1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Gloucester, Gilbert de Clare, Earl of

GLOUCESTER, GILBERT DE CLARE, Earl of (1243–1295), was a son of Richard de Clare, 7th earl of Gloucester and 8th earl of Clare, and was born at Christchurch, Hampshire, on the 2nd of September 1243. Having married Alice of Angoulême, half-sister of king Henry III., he became earl of Gloucester and Clare on his father’s death in July 1262, and almost at once joined the baronial party led by Simon de Montfort, earl of Leicester. With Simon Gloucester was at the battle of Lewes in May 1264, when the king himself surrendered to him, and after this victory he was one of the three persons selected to nominate a council. Soon, however, he quarrelled with Leicester. Leaving London for his lands on the Welsh border he met Prince Edward, afterwards king Edward I., at Ludlow, just after his escape from captivity, and by his skill contributed largely to the prince’s victory at Evesham in August 1265. But this alliance was as transitory as the one with Leicester. Gloucester took up the cudgels on behalf of the barons who had surrendered at Kenilworth in November and December 1266, and after putting his demands before the king, secured possession of London. This happened in April 1267, but the earl quickly made his peace with Henry III. and with Prince Edward, and, having evaded an obligation to go on the Crusade, he helped to secure the peaceful accession of Edward I. to the throne in 1272. Gloucester then passed several years in fighting in Wales, or on the Welsh border; in 1289 when the barons were asked for a subsidy he replied on their behalf that they would grant nothing until they saw the king in person (nisi prius personaliter viderent in Anglia faciem regis), and in 1291 he was fined and imprisoned on account of his violent quarrel with Humphrey de Bohun, earl of Hereford. Having divorced his wife Alice, he married in 1290 Edward’s daughter Joan, or Johanna (d. 1307). Earl Gilbert, who is sometimes called the “Red,” died at Monmouth on the 7th of December 1295, leaving in addition to three daughters a son, Gilbert, earl of Gloucester and Clare, who was killed at Bannockburn.

See C. Bémont, Simon de Montfort, comte de Leicester (1884), and G. W. Prothero, Simon de Montfort (1877).