MONTHERMER, Baron Ralph de

1270 - 1325  (55 years)  Submit Photo / Document

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• Name	MONTHERMER, Ralph de
  Prefix	Baron
  Birth	1270	Ham, Wiltshire, England
  Gender	Male
  Burial	1325	Salisbury, Wiltshire Unitary Authority, Wiltshire, England
  Death	5 Apr 1325	Salisbury, Wiltshire, England
  WAC	29 Sep 1920
  _TAG	Reviewed on FS
  Headstones	Submit Headstone Photo
  Person ID	I43424	Joseph Smith Sr and Lucy Mack Smith
  Last Modified	19 Aug 2021

  
  

  Family	PLANTAGENET, Princess Joan ,   b. 1272, Galilee, Israel Galilee, Israeld. 23 Apr 1307, Clare, Suffolk, England (Age 35 years)
  Marriage	Jan 1296	Akko, Galilee, Israel
  Children	1 son and 1 daughter
  1. MONTHERMER, Sir Thomas ,   b. 4 Oct 1301, Stoke, Ham, Wiltshire, England Stoke, Ham, Wiltshire, Englandd. 24 Jun 1340, Battle of Sluys, Flanders, France (Age 38 years)   2. MONTHERMER, Countess Mary de ,   b. Oct 1297, Gloucestershire, England Gloucestershire, Englandd. 30 Mar 1371, Dunfirmline Castle, Fifeshire, Scotland (Age 73 years)
  Family ID	F16536	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart
  Last Modified	24 Jan 2022

  
  

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  Earl of Gloucester and Hereford. Ralph de Monthermer, 1st Baron Monthermer, 5th Lord of Glamorgan (1270 - 5 April 1325) was an English nobleman. He temporarily held the Lordship of Glamorgan until it was transferred to its rightful heir in 1307 to Gilbert de Clare, 7th Earl of Hertford, 4th Earl of Gloucester. The Earldom of Hertford and Gloucester were in name only through his marriage to HRH Princess Joan of Acre, the widow of Gilbert de Clare, 6th Earl of Hertford, 3rd Earl of Gloucester who was killed in 1295. The only legitimate de Clare title he held temporarily was the Lordship of Glamorgan which he held for 10 years. Before 1296, Ralph de Monthermer was a squire in the service of Gilbert de Clare, Earl of Gloucester and Hertford and his wife Joan of Acre, the daughter of King Edward I. After the Earl's death in 1295, the widowed Countess fell in love with Monthermer. She secretly married him in 1297 after she talked her father into knighting him. When she was forced to reveal the marriage in April and the King was enraged so the King had Lord Monthermer imprisoned at Bristol. According to Thomas Walsingham, while pleading for her husband Joan told her father "No one sees anything wrong if a great earl marries a poor and lowly woman. Why should there be anything wrong if a countess marries a young and promising man?" With the intervention of Anthony Beck, Bishop of Durham, the King relented, and released Monthermer from prison in August 1297. Monthermer then paid homage to Edward at Eltham Palace and was formally recognized as jure uxoris Earl of Gloucester and Hertford by right of marriage. This means he was Earl in name only whilst there was a legitimate heir. In September 1297, Monthermer was summoned to attend a military council at Rochester, and would go on to take an active part in the Wars of Scottish Independence. He fought at the Battle of Falkirk in July 1298, and in the December of that year was granted the sum of £1,538 6s. 8d., to pay for 100 barbed horses for use in the war. In 1300, Monthermer fought with his father-in-law at the Siege of Caerlaverock. n February 1301, Monthermer was summoned to a parliament at Lincoln, specially convened for the purpose of composing the Barons' Letter of 1301, which rejected Pope Boniface VIII's claim to the feudal overlordship of Scotland. On 24 June, he was summoned to Carlisle to serve with the Prince of Wales in the war against Scotland, and he was again summoned in 1303, 1304 and 1306. In the October of the last year, King Edward conferred upon him the lands of Annandale in Scotland, as well as the earldom of Atholl; he later resigned the earldom to David Strathbogie, the son of the old Earl of Atholl, in exchange for the sum of 10,000 marks. In the winter he served as one of the King's three wardens in Scotland, and was besieged in Ayr Castle. In 1306 Monthermer warned Robert the Bruce, then at the English court, of the danger posed by King Edward. During a convivial evening Edward had let slip that he intended to arrest Bruce the next morning. Monthermer warned Bruce by sending him the sum of twelve pence and a pair of spurs. Bruce took the hint and he and his squire quickly departed the English court for Scotland. After the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314, at which Monthermer fought and was captured, Robert, now the victorious King of Scots, discharged the debt by releasing Ralph without ransom, but not before first entertaining him at table. Marmaduke, Lord Thweng, also captured, joined them and was also then released without ransom. His wife Joan died in 1307 at the manor of Clare in Suffolk, aged thirty-five. Her cause of death is not known for certain, but she likely died in childbirth. After her death, Monthermer was forced to relinquish the Earldoms held by marriage to Gilbert de Clare, the son of the old Earl of Gloucester and Hertford, though in 1309 King Edward II made him a baron under the title Lord Monthermer. In 1307 Monthermer had been appointed keeper of Cardiff Castle and other castles in Wales, and from 1311 to 1312 he again served as warden in Scotland, for which he was paid 300 marks. In 1315 he was made warden of the royal forests south of the Trent, an office he continued to hold until 1320. In December 1315 he went on a pilgrimage to the Way of St James, during which time he appointed a deputy to carry out his duties in England. His second wife was Isabel, the widow of Lord Hastings and daughter of the Earl of Winchester, whom he married around 1313, also in secret; for this further transgression he was not pardoned until 1319. Ralph, Lord Monthermer died in or before 1325, aged around 55, while his widow died in 1336. By his first wife, Lord Monthermer probably had two sons and a daughter: Mary de Monthermer (October 1297- c. 1371), married Duncan, Earl of Fife Thomas, 2nd Lord Monthermer (1301–1340) Edward de Monthermer (1304–1340), fought in the Scottish campaign in 1335, but spent much of his life in service to his half-sister Elizabeth, who provided for him during his last illness and buried him next to their mother