Illustrations & Historical Plates - Edward II’s Nieces, The Clare Sisters: Powerful Pawns of the Crown

Contemporary portraits, seals, tombs, and castles associated with the Clare sisters and King Edward II

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Westminster Abbey, where the sisters’ parents Joan of Acre and Gilbert ‘the Red’ Clare married on 30 April 1290.

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Tewkesbury Abbey, Gloucestershire, burial place of Eleanor Despenser née Clare, her two husbands, her eldest son and other descendants, and the Clare sisters’ grandfather Richard, father Gilbert ‘the Red’ and brother Gilbert. (Courtesy of Craig Robinson)

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A stained-glass image of a naked woman representing humility inside Tewkesbury Abbey, probably intended to be Eleanor Despenser née Clare. (Courtesy of Craig Robinson; used with the permission of the Vicar and Churchwardens of Tewkesbury Abbey)

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The tomb of Eleanor’s husband Hugh Despenser the Younger in Tewkesbury Abbey. Hugh was executed in November 1326 and Eleanor was given permission to bury him in December 1330. (Courtesy of Craig Robinson; used with the permission of the Vicar and Churchwardens of Tewkesbury Abbey)

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The effigy of Eleanor’s eldest son Hugh ‘Huchon’ Despenser, lord of Glamorgan (1308/09-49) and his wife Elizabeth Montacute (d. 1359) in Tewkesbury Abbey. (Courtesy of Craig Robinson; used with the permission of the Vicar and Churchwardens of Tewkesbury Abbey)

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The ruins of Berkhamsted Castle, Hertfordshire, where Margaret Clare married Piers Gaveston, earl of Cornwall, on 1 November 1307.

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The church of Waltham Abbey in Essex, where Elizabeth Clare married John Burgh, son and heir of the earl of Ulster, and her brother the earl of Gloucester married John’s sister Maud, on 29 and 30 September 1308.

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The ruins of Tonbridge Castle in Kent, seized by Eleanor’s husband Hugh Despenser in May 1315, and later owned by Margaret and Hugh Audley; the Clare sisters’ parents Gilbert ‘the Red’ and Joan of Acre left court without the king’s permission after their April 1290 wedding and stayed here.

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The Houses of Parliament, London, still officially known as the Palace of Westminster; Eleanor Clare married Hugh Despenser the Younger in a chapel at the palace on 26 May 1306.

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Richmond Palace in London, formerly Sheen, where Eleanor lived in late 1325 and early 1326 and where she gave birth to one of her many children in December 1325. It was pulled down by Richard II in 1395 and rebuilt in the early 1400s, and then again in Tudor times.

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View from Stirling Castle near the battlefield of Bannockburn, where the Clare sisters’ brother the earl of Gloucester fell on 24 June 1314. At least two of the sisters’ seven husbands, Hugh Despenser and Roger Damory, fought at Bannockburn.

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Caerphilly Castle, South Wales, built by the sisters’ father Gilbert ‘the Red’, and Eleanor’s birthplace in October 1292. It passed to Eleanor and her husband Hugh in 1317, and her eldest son Huchon was besieged here between November 1326 and March 1327.

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Wallingford Castle, Oxfordshire, which belonged to Margaret’s first husband Piers Gaveston and where she lived after his third exile in late 1311.

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Ballinrobe Priory, County Mayo, Ireland; an Augustinian house probably founded by Elizabeth Burgh c . 1313.

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Clare College, Cambridge, formerly Clare Hall, founded 1326, endowed and renamed by Elizabeth Burgh in 1338.

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Windsor Castle, where Margaret married Hugh Audley and Elizabeth married Roger Damory in the spring of 1317. The Clare sisters’ first cousin Edward III was born here in 1312.

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Seal of Eleanor Despenser, 1329.

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Usk Castle, which belonged to Elizabeth Burgh and was taken from her by her brother-in-law Hugh Despenser.

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The remains of the Franciscan friary in Walsingham, Norfolk, founded in 1347 by Elizabeth Burgh.

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The church of Amesbury Priory, Wiltshire, all that remains of the convent where Elizabeth Burgh gave birth to her daughter Isabella Verdon in March 1317. (Matthew Black via Wikimedia Commons)

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