Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 10.djvu/405

 In July 1163 he was summoned by Becket to do homage in his capacity of steward to the archbishops of Canterbury for the castle of Tunbridge. In his refusal, which he based on the grounds that he held the castle of the king and not of the archbishop, he was supported by Henry II (, i. 311;, i. 174, ii. 391). Next year he was one of the ‘recognisers’ of the constitutions of Clarendon (Select Charters, p. 138). Early in 1170 he was appointed one of a band of commissioners for Kent, Surrey, and other arts of southern England ( i. 216). His last known signature seems to belong to June or July 1l71, and is dated abroad from Chevaillée (, p. 158). He appears to have died in 1173 (ib. p. 197), and certainly before July or August 1174, when we find Richard, earl of Clare, his son, coming to the king at Northampton (ib. p. 182).

Clare married Matilda, daughter of James de St. Hilary, as we learn from an inspeximus (dated 1328) of one of the lady's charters to Godstow (, iv. 366). He was succeeded by his son Richard, who died, as it is said, in 1217 (Land of Morgan, p. 332). Another son, James, was a very sickly child, and was twice presented before the tomb of Thomas à Becket by his mother. On both occasions a cure is reported to have been effected (Benedict. Mirac. S. Thomæ ap. Memorials of Thomas Becket, Rolls Series, ii. 255-7).

 CLARE, WALTER (d. 1138?), founder of Tintern Abbey, was probably son of Richard de Clare (d. 1070?), founder of the house of Clare [q. v.] In Dugdale’s ‘Baronage’ (i. 207) he is also son of Gilbert, a brother of the Richard de Clare who died about 1070. His history is sadly confused. The few facts related concerning him have been mainly taken from two documents (Mon. Angl. v. 269-70), of which the one, his ‘Genealogia,’ is clearly based upon the continuation of William of Jumièges (viii. 37), itself inaccurate, but is sadly garbled; while the other, a chronicle, is even more erroneous. From these we gather that he was a son of Richard FitzGilbert, that he had possession of Nether-Went (the valley of the Wye), and that he founded Tintern Abbe in 1131. In addition to this we find a Walter de Clare defending Le Sap against the Angevins in October 1136 with his brother-in-law, Ralph de Coldun (. vi. 71), and a Walter de Clare, brother of Earl Gilbert and Rohaise (and, therefore, son of Gilbert FitzRichard), present at Striguil (Chepstow) on 1 Nov. (Mon. Angl. iv. 597), in a year which Mr. Eyton (Add. MS. 31942) dates ‘1138-47,’ but Mr. Wakeman ‘1125-1130’ (Journ. Arch. Assoc. x. 280), and at Stamford, with Stephen (as ‘W. FitzGilbert’) in 1142 (Great Coucher, vol. ii. fo. 445). Mr. Marsh, who has analysed the evidence in the fullest detail (Chepatow Castle, cap. ii.), denies that he was ever lord of Striguil, and deems him to have been only a turbulent adventurer (p. 29). He strongly insists that this Walter was the son, not the grandson, of Richard FitzGilbert, and such, indeed, is the accepted view. It would seem, however, by no means improbable that this view is wrong. Walter dying without issue, his estates passed to his nephew. Mr. Ormerod, in his pedigree of the family, gives the date of 1138 for his death; but this date, though quite possible, is only a deduction from the chronicle printed (ut supra) in the ‘Monasticon.’ His abbey of St. Mary at Tintern was founded for the Cistercian order. No fragments of it now remain, the existing building being the ‘nova ecclesia’ founded by Roger Bigod in 1269 (see on this point Chepstow Castle, p. 30, with Sir J. Maclean's note).

 CLAREMBALD (fl. 1161), abbot-elect, although he was a secular priest, was forced on the monks of St. Augustine’s, Canterbury, as their abbot by Henry II in 1161. He was one of the king's clerks, and must have been trusted by his master, for he was one of the justices commissioned in 1170 to hold an inquiry to the conduct of the sheriffs. The monks were angry at his appointment, and would not allow him to enter the chapter-house, celebrate mass, or perform any other sacred function in their church. During the quarrel between the king and Archbishop Thomas (Becket) they were forced to forbear prosecuting their appeal against the kings appointment, and the abbot-elect wasted the property of the convent. At last, in 1176,