Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 11.djvu/84

 the northern counties for the relief of Calais; and again in 1454. About the same time he was sheriff of Westmoreland, and in this capacity was bidden to lend assistance to the Duke of York (Privy Council Acts, vi. 119, 177). Several years previously (1435) his name occurs as being a member of the Duke of Bedford's retinue in France, and again (c. 1439) as defending Pontoise against the French king. He was slain in the battle of St. Albans (1455), where his body was afterwards buried in the Virgin's chapel by the abbot (Register of J. Whethamstede, i. 176). His wife, according to Dugdale, was a daughter of Thomas, lord Dacres of Gillesland; by her he had four sons — John, his successor [q. v.]; Sir Roger Clifford; Sir Thomas Clifford (one of Henry VIII's councillors); and Robert Clifford, who was concerned in Perkin Warbeck's rebellion. He had also five daughters. [Dugdale's Baronage, i. 342-3; Nicolas's Historic Peerage, ed. Courthope, p. 112; Rymer's Fœdera, xi; Nicolas's Acts and Proceedings of the Privy Council, vols. iii. iv. vi.; Registrum Johannis Whethamstede, ed. Riley (Rolls Series), i. 176, 393; Polydore Vergil, ed. Ellis (Camden Society), ii. 65; Paston Letters, ed. Gairdner (Arber's Reprints), i. 264, &c.]  CLIFFORD, THOMAS, first (1630–1673), was born at Ugbrooke, near Exeter, on 1 Aug. 1630. He was the son of Hugh Clifford, who commanded a regiment of foot in Charles I's campaign of 1639 against the Scotch, and of Mary, daughter of Sir George Chudleigh of Ashton, Devonshire. On 25 May 1647 he was entered at Exeter College, Oxford, where he remained until 1650, when he 'did supplicate for the degree of batchelor of arts.' He appears to have had great natural parts, and to have been accomplished, but was 'accounted by his contemporaries as a young man of a very unsettled head, or of a roving, shattered brain' (Athenæ Oxon.) Upon leaving college he became a student at the Middle Temple, and afterwards travelled (, Worthies of Devon, p. 222). In the Convention parlia- ment he was elected for Totnes, and subsequently for the same place in the Pensionary parliament, which met on 8 May 1661. There is no record in the 'Parliamentary History' of his speeches in the house for some years, though apparently Clarendon includes him in the number of those young men 'who spake confidently and often' (Life, i. 615, Clar. Press edit.), and Prince speaks of him as a frequent and celebrated speaker, at first against the royal prerogative. If Burnet, who is inaccurate in several points regarding Clifford, is correct in this, he applied to Clarendon for his patronage on entering parliament. Clarendon, however, it is stated, aware that he was a catholic, and had indeed been one previous to the Restoration, rejected his advances (, i. 225), and he thereupon joined the party of Bennet, afterwards Lord Arlington, who was intriguing against Clarendon, and endeavouring to secure influence at court by forming a party in the commons of 'king's friends.' Clifford was among the first. His fortune was very small — Pepys speaks of him as of 'about seven score pounds a year' —and he evidently regarded this as the most promising manner of making his way. This was in 1663. Clarendon, it should be observed, nowhere mentions a previous application to himself, nor does Evelyn, in his final notice of Clifford, on 18 Aug. 1673 (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1663). On 16 Feb. 1663 Clifford received the gift of the first reversion of a tellership of the exchequer, and upon the breaking out of the Dutch war in 1664 was, with Evelyn and two others, appointed commissioner for the care of the sick and wounded and prisoners of war, a salary of 1,200l. a year being attached to the commission (, 27 Oct. 1664). On 18 Jan. 1665 he was made one of the commissioners for managing the estates of the Duke of Monmouth during his minority (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1664-5). In March, however, he joined the fleet, and having been previously knighted, took part under the Duke of York in the great battle of 3 June 1665. On 28 June the prize-ship Patriarch Isaac was bestowed upon him in reward for his constant service in the disposal of ships, preventing embezzlements, &c. In the beginning of August he was prominently engaged (, i. 223) under the Earl of Sandwich, apparently as captain of the Revenge (Hist. MSS. Comm. 4th Rep. 230), in the abortive attempt to capture the Dutch East India fleet in the harbour of Bergen, a 'heady expedition,' in which he appears to have acted against Sandwich's instructions (, 31 May 1672), and of which, on 17 Aug., he sends a long account to Arlington (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1664-5). These reports from Clifford to Arlington are frequent, and it is evident that he joined the fleet as Arlington's confidential agent. His advancement, which was effected by that minister 'to the great astonishment of the court,' was now rapid; and immediately after the affair at Bergen (29 Aug.) he was appointed to join Henry Coventry as ambassador extraordinary to the king of Denmark, to settle disputed questions of commerce and navigation (ib. 2 Sept.; Hist. MSS. Comm. 