Fitz Richard / Fitz Gilbert (de Clare), and a confusing surplus of Alices

[Patrick Nielsen Hayden]

Ancestral Roots (8th ed.), the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography,
Complete Peerage (X:441, footnote [j]), Leo's Genealogics, and many
other secondary sources have Alice, wife of Aubrey de Vere, sheriff of
London who was killed by a mob in 1141, as the daughter of Gilbert Fitz
Richard (de Clare) who d. in or before 1117, by his wife Alice de
Clermont.

Similarly, AR 8th ed., Complete Peerage (same page & footnote),
Genealogics, and many other secondary sources have Alice de Tonbridge,
wife of William de Percy, as the daughter of Gilbert Fitz Richard's son
Richard Fitz Gilbert (de Clare) who d. 1136, by his wife Alice of
Chester.

However, Douglas Richardson's Royal Ancestry (2013)* shows Alice de
Tonbridge, wife of William de Percy, as a daughter of Gilbert Fitz
Richard and Alice de Clermont, and doesn't show the Alice who married
Aubrey de Vere anywhere at all, as far as I can determine. Richard Fitz
Gilbert and Alice of Chester are shown with their own daughter named
Alice, but this one is given as the wife of Cadwaladr ap Gruffudd ap
Cynan.**

In showing Alice de Tonbridge as a daughter of Gilbert Fitz Richard,
rather than of his son Richard Fitz Gilbert, Richardson appears to be
following John Horace Round's 1895 _Feudal England_, which says (page
472) "Dugdale [...] failed to identify another daughter of the house of
Clare, who made a most interesting match. This was 'Adelidis de
Tunbridge,' wife of William de Percy, a niece and namesake, I
confidently suggest, of Walter Tirel's wife. She seems to have brought
into the Percy family the names of Richard and Walter. The charters
which establish, I think, her identity are those of Sallay Abbey, in
which Maud (widow of William Earl of Warwick) and her sister Agnes
(ancestress of the later Percies) speak of their mother as 'Adelidis de
Tunbridge' (_Mon. Ang., v. 512-3). She can only, therefore, in my
opinion have been a daughter of Gilbert 'de Tunbridge'; and with this
conclusion the dates harmonize well."

The CP footnote cited above argues with Rounds, asserting that the
dates _don't_ actually harmonize well. It says that Alice de Tonbridge,
wife of William de Percy, "was probably da. of Richard FitzGilbert (de
Clare), by Alice, sister of Ranulph, Earl of Chester; on chronological
grounds this is more likely than the suggestion made by Round in
_Feudal England_, ped. at p. 472, that her father was Richard's father
Gilbert, who, moreover, had a da. Alice who m. Aubrey de Vere."

Regarding Round's argument, certainly "Adelidis de Tunbridge" could
have referred, as Rounds says, to Alice de Clermont, wife of Gilbert
Fitz Richard, who was on occasion styled Gilbert de Tonbridge. But I
wonder if it's impossible that it could also have referred to Alice of
Chester, the wife of Gilbert's son Richard fitz Gilbert, since that
Richard was also "of" Tonbridge in Kent.

On the other hand, regarding CP's argument, while it's true that the
dates work out better if we postulate Alice-wife-of-William-de-Percy as
a daughter of son Richard rather than father Gilbert, it's also true
that given how many people in this chain lack established birth years,
it's far from impossible to sketch out a biologically-plausible scheme
in which this Alice is Gilbert's daughter instead.

I understand that different experts can look at the same data and draw
equally respectable yet contradictory conclusions. (I also know that in
medieval genealogy, it's not unheard of for the same married couple to
have two daughters who lived to adulthood bearing the same given name!)
I would be interested, however, to hear opinions on whether or not
Aubrey de Vere's Alice was the daughter of Gilbert Fitz Richard (de
Clare), and also about the identity of the parents of Alice who married
William de Percy.


--------------
* Which I am finding extremely useful, and which, for all that I'm
querying something in it, I wish I'd purchased months earlier.

** Leo van de Pas's database also shows this Alice as the daughter of
Richard and the wife of Cadwaladr etc., but he also shows a sister
"Adelaide" as the wife of William de Percy.


--
Patrick Nielsen Hayden
p...@panix.com
about.me/patricknh

[pj.evans]

Michael Altschul wrote a study of the Clares, 'A Baronial Family in Medieval England', in 1965. It's focused on the period from 1217 to 1314, though. It has a long list of sources, not all of which had been published at the time.

[Peter Stewart via]

You don't seem to be having much luck with replies - this list is now
almost exclusively interested in minor gentry families of the 15th
century and later in England, and their connections to royalty and/or
immigrants to North America. Medieval genealogy proper has been
effectively defenestrated here.

On 17/11/2014 12:44 AM, Patrick Nielsen Hayden via wrote:
> Ancestral Roots (8th ed.), the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography,
> Complete Peerage (X:441, footnote [j]), Leo's Genealogics, and many
> other secondary sources have Alice, wife of Aubrey de Vere, sheriff of
> London who was killed by a mob in 1141, as the daughter of Gilbert Fitz
> Richard (de Clare) who d. in or before 1117, by his wife Alice de
> Clermont.
>
> Similarly, AR 8th ed., Complete Peerage (same page & footnote),
> Genealogics, and many other secondary sources have Alice de Tonbridge,
> wife of William de Percy, as the daughter of Gilbert Fitz Richard's son
> Richard Fitz Gilbert (de Clare) who d. 1136, by his wife Alice of
> Chester.
>
> However, Douglas Richardson's Royal Ancestry (2013)* shows Alice de
> Tonbridge, wife of William de Percy, as a daughter of Gilbert Fitz
> Richard and Alice de Clermont, and doesn't show the Alice who married
> Aubrey de Vere anywhere at all, as far as I can determine. Richard Fitz
> Gilbert and Alice of Chester are shown with their own daughter named
> Alice, but this one is given as the wife of Cadwaladr ap Gruffudd ap
> Cynan.**

Adeliza the wife of Aubrey de Vere is attested by a fairly unimpeachable
source, her own son William in notes added to his life of St Osyth.
According to him she lived for 22 years as a widow at St Osyth's priory
in Essex, so she evidently died ca 1163.

The wife of William de Percy was named as "Adelis de Tunbridge"
(variously spelled) in three charters of her daughters Agnes and Maud
for Sawley (or Sallay) abbey written at the end of the 1180s. Presumably
this indicates that she belonged to the Clare family, but apart from
surmises about her chronology we don't have evidence as to whose
daughter she was.

The third (probably) wife of Cadwaladr ap Gruffudd was named "Aliz de
Clara" in his charter for Haughmond abbey written at some time while the
bishop of Bangor was Maurice (consecrated in or soon after January 1140,
died in August 1162). Una Rees in her edition of the Haughmond cartulary
(1985) speculatively placed this charter in 1141/43 "when Cadwaladr was
involved in English affairs". Huw Pryce has more recently (in /The Acts
of Welsh Rulers/, 2005) placed the charter in 1140/52 or 1157/61. Sir
John Lloyd in his history of Wales had placed it in 1153 and his
apparently arbitrary dating has stuck so that others have forced the
chronology around it. Lloyd also followed Eyton's guess that Cadwaladr's
wife Aliz was a daughter of Richard fitz Gilbert, while Pryce has
proposed that she was actually his widow Adeliza of Chester. Her name
was rendered as Adles in late-15th century Welsh genealogical
collections, according to which she was daughter of an earl of Clare
("ferch iarll Klaer"), but we don't have evidence as to which one.

The solution of making the last two into full sisters, both of them
daughters of Richard fitz Gilbert and his wife Adeliza of Chester, then
naming William de Percy's wife "Adelaide" and Cadwaladr's wife "Alice",
is just a guess. These two names became fully distinct after the 12th
century. It's not impossible that two legitimate sisters had the same
name, or that variants were treated as separate names in the Clare
family before this became customary.

Peter Stewart

[Patricia A. Junkin via]

I have a bit of information that may or may not be helpful.
Aubrey de Vere’s daughter Alice married first Guy d’Albon.[1]
[1] Norman Frontier

On Nov 17, 2014, at 10:42 PM, Peter Stewart via wrote:

> You don't seem to be having much luck with replies - this list is now
> almost exclusively interested in minor gentry families of the 15th
> century and later in England, and their connections to royalty and/or
> immigrants to North America. Medieval genealogy proper has been
> effectively defenestrated here.
>
> On 17/11/2014 12:44 AM, Patrick Nielsen Hayden via wrote:

>> Ancestral Roots (8th ed.), the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography,
>> Complete Peerage (X:441, footnote [j]), Leo's Genealogics, and many
>> other secondary sources have Alice, wife of Aubrey de Vere, sheriff of
>> London who was killed by a mob in 1141, as the daughter of Gilbert Fitz
>> Richard (de Clare) who d. in or before 1117, by his wife Alice de
>> Clermont.
>>
>> Similarly, AR 8th ed., Complete Peerage (same page & footnote),
>> Genealogics, and many other secondary sources have Alice de Tonbridge,
>> wife of William de Percy, as the daughter of Gilbert Fitz Richard's son
>> Richard Fitz Gilbert (de Clare) who d. 1136, by his wife Alice of
>> Chester.
>>
>> However, Douglas Richardson's Royal Ancestry (2013)* shows Alice de
>> Tonbridge, wife of William de Percy, as a daughter of Gilbert Fitz
>> Richard and Alice de Clermont, and doesn't show the Alice who married
>> Aubrey de Vere anywhere at all, as far as I can determine. Richard Fitz
>> Gilbert and Alice of Chester are shown with their own daughter named
>> Alice, but this one is given as the wife of Cadwaladr ap Gruffudd ap
>> Cynan.**
>

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