Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 10.djvu/403

 It was perhaps before starting on this mission that the quarrel between these two nobles broke out. It has generally been supposed that Gloucester would have been content with narrowing the royal power in the interests of the baronage; whereas the Earl of Leicester was desirous of extending the benefits of reform to the under tenants. About March 1259 Leicester left the country in anger, declaring that he could no longer work with so unstable a comrade. Passing over to France, Gloucester again quarrelled with Leicester, and the rivals were only reconciled by the efforts of their common friends, who feared for the ill effects of such an open rupture on the minds of the French delegates (, v. 741, 745). De Montfort seems to have spent the summer abroad, but Gloucester soon returned, and was at Tewkesbury on 20 Aug. (. p. 367; Tewkes. Ann. p. 167). He was now, in the absence of Leicester, the leading political figure in England, and for the moment seemed the truer patriot to the country at large, as he certainly was the more trusted counsellor of the king. According to Dr. Stubbs it is to the spring of this year that the popular lines are to be assigned (, p. 19):

"O comes Gloverniæ, comple quod cepisti; Nisi claudas congrue, multos decepisti"

Gloucester's prominent position towards the end of 1259 is shown by the fact that the 'communitas bacheleriæ Angliæ' presented their petition for the expedition of the schemes of reform promised in the Mad parliament to him and Prince Edward (13 Oct.) Dr. Stubbs seems to consider that Simon de Montfort was at the back of this movement, while Gloucester was the recognised leader of the obstructive party (Burt. Ann. p. 471). This view is perhaps hardly consonant with the fact that the earl was now apparently on the friendliest terms with the king, whom he seems to have accompanied abroad (14 Nov.), and on whom he was certainly in attendance at Luzarches and St. Omer on 16 Jan. and 19 Feb. 1260. Meanwhile De Montfort on his return was coming to terms with Prince Edward, and the latter was even suspected of aiming at the crown (Royal Letters, pp. 150, 155; Burt. Ann.; Wint. Ann. p. 98). Gloucester seems to have crossed before the king, who on reaching England (c. 23 April) flung himself into the city of London, keeping the gates closed and only giving admittance to Gloucester and other of his particular friends (Liber de Ant. Leg. ii. 44). Gloucester seems to have been the leading spirit in the charges now brought against the Earl of Leicester—charges so frivolous that Matthew of Westminster refuses to waste his space in enumerating them (373, &c.) Parliament was prorogued, the dispute was accommodated (22 June), or stood over for the time, and Gloucester's energies seem to have been directed in August towards the Welsh war (Pat. Rolls, p. 32;, ed. 1816, p. 398). In the winter of 1260-1 Gloucester was once more abroad in attendance on the king, and was present at the burial of Louis IX's son (14 Jan. 1261) (Tewkes. Ann. p. 168; Royal Letters, ii. 148). The same year another quarrel broke out between him and Prince Edward, 'propter novas consuetudines — et propter alias causas inter se motas.' Probably the Gloucester claim upon Bristol, which Henry had conferred upon the prince in 1254, was a fertile cause of these continual disputes (Tewkes. Ann. with which cf. p. 158)

Meanwhile Henry had been preparing for his great blow; he had already received the papal absolution and was fortifying the Tower of London (c. February 1261). It would seem from the words of one chronicler that Gloucester, 'qui quasi apostavit,' was at first disposed to sanction the king's proceedings, tending as they must have done to weaken the power of his rival, who, according to another writer, was now forced to quit the kingdom for a time (Dunst. Ann. p. 217; Oseney Ann. p. 129;, ed. 1816). But the common danger soon brought the two nobles together, and it was in their joint names that the knights of the shire were summoned to meet at St. Albans (21 Sept. 1261). We may infer that Gloucester was a party to the peace signed at London (21 Nov.), after which Simon went abroad (Pat. Rolls, p. 32; Select Charters, p. 405; Oseney Ann. p. 129); but it is noteworthy that he was not one of the arbitrators appointed by the terms of this agreement. Next year he died at one of his manors (Eschemerfield), near Canterbury (15 July 1262), and was buried at Tewkesbury 28 July. Rumour said that he had been poisoned at the table of Peter of Savoy (Dunst. Ann. 219)

By his wife Maud, Gloucester had several children, of whom the most noteworthy were (1) his successor Gilbert (the 'Red') [q. v.], (2) Thomas de Clare, the friend of Prince Edward (d. 1287), (3) Boso or Bono the good, a canon of York. Of his daughters, Margaret married Edmund, a younger son of Richard, earl of Cornwall, and Roesia married Roger Mowbray in 1270 (Land of Morgan, pp. 141-2; Pat. Rolls, 31 a).

Gloucester was the most powerful English noble of his time. In addition to his father's estates, which amounted to nearly five hundred knights' fees for his honours of Gloucester, Clare, and Giffard, and the barony of