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