 5^th Earl of Clare and 3^rd Earl of Hereford, was the younger son of Richard de Clare and succeeded to his brother Gilbert's titles and estates in 1152 [Dugdale, Baronage, i, 210]. In 1153 he appears with his cousin, Richard Strongbow, earl of Pembroke, as one of the signatories to the treaty at Westminster, in which Stephen recognizes Prince Henry as his successor [Brompton, p. 1039]. He is found signing charters at Canterbury and Dover in 1156 [Eyton, Itin. p. 15]. Next year, according to Powell [History of Wales, p. 117], he received from Henry II a grant of whatever lands he could conquer in South Wales. This is probably only an expansion of the statement of the Welsh chronicles that in this year (about 1 June) he entered Cardigan and 'stored' the castles of Humfrey, Aberdovey, Dineir, and Rhystud. Rhys ap Gruffudd, the prince of South Wales, appears to have complained to Henry II of these encroachments; but being unable to obtain redress from the King of England sent his nephew Einion to attack [Brut y Tywysogion, pp. 191, &c.] The Annales Cambriæ seem to assign these events to the year 1159 [pp. 47, 48]; and the Brut adds that Prince Rhys burnt all the French castles in Cardigan. In 1158 or 1160 Clare advanced with an army to the relief of Carmarthen Castle, then besieged by Rhys, and pitched his camp at Dinweilir. Not daring to attack the Welsh prince, the English army offered peace and retired home [ib. p. 193; Annales Cambr. p. 48; Powell]. In 1163 Rhys again invaded the conquest of Clare, who, we learn incidentally, had at some earlier period caused Einion, the capturer of Humfrey Castle, to be murdered by domestic treachery. A second time all Cardigan was wrested from the Norman hands [Brut, p. 199]; and things now wore so threatening an aspect that Henry II led an army into Wales in 1165, although, according to one Welsh account [Ann. Cambr. p. 49], Rhys had made his peace with the king in 1164, and had even visited him in England. The causes assigned by the Welsh chronicle for this fresh outbreak of hostility are that Henry failed to keep his promises-presumably of restitution-and secondly that 'Roger, earl of Clare, was honourably receiving Walter, the murderer of Rhys's nephew Einion' [ib. p. 49]. For the third time we now read that Cardigan was overrun and the Norman castles burnt; but it is possible that the events assigned by the 'Annales Cambriæ' to the year 1165 are the same as those assigned by the 'Brut y Tywysogion' to 1163.

In the intervening years Clare had been abroad, and is found signing charters at Le Mans, probably about Christmas 1160, and again at Rouen in 1161 [Eyton, pp. 52, 33]. In July 1163 he was summoned by Becket to do homage in his capacity of steward to the archbishops of Caterbury for the castle of Tunbridge. In his refusal, which he based on the grounds that he held the castle of the king and not of the archbishop, he was supported by Henry II [Ralph de Diceto, i. 311; Grevase of Canterbury, i. 174, ii. 391]. Next year he was one of the 'recognisers' of the constitutions of Clarendon [Select Charters, p. 138]. Early in 1170 he was appointed one of a band of commissioners for Kent, Surrey, and other parts of southern England [Gerv. Cant.i. 216]. His last known signature seems to belong to June or July 1171, and is dated abroad from Chevaillée [Eyton, p;. 158]. He appears to have died in 1173 [ib. p. 197], and certainly before July or August 1174, when we find Richard, earl of Clare, his son, coming to the king at Northampton [ib. p. 182].

Clare married Matilda, daughter of James de St. Hilary, as we learm from an inspeximus (dated 1328) of one of this lady's charters to Godstow [Dugdale, iv. 366] He was succeeded by his son Richard, who died, as it is said, in 1217 [Land of Morgan, p. 332]. Another son, James, was a very sickly child, and was twice presented before the tomb of Thomas à Becket by his mother. On both occasions a cure is reported to have been effected [Benedict. Mirac. S. Thomæ ap. Memoriales of Thomas Becket, Rolls Series, ii. 255-7].

[Sources cited by the author: Dugdale's Baronage, i; Dugale's Monsticon (ed. 1817-46), iv.; Eyton's Itinerary of Henry II; Powell's History of Wales (ed. 1774); Brut y Twysogian and Annales Cambriæ, ed. Ab Ithel (Rolls Series); Ralphdw Diceto and Gerase of Canterbury, ed. Stubbs (Rolls Series); Clarke's "Land of Morgan" in the Journal of the Achæological Society, vol. xxxv. (1878); Stubb's Select Charters; Brompton'sj Chronicon ap. Twysden's Decem Scriptores.]

~Thomas Andrew Archer, The Dictionary of National Biography, Vol. IV, pp. 396-397

Roger married Maud de St. Hilary, daughter of James de St. Hilary Lord Field Dalling and Lady Aveline ^141,160.^,902 (Maud de St. Hilary was born in 1137 in Field Dalling, Burkenham, Norfolk, England and died in 1173 in Norfolk, England ¹⁶⁰.)