The Norman family who took the name 'de Clare' became associated with the peerage as they held, at differing times, three earldoms (Gloucester, Pembroke, and Hertford).
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The title derives from Clare, Suffolk, where a prominent Anglo-Norman family was seated since the Norman Conquest, and from which their English surname sprang from possession of the Honour of Clare.
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The late earl's sisters, Eleanor, Margaret (now widowed after the death of Piers Gaveston) and Elizabeth were by 1317 all married to favourites of Edward II: Hugh Despenser the Younger, Hugh de Audley and Roger d'Amory respectively.
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For example, Gerald of Wales recounts an incident relating to the Earl of Clare, possibly referring to William Fitz Robert, 2nd Earl of Gloucester.
John FitzGibbon, 2nd Earl of Clare KP GCH PC (10 July 1792 – 18 August 1851) was the son of John FitzGibbon, 1st Earl of Clare and his wife, Anne.
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He succeeded to the titles of Baron FitzGibbon in the Peerage of Great Britain and Earl of Clare in the Irish Peerage in 1802.
Some contemporaneous and later sources called him Earl of Clare, though many modern sources view the title as a "styled title".
He left the bulk of the estate to his grandson William (grandfather of John Holles, 1st Earl of Clare).
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This property portfolio passed down through several generations of the family and became the basis of the property owned by the Earl of Clare.
James Earl Jones | Prince Edward, Earl of Wessex | Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma | Herbert Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener | County Clare | Earl | Frederick Roberts, 1st Earl Roberts | Earl of Derby | Earl Warren | Earl of Pembroke | Robert Harley, 1st Earl of Oxford and Earl Mortimer | Earl of Warwick | Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford | Edward Smith-Stanley, 14th Earl of Derby | Earl of Shrewsbury | William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham | Simon de Montfort, 6th Earl of Leicester | Clare Boothe Luce | Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick | Earl of Leicester | John Scott, 1st Earl of Eldon | Clare College, Cambridge | Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex | Robert, 1st Earl of Gloucester | Edward Harley, 2nd Earl of Oxford and Earl Mortimer | Earl of Devon | Douglas Haig, 1st Earl Haig | My Name Is Earl | Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon | Earl Scruggs |
Denzil was the final Baron Holles, at which time the estates devolved on a cousin, John Holles (1662–1711), 4th Earl of Clare and Duke of Newcastle.
He was created Baron Haughton, of Haughton in the County of Nottingham, in 1616, and was made Earl of Clare in 1624.