Lede
Linda Asman tells the story of Isabel de Clare, 4th Countess of Pembroke and Striguil, a powerful woman with great political influence for her time.

Story
Isabel de Clare was born in Leinster in 1172 to Aoife Mac Murrough and Richard de Clare (‘Strongbow’), Earl of Pembroke and Striguil. Following her brother Gilbert’s death in 1184, Isabel became sole heir and one of the wealthiest heiresses in the kingdom. She was made a royal ward and, in order to maintain control over whom she married, Henry II had her installed in The Tower of London.

In 1189, Isabel was married to William Marshal. The marriage was a political one. It was granted by Richard the Lionheart in fulfilment of the promise made by his father, Henry II, to William for his unswerving loyalty and service to the crown. Isabel’s inheritance transformed William from a landless knight to a great landowner with lands in Ireland, Wales, England and Normandy, and he was eventually made Lord of Leinster and Earl of Pembroke (1199). Despite a thirty-five year age gap, the marriage was a very happy one, resulting in 10 children. The History of William Marshal informs us that ‘William depended heavily upon the advice and council of his wife, whom he both loved and respected’.

William and King John, Richard the Lionheart’s successor, had a falling out in the aftermath of the loss of Normandy, when William was sent to negotiate a truce with King Philip II of France in 1204. With John’s prior permission William paid homage to King Philip in order to keep his own lands, but John later took offence, and their relationship became hostile. William, on requesting that he retire to his lands in Ireland, was granted permission only on condition that two of his sons be handed into the King’s custody as hostages for his good behaviour.

The period 1207-8 was a difficult time when parts of Leinster were in rebellion against William, encouraged by King John’s justiciar Meiler Fitzhenry. When John ordered William back to England, he left Isobel behind to manage their affairs. William respected the fact that she was the source of his power and that, as granddaughter of Dermot, the last Irish king of Leinster, she could command loyalty from the Irish lords which he could not. With William gone to England, Meiler besieged Kilkenny Castle. Far from surrendering, Isabel defeated Meiler and made him submit to her personally, taking his son hostage for future good behaviour. She also took hostages from the other rebellious lords, and was not pleased when William, on his return to Ireland, forgave the rebels, with the exception of Meiler.

For the next few years, Isabel and William spent most of their time in Leinster, developing the City of Kilkenny as their power base. Isabel was a driving force behind the foundation and development of the Norman town of New Ross – a town for which she had a particular love and where some claim her heart is buried. The couple did not neglect their other lands, including extensive additions to Chepstow Castle and Pembroke. Amongst a number of religious foundations, they established the Cistercian Abbey of Tintern Parva, County Wexford as a daughter house of Tintern Abbey, following a vow taken during a storm on the Irish Sea in 1201.

Isabel and William’s lives were to take another turn when John, in his struggle with his barons, reached out to William, summoning him to return to England in 1213. In a bid for peace, William was central to the negotiations which led to the signing of Magna Carta in 1215 and was one of the few English earls to remain loyal through the Baron’s War. Following King John’s death in 1216, William became Regent of England for the young king Henry III and, at the age of 70, led the royal army to Lincoln to dispel the French invading forces, saving England and establishing the peace.

Isabel and William were married for thirty years and, when William lay dying in 1219, Isabel and their children were at his bedside. Isabel was grief stricken at his death. Despite her grief, she was determined to preserve and protect all that she and William had built. To assert her rights in England, Wales and Ireland, she petitioned the justiciar of England and the papal legate and travelled to France to do homage to Philip II for her Norman lands. Sadly, Isabel died only ten months after her beloved husband. So close in life, they were buried apart: he in the Temple Church and she Tintern Abbey where she lay next to her mother, Aoife of Leinster.