Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Clare, Gilbert de (d.1115?)
CLARE, GILBERT de (d. 1115?), baronial leader, was the son of Richard Fitz-Gilbert [see Clare, Richard de, d. 1090?], and heir to his English possessions. Though, like his father, here entered among the Clares, he was commonly known as Gilbert FitzRichard or Gilbert de Tunbridge. He is first mentioned as fortifying his castle of Tunbridge (spring of 1088), in conjunction with his brother Roger, against William Rufus (Ord. Vit. iv. 17). Resisting the king on his march into Kent, his castle was stormed, and he himself wounded and taken prisoner (Flor. Wig.) He next appears (June 1095) as warning the king, on his northward march,' of an ambuscade (Ord. Vit. iii. 407). It was apparently in the next year (29 Aug. 1096) that, visiting Colchester with his sister and brother-in-law (Eudes), he laid one of the foundation-stones of the latter's abbey of St. John (Mon. Angl. iv. 608). Both he and his brother Roger were in attendance on the king at his death (August 1100). He is found witnessing a charter of his successor at Norwich on 3 Sept. 1101, and from a charter (vide infra) which has escaped notice, it appears that, with his brother and his two cousins (the sons of Baldwin), he was at Westminster with King Henry at Christmas 1101. The date of his settlement in Wales is involved in some obscurity. It is said to have originated in a raid of Owen, son of Cadogan, in revenge for which Gilbert FitzRichard was allowed to seize Cardigan, the territory of Cadogan. But the ‘Annals of Wales (p. 35) assign this event to 1111, while the ‘Brut’ (p. 105) places the conquest in 1107, and Gilbert complains to Henry against Owen in 1111 (p. 113, cf. the Iter Cambrense, p. 47 n.) Mr. Marsh labours to show that Gilbert was lord marcher of Striguil, and an earl, but this is improbable. He appears in 1113 as consenting to his mother's charter (Mon. Angl. iii. 473), and died, according to the ‘Brut’ (p. 143), in 1114, after a long illness; but according to the ‘Annals of Wales’ (p. 36), in 1117. It was he who turned the church at Clare into a cell of Bec (Mon. Angl. vi. 1052). He married Adeliza (ib. ii. 601, 603; iii. 473), said to have been a daughter of the Count of Clermont (Will. Jum. viii. 37, but cf. Journ. Arch. Assoc. xxvi. 150 n.), by whom he left three sons, Richard (d. 1136?) [q. v.], Gilbert, earl of Pembroke and Walter [see Clare, Walter de], and a daughter Rohaise, wife of Baderon de Monmouth (Mon. Angl. iv. 597). Two younger sons, Baldwin and Hervey, are mentioned in one of his wife's charters (ib. ii. 601). Of these, Baldwin appears, from charters, to have been constantly in attendance on Stephen, and at Lincoln, where he was captured after a valiant defence (Ord. Vit. v. 128), he acted as spokesman to the king's forces, ‘loco stans excelso, omnium oculis in eum erectis’ (Hen. Hunt, 271). For a list of his benefactions to religious houses, see Dugdale's ‘Baronage’ (i. 207-8).
[Ordericus Vitalis (ed. Société de l'Histoire de France); William of Jumièges; Florence of Worcester (Eng. Hist. Soc.); Monasticon Anglicanum (new ed.); Annales Cambriæ (Rolls Ser.); Brut y Tywysogion (ib.); Henry of Huntingdon (ib.); Gerald's Iter Cambrense (ib.); Planché's Earls of Gloucester (Journal Arch. Assoc. vol. xxvi.); Marsh's Chepstow Castle; Freeman's William Rufus; Dugdale's Baronage; Charter in Register of St. John's Abbey (Harl. MS. 312, f. 72).]