Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 10.djvu/404

 , in 1245 he came into the inheritance of a fifth of the lands of the great house of Marshall (‘Land of Morgan,’ Journ. Archæol. Soc. xxxv. 333, xxxvi. 131). When a young man he is described as being ‘elegans, facundus, providus,’ and the ‘hope’ of the English nobility. But the promise of his youth was belied as soon as his interest taught him the advantage of a royal connection. Avarice, according to the popular impression, was the leading characteristic of his mind. Matthew Paris does not hesitate to accuse him of selling his daughter into marriage like any common ‘usurer;’ and Simon de Montfort charged him more than once with the most wanton deceit. To the men of his own day he appeared as one pre-eminently skilled in the laws of his country, and in this capacity was deputed (1256) to inquire into the crimes of the sheriff of Northampton, to hear the charges brought against the mayor of London, and even to conduct the assize of bread in the same city (, v. 580; Liber de Antiq. Leg. p. 40, &c.). But there is no evidence that he ever rose above the position of a baron striving for the utmost letter of his own rights whether against king or tenant. He seems to have been extravagant, and was not unfrequently obliged to borrow money. He was a great lover of tournaments, at which, however, he was by no means uniformly successful. He does not seem to have been a munificent patron of religion, although one chronicler records that he went to the Holy Land in 1240 (. p. 302). He is also said to have introduced the Austin Friars into England, and certainly gave Walter de Merton two manors for his new foundation; but he figures more frequently as a litigant with ecclesiastical bodies than as their guardian. He seems to have been genuinely attached to his brother William, and to his step-father, Richard of Cornwall.

[Annals of Margam, Tewkesbury, of Winchester, Waverley, Dunstable, Burton, Oseney, Wykes, and Worcester in Annales Monastici, ed. Luard, i-iv. (Rolls Series); Matthew Paris, ed. Luard (Rolls Series); Royal Letters, ed. Shirley (Rolls Series), ii.; Rymer's Fœdera, ed. 1704 and 1816; Matthew of Westminster (Frankfort, 1601); Rishanger, ed. Halliwell (Camd. Soc.); Liber de Antiquis Legibus, ed. Stapleton (Camd. Soc.); Stubbs's Constitutional History, ii., and Select Charters (1875 and 1876); Clark's Land of Morgan, in the Journal of Archæological Society, xxxv. xxxvi.; Prothero's Simon de Montfort; Dugdale's Monasticon, ed. 1816; Patent Rolls.]   CLARE, ROGER, fifth and third  (d. 1173), was the younger son of Richard de Clare (d. 1136?) [q. v.], and succeeded to his brother Gilbert's titles and estates in 1162 (, Baronage, i. 210). In 1153 he appears with his cousin, Richard Strongbow, earl of Pembroke, as one of the signatories to the treaty at Westminster, in which Stephen recognises Prince Henry as his successor (, p. 1039). He is found signing charters at Canterbury and Dover in 1156 (, Itin. p. 15). Next year, according to Powell (History of Wales, p. 117), he received from Henry II a grant of whatever lands he could conquer in South Wales. This is probably only an expansion of the statement of the Welsh chronicles that in this year (about 1 June) he entered Cardigan and 'stored' the castles of Humfrey, Aberdovey, Dineir, and Rhystud. Rhys ap Gniffudd, the prince of South Wales, appears to have complained to Henry II of these encroachments ; but being unable to obtain redress from the king of England sent his nephew Einion to attack Humfirey and the other Norman fortresses (Brut y Tywysogion, pp. 191, &c.) The 'Annales Cambriæ seem to assign these events to the year 1159 (pp. 47, 48) ; and the 'Brut' adds that Prince Khys burnt all the French castles in Cardigan. In 1 158 or 1160 Clare advanced with an army to the relief of Carmarthen Castle, then besie^fed by Rhys, and pitched his camp at Dinweilir. Not daring to attack the Welsh prince, the English army offered peace and retired home (ib. p. 193 ; Annales Cambr. p. 48 ; ). In 1163 Rhys again invaded the conouests of Clare, who, we learn incidentally, haa at some earlier period caused Einion, the capturer of Humfrey Castle, to be murdered by domestic treachery. A second time all Cardigan was wrested from the Norman hands (Brut, p. 199) ; and things now wore so threatening an aspect that Henry II led an army into Wales in 1165, although, according to one Welsh account (Ann. Cambr. p. 49), Khys had made his peace with the king in 1164, and had even visited him in England. The causes assigned by the Welsh chronicle for this fresh outbreak of hostility are that Henry failed to keep his promises — presumably of restitution — and secondly that Roger, earl of Clare, was honourably receiving Walter, the murderer of Rhys's nephew Einion (ib. p. 49). For the third time we now read that Cardigan was overrun and the Norman castles burnt ; but it is possible that the events assigned by the 'Annales Cambræ' to the year 1165 are the same as those assigned by the 'Brut y Tywysogion' to 1163.

In the intervening years Clare had been abroad, and is found signing charters at Le Mans, probably about Christmas 1160, and again at Rouen in 1161 (, pp. 52, 53). 