his lands to the king and was re-granted them. He held land in 26 English counties and also estates in Wales, including Caerphilly, Usk and Tintern. This era represented the high point of the family as a major force in English history. On his death in 1295, his wife Joan remarried one of his household knights and began new works at Clare Priory. She was buried in the Chapel of St Vincent which she herself had founded in 1307. The funeral was one of the major public events in Clare's history, attended by royalty and nobility, including her brother King Edward II. Hatton wrote: "Fifty-two years after her burial the grave was opened and her body found to be incorrupt...Of the many miracles wrought by God's grace through her (were) especially...the cure of toothache, back-ache and fever". Her son Gilbert was the last male de Clare. At the battle of Bannockburn in 1314, he was accused of cowardice and treason when he recommended holding the better ground rather than attacking Bruce's densely packed pike walls. Against his better judgement he led the charge and was killed. One of Gilbert's sisters, Elizabeth de Burgh eventually came into the property of Clare, and she endowed what would become Clare College, Cambridge. William de Burgh was Elizabeth's son by her first husband, John de Burgh, next in line to the Earldom of Ulster. He was assassinated in Carrickfergus in 1333 by his Irish cousins. His daughter Elizabeth was married to the third son of Edward III. Her husband Lionel thereby came into the Clare inheritance and became the Duke of Clarence. Chaucer the poet was at one time a page to him. After Elizabeth's death in 1360, he married the Count of Milan's daughter. There were wild rumours he was about to become King of Italy, but he died near Pavia a few months after his marriage. Following his last wish, his heart and bones were brought back to Clare for burial beside his first wife. The title of Clarenceux King of Arms, an heraldic officer, is also derived from Clare or Clarence. The estate passed into the hands of the Mortimers, the Earls of March. The castle began to fall into disrepair from this time. The last descendant was Edward V, one of the two Princes in the Tower. Henry VII took over Clare borough and manor. Henry VIII gave them to