Amice, the second co-heir, had married Richard, head of the powerful house of De Clare; and their son Gilbert, Earl of Hertford, thus finally became Earl of Gloucester, lord of that honour, and possessor of the castle of Cardiff. He died 1229.
Four earls of the race of Clare possessed Cardiff Castle for nearly a century; and though chiefly resident at Clare and Tonbridge, did much to adorn the castle and consolidate the seignory.
In 1320, Eleanor, the elder co-heir of the last De Clare, was married to Hugh le Despenser the younger, the minion of Edward II. During the minority or attainder of their son, Hugh d’Audley who had married the second co-heir, had the earldom, and possibly held Cardiff at his death in 1347. The Despensers then reappeared in the person of Thomas, son of Edward, who was son of Hugh and Eleanor de Clare. This Thomas was created earl of Gloucester in 1397, and attainted and beheaded in 1400. His son Richard, who succeeded, died a minor and childless, in 1414.
The earldom of Gloucester was not revived, but, including the first Hugh, five members of this unfortunate race held the seignory and castle for ninety-four years.
Isabel le Despenser, sister of Richard, and the final heiress, was born at Cardiff Castle, which she did much to strengthen and embellish. She married the cousins, Richard Beauchamp, earl of Worcester, and Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick. The Earl of Worcester married before 1415–16, and died about 1421, leaving a daughter, whose descendants became barons Le Despenser in her right, but who did not inherit Cardiff. Countess Isabel’s chief works at Cardiff were probably executed after her second marriage, which took place before 1425. Her charter to Cardiff, as Countess of Worcester, in 1423, confirms those of her paternal ancestors. Her son, Henry, Duke of Warwick, succeeded his father in 1439, and died in 1446. His heiress, Anne Beauchamp, had but a brief and nominal tenure of the seignory, dying in 1449, an infant of six years.
The castle then descended to the representative of another Anne Beauchamp, sister and heiress to the duke. She married Richard Nevile, the great Earl of Salisbury and Warwick, who thus added Cardiff to his already extensive possessions. One of the town charters, dated Cardiff Castle, 12th March, 1451, was granted by Richard, Earl of Warwick, Lord le Despenser, &c., and Anne his wife.
Upon the earl’s death, in 1471, Cardiff Castle fell to Anne, his younger daughter and co-heir by Anne Beauchamp, in whose right her husband Richard, Duke of Gloucester, afterwards Richard III., became lord of Cardiff Castle and the seignory, and in the latter capacity granted various charters and confirmations yet extant.
Upon the fall and death of Richard, the claims by heirship were set aside and the castle and seignory escheated to the Crown. They were subsequently granted to Jasper Tudor, Duke of Bedford; but on his death, in 1495, again became crown property. The seignory, with its “jura regalia” and prerogatives of marchership, was not again revived; but Henry VII. and his son leased the lordship to Charles Somerset, who was residing at Cardiff in 1513; and Edward VI. granted or sold the castle of Cardiff, with much of the landed estate and the manorial rights of the old seignory, to William Herbert, the first of the new earls of Pembroke, in whose heirs general the whole has since remained.
The history of this long succession of powerful lords, most of whom set their mark upon the great transactions of their age and country, has invested the castle with something of historical interest; which, however, can scarcely be extended to the particulars of the building itself, the subject of the present paper.
The castle of Cardiff stands upon the broad gravel plain between the rivers Taff and Rhymny, upon the left bank of, and two hundred yards from the former stream, at about the lowest point at which, in ordinary seasons, it is fordable.