Elizabeth de Burgh, 4th Countess of Ulster

Elizabeth de Burgh,^[2] Duchess of Clarence, suo jure 4th Countess of Ulster and 5th Baroness of Connaught (English: /dəˈbɜːr/ də-BUR; 6 July 1332 – 10 December 1363) was a Norman-Irish noblewoman who married Lionel of Antwerp, 1st Duke of Clarence.

Elizabeth de Burgh
Arms of de Burgh: Or, a cross gules.[1]
suo jure Countess of Ulster
Predecessor	William Donn de Burgh, 3rd Earl
Successor	Philippa Plantagenet, 5th Countess with Edmund Mortimer, 3rd Earl of March
jure uxoris Earl	Lionel of Antwerp, 1st Duke of Clarence
Born	6 July 1332 Carrickfergus Castle, Carrickfergus, County Antrim, Ireland
Died	10 December 1363 Dublin, Ireland
Burial	Bruisyard, Suffolk
Spouse	Lionel of Antwerp, 1st Duke of Clarence ​ ​ (m. 1352)​
Issue	Philippa Plantagenet, 5th Countess of Ulster
House	Burgh
Father	William Donn de Burgh, 3rd Earl of Ulster
Mother	Maud of Lancaster

Family

Carrickfergus Castle, Elizabeth's birthplace

Elizabeth was born at Carrickfergus Castle near Belfast, Ireland, the only child of William Donn de Burgh, 3rd Earl of Ulster, and Maud of Lancaster, Countess of Ulster. She was the last of the senior legitimate line of the descendants of William de Burgh.^[3][4] Her paternal grandparents were John de Burgh and Elizabeth de Clare, and her maternal grandparents were Henry, 3rd Earl of Lancaster and Maud Chaworth. Her younger half-sister was Maud de Ufford, through her mother's second marriage to Sir Ralph de Ufford, Justiciar of Ireland.^[5]

Marriage

Upon William's murder on 6 June 1333, she became the sole legal heir to all the de Burgh lands in Ireland. Actually, her kinsmen Sir Edmond de Burgh of Clanwilliam, Sir Edmond Albanach Bourke the Mac William Iochtar, Sir Ulick Burke the Mac William Uachtar became the de facto heads of the family and owners of de Burgh land during the Burke Civil War.^[3] This is because she was merely 11 months old at the time.

As Countess of Ulster, she was raised in England and married Lionel of Antwerp, 1st Duke of Clarence, on 15 August 1352 at the Tower of London. He was the second son of Edward III of England and his queen consort, Philippa of Hainault. As a boy, the poet Geoffrey Chaucer served as page to Elizabeth.^[6]

The couple had one child, Philippa, born on 16 August 1355, the eldest grandchild of Edward III and Queen Philippa. Elizabeth's daughter Philippa succeeded as Countess of Ulster, and married Edmund Mortimer, 3rd Earl of March, in 1368. Both their titles passed to their son Roger Mortimer, and eventually through their granddaughter Anne de Mortimer, who married into the House of York. The House of York would base its claim to the English throne on their descent from Lionel of Antwerp.

Elizabeth died in Dublin in 1363 during her husband's term as Governor of Ireland. She was buried at Bruisyard Abbey, Suffolk; as her body was being repatriated, her husband obtained royal approval for her mother's new foundation of Franciscan nuns there.^[7]

Ancestry

Ancestors of Elizabeth de Burgh, 4th Countess of Ulster

8. Richard Óg de Burgh, 2nd Earl of Ulster 4. John de Burgh 9. Margaret de Burgh 2. William Donn de Burgh, 3rd Earl of Ulster[8] 10. Gilbert de Clare, 6th Earl of Hertford 5. Elizabeth de Clare 11. Joan of Acre 1. Elizabeth de Burgh, 4th Countess of Ulster[9] 12. Edmund Crouchback, 1st Earl of Lancaster 6. Henry, 3rd Earl of Lancaster 13. Blanche of Artois 3. Maud of Lancaster[8] 14. Sir Patrick de Chaworth, Lord of Kidwelly 7. Maud Chaworth 15. Isabella de Beauchamp

See also

• House of Burgh, an Anglo-Norman and Hiberno-Norman dynasty founded in 1193

References

Citations

1. Burke, Bernard (1884). The General Armory of England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales; comprising a registry of armorial bearings from the earliest to the present time. University of California Libraries. London: Harrison & Sons.
2. Duggan, Anne; Ward, Jennifer C. (2000). Nobles and Nobility in Medieval Europe: Concepts, Origins, Transformations. Martlesham: Boydell & Brewer. p. 251. ISBN 9780851158822. Retrieved 12 September 2021. (...) because of the number of sons born to the higher nobility in the late fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, (...) The emphasis on agnatic lineage was reflected in the fact that the woman kept her natal family name when she married and did not become fully a member of her marital kin.
3. Curtis 2004, pp. 91–92.
4. Moody, T. W.; Martin, F. X.; Byrne, F. J., eds. (1989). A New History of Ireland: IX: Maps, Genealogies, Lists, A Companion to Irish History, Part II. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 170. ISBN 978-0-19-959306-4.
5. Ross, James (2022). "Vere [née Ufford], Maud de, countess of Oxford (1345?–1413), noblewoman". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/101272. ISBN 978-0-19-861412-8. Retrieved 11 December 2022. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
6. Marion Turner, The Very Different Chaucer Connection in Ireland and England, Irish Times, 3 June 2019
7. E 101/394/19 in the National Archives, translated at http://clarescribe.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/THE-LAST-JOURNEY-1364.pdf Archived 22 January 2022 at the Wayback Machine, is the expense account of Nicholas de Fladebury & John de Neuborne who escorted Elizabeth's body via Chester & Coventry for the funeral at Bruisyard on 11 Mar 1364.
8. Weir 2008, pp. 96.
9. Moody, T. W.; Martin, F. X.; Byrne, F. J., eds. (1989). A New History of Ireland: IX: Maps, Genealogies, Lists, A Companion to Irish History, Part II. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 170. ISBN 978-0-19-959306-4.

Bibliography

• Burke, Bernard (1884). The General Armory of England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales; comprising a registry of armorial bearings from the earliest to the present time. London: Harrison & Sons.
• Curtis, Edmund (2004) [1950]. A History of Ireland (6th ed.). New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-27949-6.
• Duggan, Anne; Ward, Jennifer C. (2000). Nobles and Nobility in Medieval Europe: Concepts, Origins, Transformations. Martlesham: Boydell & Brewer. ISBN 9780851158822. Retrieved 12 September 2021.
• Moody, T. W.; Martin, F. X.; Byrne, F. J., eds. (1989). A New History of Ireland: IX: Maps, Genealogies, Lists, A Companion to Irish History, Part II. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-959306-4.
  • Earls of Ulster and Lords of Connacht, 1205–1460 (de Burgh, de Lacy and Mortimer), p. 170.
• Weir, Alison (2008). Britain's Royal Families, The Complete Genealogy. Vintage Books. ISBN 978-0-09-953973-5.

Peerage of Ireland
Preceded by William Donn de Burgh, 3rd Earl	Countess of Ulster with Lionel of Antwerp, Duke of Clarence 1333–1363	Succeeded by Philippa Plantagenet, 5th Countess with Edmund Mortimer, 3rd Earl of March