Margaret de Clare was a Baroness of Badlesmere, a Norman-Irish noblewoman. She was the wife of Bartholomew de Badlesmere.
Background
Margaret de Clare was born on or about 1 April 1287 at Bunratty Castle in Ireland. Her brother Gilbert (born 1281) married Hugh Despenser the Elder's daughter Isabel in about 1306, was a member of Edward II's household before he became king, and died childless in November 1307. Her other brother Richard died in June 1318, leaving a baby son Thomas. Thomas died in April 1321, which left Margaret and her sister Maud - wife of Robert Clifford, who was killed at Bannockburn in 1314 - as heirs to the lordship of Thomond.
Career
In 1319, Margaret was staying at Cheshunt in Hertfordshire, when she had the misfortune to be held hostage by a group of more than sixty men and women, who demanded a ransom of £100. She was imprisoned overnight until a knight in shining armor rode to her rescue the following day – Hugh Despenser the Younger. Edward II imprisoned twenty of the men responsible at Hertford Castle and then at the Tower of London when Bartholomew Badlesmere was still his loyal steward, but in November 1321, with Bartholomew now his enemy, he pardoned them.
After the Despenser War in 1321, when the Marcher lords attacked the Despensers' lands in Wales and England, Margaret's husband Bartholomew - presumably angry at the Despensers' dominance over Edward II, which drastically limited his influence - switched sides and joined the Marchers. This would prove to be a tragic decision; Edward thereafter loathed Bartholomew, and the earl of Lancaster, leader of the opposition to Edward and the Despensers, loathed him already. Margaret Badlesmere is most famous for being the person who refused Queen Isabella entry to Leeds Castle in October 1321, which gave Edward the excuse he needed to mount a campaign against the Marchers.
Edward II, never a man to forgive and forget a betrayal, pointedly excluded Bartholomew by name from the safe-conducts he offered the other Marchers in early 1322. Following the Marchers' defeat at Boroughbridge on 16 March 1322, Bartholomew sought refuge at his nephew the bishop of Lincoln's manor of Stowe Park, but was captured by Edward's Scottish friend Donald of Mar and died a terrible death in April 1322 - dragged the three miles from Canterbury to the crossroads at Blean, hanged, drawn and quartered. The events of 1322 hit Margaret hard: not only did her husband suffer grotesque execution, but her nephew Roger Clifford was hanged in York in March 1322, as was her first cousin John Mowbray (son of Rohese de Clare, sister of Margaret's father). However, Margaret's brother-in-law Sir Robert de Welle - who had married her widowed sister Maud Clifford in 1315 - remained loyal to the king, until at least August 1326, and Edward granted 'the wardenship of the hospital of St Nicholas, Pontefract' to Robert Woodhouse at Welle's request the day after his stepson Roger Clifford's execution.
Margaret and her young children, and her husband's adult nephew Bartholomew Burghersh, were imprisoned at Dover Castle then the Tower of London following the surrender of Leeds Castle on 31 October 1321. She was released on 3 November 1322, and went to live at the convent of the Minorites at Aldgate; Edward II granted her two shillings a day for her sustenance. On 1 July 1324, Edward granted Margaret permission "to go to her friends within the realm whither she will, provided that she be always ready to come to the king when summoned," and continued to give her two shillings a day.
Achievements
Margaret de Clare was arrested and subsequently imprisoned in the Tower of London for the duration of a year, making her the first recorded female prisoner in the Tower's history. She was jailed on account of having ordered an armed assault on Isabella of France, Queen consort of King Edward II of England.
Connections
Margaret married firstly Gilbert de Umfraville, son of the Earl of Angus, with whom she had no children. Gilbert died in about 1303. She married secondly, sometime before June 1308, Bartholomew, Lord Badlesmere, an influential knight in the retinue of Margaret's first cousin Gilbert de Clare, earl of Gloucester, who became a steward of Edward II's household in 1318. The couple had five children: Giles, Elizabeth, Margery, Maud, and Margaret.
