hird son of George III.,
was made a peer under this title. Having merged in the crown when
William became king of Great Britain and Ireland in 1830, the title of
duke of Clarence was again revived in 1890 in favour of Albert Victor
(1864-1892), the elder son of King Edward VII., then prince of Wales,
only to become extinct for the fifth time on his death in 1892.
LIONEL OF ANTWERP, duke of Clarence (1338-1368), third son of Edward
III., was born at Antwerp on the 29th of November 1338. Betrothed when a
child to Elizabeth (d. 1363), daughter and heiress of William de Burgh,
3rd earl of Ulster (d. 1332), he was married to her in 1352; but before
this date he had entered nominally into possession of her great Irish
inheritance. Having been named as his father's representative in England
in 1345 and again in 1346, Lionel was created earl of Ulster, and joined
an expedition into France in 1355, but his chief energies were reserved
for the affairs of Ireland. Appointed governor of that country, he
landed at Dublin in 1361, and in November of the following year was
created duke of Clarence, while his father made an abortive attempt to
secure for him the crown of Scotland. His efforts to secure an effective
authority over his Irish lands were only moderately successful; and
after holding a parliament at Kilkenny, which passed the celebrated
statute of Kilkenny in 1367, he threw up his task in disgust and
returned to England. About this time a marriage was arranged between
Clarence and Violante, daughter of Galeazzo Visconti, lord of Pavia (d.
1378); the enormous dowry which Galeazzo promised with his daughter
being exaggerated by the rumour of the time. Journeying to fetch his
bride, the duke was received in great state both in France and Italy,
and was married to Violante at Milan in June 1368. Some months were then
spent in festivities, during which Lionel was taken ill at Alba, where
he died on the 7th of October 1368. His only child Philippa, a daughter
by his first wife, married in 1368 Edmund Mortimer, 3rd earl of March
(1351-1381), and through this union Clarence became the ancestor of
Edward IV. The poet Chaucer was at one time a page in Lionel's
household.
THOMAS, duke of Clarence (c. 1388-1421), who was nominally lieutenant of
Ireland from 1401 to 1413, and was in command of the English fleet in
1405, acted in opposition to his elder brother, afterwards King Henry
V., and the Beauforts during the later part of
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