The Battle Abbey Roll. Vol. I.
by
The Duchess of Cleveland.

Prepared by Michael A. Linton
-------*--------
Return to Index

Clarell : We find the Clarels seated in South Yorkshire during the thirteenth century. John Clarel founded Tickhill Priory in the time of Edward I.; Sir William Clarel, at about the same date, acquired Aldwark through his wife Agnes, daughter and heir of Sir William Walleis. "This William was contemporary with John Clarel the Warden, and the posterity of William entering into the patronage of the house of Augustine friars which John founded near the town of Tickhill, there can be no doubt that there was a very near alliance between them. The patronage of their little foundation was a beautiful flower in the state and condition of the Clarels. The chapel of that house was their cemetery. Besides Aldwark, they possessed other land, and especially the manor of Peniston.

"The arms which the Clarels used betray their clientelage to the Lords of Ecclesal. They were six silver martlets on a red field, arranged in perpendicular parallel rows, and adopted by the Ecclesals from their superior lords the Furnivalls, who bore their martlets on a bend; and had, in their turn, derived them from the Luterels, of whom they held certain manors, and who bore the martlets and bend in gold on an azure field."—Hunter's South Yorkshire. Sir William Clarel, who married the Lady of Aldwark, was Lord of Peniston, and the father of Thomas, who became the husband of another heiress, Isabel, daughter of Sir John Philibert. He held the manor of Adwick of the honour of Tickhill, "and paid every two years towards keeping the Castle 7s. 4d. and every third year 8s. and 10s. ad custodiam osterer (to keep a hawk). It remained in the family for two centuries and a half; the heir of Clarel married Sir Thomas Fitzwilliam, whose son and heir, Thomas, was slain at Flodden in 1513."—Ibid. The last heir-male, Thomas, was the son of another Thomas who had been drowned in the Don in 1442. He had three daughters; Elizabeth Fitzwilliam; Alice, Prioress of Hampole, and Maud, married to the son and heir of Robert Ughtred; but all the lands of the Clarels in Yorkshire devolved on the eldest, Elizabeth, whose husband was in her right Lord of Aldwark. Her missal, containing twelve entries relating to births and deaths in the Clarel family, is preserved in the Fitzwilliam Museum at Cambridge. There was, however another Thomas Clarel, who was evidently one of this family. "He was living in the parish of St. Giles', Cripplesgate, in 1493, when he made his will, in which he described himself of London, citizen and grocer. He bequeathed some paintings to the church of Rotherham, and was also a benefactor to Rawmarsh, and other churches around."—Ibid. Leland mentions one of their houses: "There ys yet a Place by Tikhill caullid Clarelle's Haulle." This was still standing in 1831.