Earl Richard de Clare of Pembroke 2nd (Strongbow) ¹

  General Notes:

As the son of the first 'earl', he succeeded to his father's estates in 1148, but was deprived of the title by King Henry II of England in 1154 for siding with King Stephen of England against Henry's mother, the Empress Matilda . Richard was in fact, called by his contemporaries Count Striguil, for his marcher lordship of Striguil where he had a fortress at a place now called Chepstow , in Monmouthshire on the River Wye . He saw an opportunity to reverse his bad fortune in 1168 when he met Diarmait Mac Murchada , the deposed King of Leinster .
In 1167, Diarmait Mac Murchada (Dermot MacMurrough) was deprived of the Kingdom of Leinster by the High King of Ireland - Ruaidrí Ua Conchobair . The grounds for the dispossession were that Mac Murchada had, in 1152, abducted Derbforgaill , the wife of the King of Breifne , Tiernan O'Rourke (Irish : Tighearnán Ua Ruairc). To recover his kingdom, Mac Murchada solicited help from the King of England - Henry II . The deposed king embarked for Bristol from near Bannow on 1 August 1166. He met Henry in Aquitaine in the Autumn of 1166. Henry could not help him at this time, but provided a letter of comfort for willing supporters of Mac Murchada's cause in his kingdom. However, after his return to Wales , he failed to rally any forces to his standard. He eventually met the count of Striguil (nicknamed "Strongbow") and other barons of the Welsh Marches . Mac Murchada came to an agreement with Richard de Clare: for the Earl's assistance with an army the following spring, he could have Aoife , Mac Murchada's eldest daughter in marriage and the succession to Leinster. As Henry's approval or license to Mac Murchada was a general one, the count of Striguil thought it prudent to obtain Henry's specific consent to travel to Ireland: he waited two years to do this. The license he got was to aid Mac Murchada in the recovery of his kingdom of Leinster.

Richard married Aoife (Eva) MacMurrough, daughter of King Dermot MacMurrough of Leinster and Mór Ní Tuathail, on 29 Aug 1170. (Aoife (Eva) MacMurrough was born circa 1145 and died in 1188.)