Rohese Giffard

Rohese Giffard married Richard FitzGilbert de Clare and was the mother of the Clare line from which this family descends. She matters for a reason beyond her marriage. Her father was Walter Giffard of Longueville, and Walter Giffard is one of the small number of men whose presence at the Battle of Hastings on 14 October 1066 is attested by a contemporary writer. Several ancestors of this family are traditionally placed on that field. He is the one who can be proved to have been there, and he arrives, as so much of this history does, through a wife.