In 1361, Edward III appointed his son the royal lieutenant (viceroy) of Ireland, and in 1362 he created the title of Duke of Clarence for him, making Lionel the first among the Irish peers.

During this time, Lionel led several military campaigns on the island and adopted the Statutes of Kilkenny in February 1366, which became his most important legacy for the Irish government.

Back in 1333, William de Burgh, 3rd Earl of Ulster and 6th Baron Connaught, the head of one of the largest Anglo-Norman families in Ireland, died.

[5] The composition of the possessions inherited by Lionel as a dowry included large territories of Connacht, Munster and Ulster, located in Northern, Western and Southwestern Ireland.

He held the same position from 11 July 1346 to 12 October 1347, when Edward III conducted a long military campaign in France, ending with the Siege of Calais and the Battle of Crécy.

Documents surviving bearing this seal show that the prince's personal household was successively located during this period at the Tower, Windsor, Reading (most of 1367) and Bristol.

[5][8] In 1355, Lionel's military career began: in that year he was knighted, after which he accompanied his father to Calais and took part in an unsuccessful raid on French lands.

[5] The peace between England and France concluded at Brétigny in 1360, which lasted until 1369, finally allowed Lionel to take the role in Ireland that his father had planned for him.

In July 1360, representatives of the Anglo-Irish political community approached Edward III, begging him to send them a leader who would have sufficient power and resources to restore order to the troubled island.

On 15 March 1361 the English king announced his intention to send his son to rule the possessions on the island, and on 1 July he appointed Lionel Lord Lieutenant of Ireland.

Even the heartland of the English possessions, which included the lands around Dublin, was at times threatened by a number of Gaelic clans such as the O'Brien, O'Toole and Mac Murhi.

As a result, in English-controlled lands, royal power was only effective if it met with the tacit support of the local aristocracy, particularly the Earls of Desmond, Ormonde, Louth and Kildare.

Although representatives of the local nobility demanded the regular intervention of the English king in the affairs of the Irish honors,[c] "Englishmen born in Ireland" (as the local Anglo-Norman barons were often called) had completely different political views than "Englishmen born in England" (this was the name given to royal governors and other officials sent by the English government to Ireland).

At Easter a large meeting of the English landowners in Ireland was held, and they were ordered to provide the prince with soldiers and accompany him to defend their estates.

At the same time, part of the government was transferred to Carlow, which made it possible to increase the efficiency of the military administration of the Irish honors.

On 22 April 1364 James Butler, 2nd Earl of Ormonde was appointed as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, while the Duke of Clarence returned to England to consult his father and the royal council.

Although his father did his best to provide his son with supplies, Lionel only managed to gain control of a small part of the east coast of Ulster.

[5][8] On 7 November 1366, Edward III replaced his son (tired of this thankless job) as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland with Gerald FitzGerald, 3rd Earl of Desmond, after which Lionel left the island, vowing —according to the author of the Eulogium historiarum— never to return there.

On the one hand, the Duke of Clarence, during the period of administration of the English colony, made the first attempt to force landowners to contribute to the protection of royal possessions.

On the other hand, the rule of the Duke of Clarence demonstrated that the Irish honors was no longer self-sustaining, since English power in the colony could only be maintained with military and financial assistance from the royal government.

Her body was transported to England at the expense of the crown and buried in the de Burgh family vault at Clare Priory in Suffolk.

The initiator of Violante's marriage project was her uncle, Bernabò Visconti, who was ready to pay dearly for a prestigious alliance with the Plantagenets.

In his opinion, only this can explain what advantages the English king planned to receive from an alliance with Milan, since Edward III's dynastic strategy was largely aimed at the British Isles and France.

[5][8] Violante's dowry was the enormous amount of 2 million golden florins, together with the fiefdoms of Alba, Mondovì, Cuneo, Cherasco, and Demonte.

English chroniclers, reporting the incredible success of Edward III's marriage policy, believed that Galeazzo II Visconti transferred half of his lands to his son-in-law.

[10] The 19th century historian Thomas Frederick Tout points out that Galeazzo II had no motive to kill his son-in-law, whose death led to the collapse of his ambitions.

[5] Unlike his brothers Edward the Black Prince, John of Gaunt and Thomas of Woodstock, Lionel did not play a particularly significant role in English political life.

In doing so, the Yorkists were able to present a senior claim to the English throne over the House of Lancaster, the descendants of another younger brother, John of Gaunt.

[5] Thanks to Lionel's dynastic connection with the House of York, the English chronicler John Hardyng not only came up with an idealized description of the duke's appearance, reporting that the prince was a man of great strength and beauty and had a tall stature —reportedly as nearly seven feet (210 cm)—,[16][17] but also suggested that marriage to a member of the House of Visconti could eventually make him King of Italy and even Holy Roman Emperor.