Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 11.djvu/69

Clifford to make a final award (26 Feb. and 2 April) (State Doc. iii. 241, Nos. 2667, 2995, iv. 4419-21, &c.) In 1533 he had a similar dispute with the young Duke of Richmond, relative to his right to hold a sheriff's tourn in Kendal. In May and June 1534 he was engaged in the inquiry into Lord Caere's treason, and on 27 Oct. is again found ruling the borders in quiet (cf., i. 344). A year later he had charge of the privy seal (3 April 1335), 'because none of the king's council would receive it.' Three weeks after this he was one of the Middlesex commissioners, 'oyer et terminer,' for the trial of the prior of the Charterhouse, Bishop Fisher of Rochester, and Sir Thomas More (dated 1 and 26 June) (ib. vols. v. vii. viii.)

In the summer of 1525 Henry VIII made his illegitimate son Henry Blount Duke of Richmond and Somerset. On this occasion Clifford was created Earl of Cumberland (18 June), when Anne Boleyn's father was made Viscount Rochford (, 703; Cal. of State Doc. iv. pt. iii. 1431). Seven years later he was made a knight of the Garter (, 344). He was also governor of the town and castle of Carlisle and president of the council of the north (ib.)

In the political and religious troubles of the age he seems to have adhered to the king. Thus he is found signing the July letter of 1530, begging Clement VII to sanction the Mng's divorce (Cal. of State Doc. iv. No. 6513). In 1534 he was sent to search Bishop Tunstall's house at Auckland for a copy of that prelate's treatise, 'De Differentia Regiæ et Ecclesiasticæ Potestatis' (ib. v. 986). At the time of Aske's rebellion his was one of the three great families of the north that remained faithful to the crown, though Robert Aske was a distant relative of his own. The earl had hard work to hold his castle of Skipton (October 1536), weakened as it was by wholesale desertion, against the rebels' siege: and Mr. Froude tells the romantic story that his eldest son's wife, Lady Eleanor Clifford, and her infant children were rescued from the extremest danger at Bolton Abbey, and carried safely into Skipton Castle through the very heart of the besieging host, by the chivalrous courage of Robert Aske's brother Christopher (, ii. 552-4, 562; cf., 335). In reward for his devotion the earl received several manors that had belonged to the dissolved monasteries, notably the site of Bolton Abbey (, i. 344), together with the Skipton possessions of this foundation. His second marriage brought him the whole Percy fee in the same district, and thus made the Clifford family lords of almost all Craven (, 335). He died on 22 April 1542 (1543?), and was buried at Appleby or Skipton (ib. 336; cf., i. 340). He married, first, Margaret, daughter of George Talbot, fourth earl of Shrewsbury; secondly, Margaret, daughter of Henry Percy, fifth earl of Northumberland. By his first wife, who must have died before 1517, he had no issue. By his second he had, second earl of Cumberland [q. v.], his son and successor, Sir Ingram Clifford, knt. (d. s.p.), and four daughters.



CLIFFORD, HENRY, second , sixteenth , twelfth , and third (d. 1570), was the eldest son of , first earl of Cumberland [q. v.], by Margaret, daughter of Henry Percy, fifth earl of Northumberland. He succeeded to his father's titles in April 1542. He was made a knight of the Bath at the time of Anne Boleyn's coronation, on which occasion he is styled 'Lorde Clyfforde' (30-31 May 1533) (, 799). In 1537 he married Eleanor Brandon, daughter of Charles Brandon [q. v.], duke of Suffolk The expenses of this alliance seriously impoverished his estate, and obliged him to alienate 'the great manor of Temedbury, co. Herreford, the oldest estate then remaining in the family.' On the death of his first wife he retired to the country, and succeeded in increasing his paternal inheritance. Whitaker tells a curious story, from the family manuscripts at Appleby: that he was on one occasion, while in a trance, laid out and covered with a hearse-cloth ready for burial. He slowly recovered, after having for a month or more been fed with milk from a woman's breast. He is said to have been a strong man in later life (, 336-8;, 344-5).

After his retirement in 1547 he is said to have visited the court only thrice: at Queen Mary's coronation, on his daughter's marriage, and again soon after Queen Elizabeth's accession (, 338). In July 1561 he and Lord Dacre, his father-in-law, were accused of protecting the popish priests in the north. A similar charge was advanced in