♂Richard FitzGilbert

Richard FitzGilbert (died 5 April 1176) was an Anglo-Norman baron, Earl of Pembroke or of Striguil, known to later ages as Strongbow, who crossed to Ireland in 1170 to restore an exiled Irish king, took Waterford, and married the king’s only child. He was an ancestor of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006) by five separate lines of descent, all through his daughter Isabel de Clare: by three of them he was her twenty-fifth great-grandfather and by the other two her twenty-sixth.

Earl of Pembroke

Richard was a son of Gilbert de Clare, whom King Stephen had made Earl of Pembroke in 1138, and he followed his father in the earldom in 1148. As “Comes de Pembroke” he was one of the lords who on 7 November 1153 recognized Henry, afterward Henry II, as Stephen’s successor. Early in 1168 he went on an embassy to Germany to escort the Princess Matilda^W to Minden for her marriage to the Duke of Saxony.

The chronicler Gerald of Wales^W wrote that “his name was greater than his means, his descent than his talents, his rights of inheritance than his property in possession.” He also wrote that “what he failed of accomplishing by force, he succeeded in by gentle words.”

Leinster

In August 1170 Richard crossed to Ireland to help Dermot MacMurrough, King of Leinster^W, who had been driven from his kingdom. He captured the city of Waterford on 25 August 1170, and a few days later he married Dermot’s only child, Eva^W, at Waterford or, as some say, at Dublin. When Dermot died on 1 May 1171, Eva inherited his rights in Leinster. The King of Connaught disputed them, and Richard defeated him.

Henry II was jealous of his power, and to pacify the king Richard gave up to him all his castles and seaports. Henry came to Ireland in October 1171 and stayed six months, taking the homage of the Irish princes, while the earl kept his own court at Kildare. In 1172 the king granted him the kingdom of Leinster. When Henry’s sons rose against their father^W, Richard served the king in Normandy as governor of Gisors and was at the relief of Verneuil. As his reward Dublin, Waterford and Wexford were restored to him, and in 1174 he was made Justiciar of Ireland^W.

Death

Richard died on 5 April 1176, leaving no surviving son. His daughter Isabel, four years old, was his heir and passed into the wardship of Henry II, and in 1189 she married William Marshal, who became Earl of Pembroke through her. Where Richard was buried is uncertain. Gerald of Wales wrote that he died in Dublin and was buried in Christ Church Cathedral there, where a tomb is attributed to him, but an epitaph in the chapter house at Gloucester also bears his name.

Lines of descent

The lines meet again in Elizabeth le Despenser (died 1389), whose parents Hugh le Despenser (died 1326) and Eleanor de Clare (1292–1337) both descend from him; in Maurice Berkeley (about 1435–1506), whose parents James Berkeley (about 1394–1463) and Isabel Mowbray (died 1452) both do; in Sarah Dudley (1795–1839), whose parents Nathaniel Dudley (1763–1844) and Anna Smith (1764–1825) both do; and in Wesley Blanchard (1844–1908), whose parents Joseph Knapp Blanchard (1820–1885) and Elizabeth Trueworthy Blanchard (1825–1884) both do.

Notes

Sources

Richard’s career, marriage, death and burial are from G. E. Cokayne, The Complete Peerage, 1st ed., vol. VI (1895), PEMBROKE, pp. 196–198, whose notes by G. W. Watson cite Hoveden, Ralph de Diceto, Robert du Mont and Gerald of Wales; the quotations from Gerald are from his Conquest of Ireland, book I, chapters 12 and 27, as the Complete Peerage prints them. The grant of Leinster in 1172 is from vol. I (1887), introduction to the Irish lordships. Douglas Richardson, Magna Carta Ancestry (2005), BIGOD 2, p. 85, and CLARE 2, p. 194, names him as Richard Fitz Gilbert, “nicknamed ‘Strongbow’”, second Earl of Pembroke (or Striguil), and the father of Isabel, wife of William Marshal. His parentage and his succession in 1148 follow the order of the earls in the Complete Peerage; his father Gilbert died on 14 September 1148.

His name

FitzGilbert means “son of Gilbert”. Striguil was the old name of the castle and town of Chepstow on the Welsh border. The Complete Peerage doubts that the name Strongbow was used of him in his lifetime: an older writer gave it to his father instead, while Gerald of Wales called him “Richard Strongbow, Earl of Strigul”. It also doubts the later claim that he acted as Marshal of England at Henry II’s coronation in 1154.

His death

The date of 5 April 1176 is Ralph de Diceto’s, and Robert du Mont gives the same year; Dugdale also gives 7 May 1178, and Gerald of Wales says he died in Dublin about the beginning of June, without a year. The Complete Peerage adds that one writer placed his first burial at Kilkenny, and that Leland says he was buried at Gloucester.

His wife and children

Isabel’s mother is not named in this family history, though the Complete Peerage calls Eva his only known wife. It also names a son, Walter, remembered in a charter of 1222 by his nephew William Marshal the younger, and a daughter, Alina, older than any child of Eva, who married William Fitz Maurice in 1174. A later legend that the earl killed his only son for cowardice is set aside by the Complete Peerage, since any son by Eva would have been a child when his father died.