Clare, Richard de d. 1136?, was son and heir of Gilbert FitzRichard [see Clare, Gilbert de, d. 1115?], and was probably the first of his family who adopted the surname of Clare. He is generally believed to have been also the first of the earls of Hertford, and to have been so created by Stephen (Const. Hist. i. 362), if not by Henry I (Chepstow Castle, p. 44). It may be doubted, however, whether there is ground for this belief (cf. Journ. Arch. Assoc. xxvi. 150-1). It is as Richard FitzGilbert that he figures in 1130 (Rot. Pip. 31 Hen. I), when the Pipe Roll reveals him in debt to the Jews, and under the same that he appears when surprised and killed by the Welsh near Abergavenny on his way to Cardigan (Iter Cambrense, pp. 47-8, 118), either in 1135 (Brut, p. 105), or more probably 1136 (Ann. Camb. p. 40), on 15 April (Cont. Flor. Wig.). His death was the signal for a general rising, and his castles were besieged by the rebels. His widow was rescued by Miles of Gloucester, but his brother Baldwin, whom Stephen despatched to suppress the rising and avenge his death, failed discreditably (Gesta, pp. 10-13). Richard, who was buried at Gloucester, was founder of Tunbridge Priory, and about 1124 removed the religious house which his father had founded at Clare to the adjacent hill of Stoke (Mon. Angl. vi. 1052). He married a sister of Randulf, earl of Chester, whose name is said by Brooke to have been Alice (but cf. Coll. Top. et Gen. i. 389; Journ. Arch. Assoc. xxvi. 151). By her he left, with other issue, Gilbert, earl of Hertford (d. 1152), and Roger, fifth earl [qv.].

Sources:
     Florence of Worcester and his Continuator (Roy. Hist. Soc.)
     Gesta Stephani (ib.)
     Annales Cambrenses (Rolls Ser.)
     Brut y Tywysogion (ib.)
     Gerald's Iter Cambrense (ib.)
     Monasticon Anglicanum
     Collectanea Top. et Gen.
     Pipe Roll, 31 Hen. I
     Brooke's Catalogue of the Nobility
     Journal of the Archæological Association
     Stubbs's Constitutional History
     Marsh's Chepstow Castle.

Contributor: J. H. R. [John Horace Round]

Published: 1887