Life
Gilbert, born before 1066, was the second son and an heir of Richard Fitz Gilbert of Clare and Rohese Giffard. He succeeded to his father's possessions in England in 1088 when his father retired to a monastery; his brother, Roger Fitz Richard, inherited his father's lands in Normandy. That same year he, along with his brother Roger, fortified his castle at Tonbridge against the forces of William Rufus. But his castle was stormed, Gilbert was wounded and taken prisoner. However he and his brother were in attendance on king William Rufus at his death in August 1100. He was with Henry I at his Christmas court at Westminster in 1101.
It has been hinted, by modern historians, that Gilbert, as a part of a baronial conspiracy, played some part in the suspicious death of William II. Frank Barlow points out that no proof has been found he had any part in the king's death or that a conspiracy even existed.
In 1110, King Henry I took Cardigan from Owain ap Cadwgan, son of Cadwgan ap Bleddyn as punishment for a number of crimes including that of the abduction of Nest, wife of Gerald de Windsor. In turn Henry gave the Lordship of Cardigan, including Cardigan Castle to Gilbert Fitz Richard. He founded the Clunic priory at Stoke-by-Clare, Suffolk. Gilbert died in or before 1117.
Read more about this topic: Gilbert Fitz Richard
Famous quotes containing the word life:
“I notice well that one stray step from the habitual path leads irresistibly into a new direction. Life moves forward, it never reverses its course.”
—Franz Grillparzer (1791–1872)
“... the great mistake of the reformers is to believe that life begins and ends with health, and that happiness begins and ends with a full stomach and the power to enjoy physical pleasures, even of the finer kind.”
—Katharine Fullerton Gerould (1879–1944)
“The sailor is frankness, the landsman is finesse. Life is not a game with the sailor, demanding the long head—no intricate game of chess where few moves are made in straight-forwardness and ends are attained by indirection, an oblique, tedious, barren game hardly worth that poor candle burnt out in playing it.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)