Clifford, Robert, first Lord Clifford (1274–1314), soldier and magnate, was born about the beginning of April 1274, the son of Roger de Clifford the younger
(d. 1282) and his wife, Isabella de Vieuxpont (d. 1291), coheir with her sister Idonea to the lordship of Westmorland.
The Cliffords had previously been a family powerful in the Anglo-Welsh marches. The Vieuxpont marriage led to their becoming
one of the most important northern baronial dynasties. Aged only eight when his father was killed in Wales, Robert Clifford's
wardship appears to have been granted to Edmund of Cornwall, the king's brother, but to have been effectively disposed of
by Robert's mother, who entrusted the upbringing of her son to Gilbert de Clare, earl of Gloucester (d. 1295); only
in 1291 did Edmund recover the custody. In 1294 Clifford was said to be in the king's wardship, and he was with Edward I in
Wales in the spring of 1295. He had livery of his estates on 3 May 1295, but was still trying to recover usurpations suffered
during his lengthy minority more than fifteen years later. The task was complicated by the demands of war and public office
in Scotland and the north of England, almost as soon as Clifford entered upon his inheritance. In 1296 he accompanied the
king to Scotland, and in July 1297 he was appointed captain of the king's castles in Cumberland. At the end of that year he
led a destructive raid into Annandale which defeated the local levies and burnt ten villages. In the following February another
raid left Annan in ashes.
On 22 July 1298 Clifford fought at Falkirk as a household banneret, and after the victory,
on 25 November, he was made captain and king's lieutenant in north-west England and in Scotland to the boundaries of Roxburghshire,
an office he still held in the following July. Nor was this the only responsibility entrusted to him, for on 7 July 1298 he
became keeper of Nottingham Castle and justice of the forests north of the Trent, positions he would occupy to the end of
the reign. As a reward for his labours, on 26 September 1298 Edward I granted Clifford Caerlaverock Castle and the lands of
Sir William Douglas, in the process initiating a feud between the Cliffords and the Douglases which would last for a century.
A series of personal summonses to parliament which began on 29 December 1299 has led to his being styled Lord Clifford. In
1300 he accompanied the king on the Caerlaverock campaign. He engaged himself to serve in Scotland over the winter of 1301–2,
and accompanied the king there in 1304, participating in a successful attack on the Scots near Peebles about 1 March. Later
that year he joined the forces of the prince of Wales, and with them took part in the siege of Stirling Castle. But though
he remained close to Prince Edward, who in August 1305 described him as ‘our dear and well loved knight’ (Letters of Edward, Prince of Wales, 92), he also continued to serve the king, on whose behalf he was keeper
of the see of Durham in 1302–3 and 1305–7, and by March 1306 he was back in Scotland, as keeper of Selkirk. Shortly
afterwards he was one of the English captains ordered to attack the rebellious Robert Bruce, and in February 1307 is recorded
as pursuing Robert in Galloway. He was unable, however, to prevent James Douglas from capturing Douglas Castle and massacring
the garrison that Clifford had placed in it.
Loyal and energetic service to Edward I did not hinder Clifford from safeguarding
and extending his own interests in the north of England. In May 1306 he was granted Hart and Hartlepool in the bishopric of
Durham, forfeited by Robert Bruce, and in February 1307 the king gave him lands in Cumberland forfeited by Sir Christopher
Seton. But Westmorland remained fundamental to his regional standing and authority, and he enhanced his position there by
adding to his estates (he acquired the manor of Brough Sowerby in 1298), by building up a loyal following among the gentry
of the region, several of whom served repeatedly under his leadership in Scotland, and by the prestige to be had from large-scale
architectural projects. In the years around 1300, possibly as a result of a visit in that year by Edward I and his court,
Clifford made substantial additions to Brougham Castle, finally gaining the seal of royal approval in the form of a licence
to crenellate in 1309.
Trusted by Edward I and close to Prince Edward, Clifford was one of four leading barons whom
the former on his deathbed is said to have begged to have the prince crowned as soon as possible, and to keep Piers Gaveston
out of England—‘and thai grantede him with god wille’ (Brut: England, 1.202–3).
Early in the new reign Clifford was appointed marshal of England, and presumably organized Edward II's coronation on 25 February
1308. He had already subscribed to the declaration issued by a number of barons at Boulogne on 31 January, undertaking to
preserve the rights of the crown, thereby suggesting his willingness to support the new king in the face of mounting baronial
discontent. On 12 March 1308 he was relieved simultaneously of the marshalcy, Nottingham Castle, and his forest justiceship,
but this can hardly be construed as resulting from loss of favour at court, for on 20 August he was appointed captain and
chief guardian of Scotland. On 13 October, moreover, it was ‘by the command of our lord the king’ (books of record,
2.66–7) that he concluded negotiations with his maternal aunt Idonea and her second husband, John Cromwell, which resulted
in his reuniting the lordship of Westmorland, divided since the mid-1260s. More probably Edward II had decided to build up
Clifford's position in the north of England, at a time when the English position in Scotland was coming under growing pressure.
It is likely to have been for the same reason that a sequence of three royal grants made between March and September 1310
gave him the castle and honour of Skipton in Craven in Yorkshire. He subsequently carried out important works on Skipton Castle.
That his daughter Idonea should have married Henry Percy, second Lord Percy, with whose father Clifford many times campaigned
against the Scots, is a pointer to the extent to which he came to identify himself with the nobility of northern England.
Clifford
served regularly in Scotland and on the Scottish borders in the early years of Edward II's reign. On 26 October 1309 he was
appointed keeper of the Carlisle march, and on 20 December following was ordered to act as warden of Scotland, with a force
of 100 men-at-arms and 300 foot soldiers. He had relinquished that office by 1 April 1310, but on 17 July received a protection
as he was about to set out for Scotland, and was said to have parleyed with King Robert at Selkirk in December. On 4 April
1311 he was appointed keeper of Scotland south of the Forth, with his headquarters at Berwick, and in November led a raid
upon the Scots in which eleven of his knights lost their horses. But he was increasingly distracted from his duties in the
north by his involvement in English politics, particularly as these were directed against Piers Gaveston. Clifford may have
been influenced in this by the grant to Gaveston of the honour of Penrith in December 1310, perhaps fearing that Gaveston
might become his rival for pre-eminence in north-west England. But as Gaveston had formerly held the more valuable lordship
of Skipton, subsequently granted to Clifford, the latter had arguably gained more from royal favour, and it is likely that
Clifford was moved principally by the general baronial hostility towards the favourite, and by his own undertaking to the
king's father. He was not one of the ordainers, and Edward II probably regarded him as basically well disposed; when Skipton
was resumed under the ordinances on 21 October 1311, it was restored to Clifford on 13 November following.
Nevertheless,
Clifford was active against Gaveston in 1312, holding the borders to prevent his seeking Scottish aid, and later besieging
him in Scarborough Castle. Though not involved in Gaveston's death, he appears to have taken some of the valuables that the
king and Gaveston abandoned in Newcastle—some jewels were later returned to Edward from Clifford's London house. Gaveston
was executed on 19 July 1312, and for over a year Clifford was continually active as an intermediary on behalf of the earls
of Lancaster and Warwick in their negotiations with the king, receiving a series of safe conducts and letters of protection.
On 14 October 1313 the barons responsible for Gaveston's death received pardons, and two days later Clifford himself obtained
a general pardon. Although the reconciliation between the king and his leading opponents was superficial, it allowed Edward
II to turn his attention to Scotland. Summoned to attend a muster at Berwick on 10 June 1314, Clifford took part in the campaign
that culminated in the battle of Bannockburn. On the day before the main engagement, he was one of two leaders of an English
force that tried to get behind the Scottish force drawn up in front of Stirling Castle, either to cut off its retreat or to
make contact with the castle garrison. But his men could not break the ranks of the enemy infantry, and were eventually scattered;
Clifford's own withdrawal was regarded by one chronicler as shameful—he had been ‘disgracefully routed’
(Vita Edwardi secundi, 51). Perhaps anxiety to recover his honour made him over-impetuous, for on
the following day, 24 June, he charged into action in the English vanguard and was killed.
The Scottish king demanded
no ransom for the return of Clifford's body, which was taken to Carlisle, and almost certainly interred at Shap Abbey, where
Clifford had founded a chantry for his parents. By 1295 he had married Maud, daughter of Thomas de Clare of Thomond, the brother
of the earl of Gloucester in whose household Clifford was brought up. The marriage brought the Cliffords Irish estates of
greater potential than actual value. Robert and Maud Clifford had two sons, Roger (d. 1322) and Robert (d. 1344),
both minors at their father's death. A daughter, Margaret (d. 1382), married
Peter (V) Mauley, third Lord Mauley [see under
Mauley family]. Roger Clifford became the ward of Sir Bartholomew Badlesmere, whose influence doubtless helped carry
him into opposition to the crown. A committed Lancastrian, in 1322 Roger fought in the baronial army at Boroughbridge, where
he was wounded and captured. He was hanged at York on 23 March. The Clifford estates, forfeited for Roger's treason, were
restored in 1327 to his brother Robert, with whose descendants the Clifford line continued. Maud Clifford, forcibly abducted
in 1315 by Jack the Irishman, the keeper of Barnard Castle, married Sir Robert Welle, one of her rescuers, and died in 1325.
Her first husband seems to have been widely trusted and admired. His martial prowess was acknowledged by the Scots: for John
Barbour he was ‘The lord clyffurd that wes so stout’ (Barbour, 1.277). And the Song of Caerlaverock
(admittedly a work that Clifford may have sponsored himself) praises his wisdom and prudence, describes his ‘much honoured
banner’, and declares that ‘If I were a young maiden I would give him my heart and person, so good is his fame’
(Roll of Caerlaverock, 12).
Henry Summerson
Sources
Cumbria AS, Kendal, WD/Hoth/Books of record, 2.23–143 · Cumbria AS, Kendal, WD/Hoth/A988/11,
31, 33, 59 · V. J. C. Reer, ‘The Clifford family in the later middle ages, 1259–1461’, MLitt diss., University
of Lancaster, 1973, 30–58 · Chancery records · RotS, vol. 1 · CDS, vols. 2–3, 5 · exchequer, king's remembrancer, inquisitions post mortem, PRO, E 149/1 no. 27(2) · GEC, Peerage, new edn, 3.290–91 · CIPM, 5, nos. 533, 561 · F. W. D. Brie, ed., The Brut, or, The chronicles of England, 2 vols., EETS, 131, 136 (1906–8), vol. 1, pp. 202–3 · N. Denholm-Young, ed. and trans., Vita Edwardi
secundi (1957) · J. Stevenson, ed., Documents illustrative of the history of Scotland, 2 (1870) · Thomae Walsingham,
quondam monachi S. Albani, historia Anglicana, ed. H. T. Riley, 2 vols., pt 1 of Chronica monasterii S. Albani,
Rolls Series, 28 (1863–4), vol. 1, pp. 141–2 · The roll of Caerlaverock, ed. T. Wright (1864) · J. Barbour,
The Bruce, ed. W. W. Skeat, 2 vols., EETS, extra ser., 11, 21 (1870–79) · The chronicle of Walter of Guisborough, ed. H. Rothwell,
CS, 3rd ser., 89 (1957) · F. Palgrave, ed., The parliamentary writs and writs of military summons,
2 vols. in 4 (1827–34), vol. 1/2, p. 536; vol. 2/3, pp. 687–8 · E. B. Fryde, ed., Book of prests of the king's
wardrobe for 1294–5 (1962) · Letters of Edward, prince of Wales, 1304–1305, ed. H. Johnstone, Roxburghe
Club, 193 (1931) · G. W. S. Barrow, Robert Bruce and the community of the realm of Scotland, 3rd edn (1988) · N. Denholm-Young,
History and heraldry, 1254 to 1310 (1965) · J. R. S. Phillips, Aymer de Valence, earl of Pembroke, 1307–1324:
baronial politics in the reign of Edward II (1972) · J. R. Maddicott, Thomas of Lancaster, 1307–1322:
a study in the reign of Edward II (1970) · M. Prestwich, Armies and warfare in the middle ages (1966), 44 · H.
Summerson, M. Trueman, and S. Harrison, Brougham Castle, Cumbria (1998)
Archives
Cumbria AS, Kendal, WD/Hoth
Wealth at death
lands in Yorkshire, Durham, and Westmorland: CIPM
A Tour In Westmorland by Sir Clement Jones, published 1948
CHAPTER IV
LADY ANNE CLIFFORD
HER PARENTS - HER HUSBANDS - HER CHILDREN
HER CHARITIES - HER LOVE OF WESTMORLAND
In the previous chapter I have mentioned two of the leading families of Westmorland in mediaeval
times, namely, the Whartons and the Musgraves, and I propose now to write about the third great family who lived and whose
descendants still live in the Bottom of Westmorland, where for many generations under three names - Veteripont, Clifford and
Tufton - they have been by far the largest land-owners in that district.
Was it W.S. Gilbert who, when describing the property of one of the newly rich, said it
had "been in the family fourteen years"? The Veteripont estates have been in the family over 700 years, for it was in 1203
that Robert de Vipont was granted the barony of Westmorland, which passed in 1274 to the Cliffords, and it was therefore rather
sad to read in the Westmorland Gazette1 that Lord Hothfield, the present head of the Tufton
family, had decided to offer for sale a large part of his property, including the Brough Castle estate. The last and surely
the most interesting of all the Cliffords was the Lady Anne who by her force of character and indomitable pluck left a mark
on her property and a legend in Westmorland that remain to this day.
Anne Clifford, Countess of Dorset, Pembroke and Montgomery (1590-1676), was the only surviving
child of George Clifford, 3rd Earl of Cumberland, by his wife Lady Margaret Russell, 3rd daughter of Francis, 2nd Earl of
Bedford. She was born at Skipton Castle, Yorkshire, on 30th January, 1590. In studying the character of this remarkable woman
it is necessary first to learn something about her parents.
Her father, George, 3rd Earl of Cumberland, was born in 1558 at Brougham Castle in Westmorland.2 His father died in 1570, before he was 12 years of age, so that he became ward to Queen Elizabeth during his minority,
which wardship she bestowed on Francis, Earl of Bedford. He then made his home at Chenies or Woburn, and in 1571, at the age
of 13, was entered as a nobleman at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he remained in residence for three years. He afterwards
studied some time at Oxford, under the tuition of Dr. Whitgift, later Archbishop of Canterbury, where he applied himself more
especially to mathematics and geography which stood him in good stead when he became a naval commander. In 1577, when he was
just under the age of 19, he married Margaret Russell, the daughter of his guardian. This marriage (which may seem to modern
readers to have an "Iolanthe" air about it) had been arranged in their infancy by their respective fathers, but it did not
prove a happy one. Cumberland was a man of irregular life; he had an intrigue with a certain court lady which led to his separation
from his wife; he was a gambler and ran through a great part of his property; and so he seized on the opportunity offered
by the war with Spain to re-establish himself.
His first expedition was in 1586 against the Duke of Parma. He fitted out a little fleet of
three ships and a pinnace, and, after a cruise which lasted a year and extended beyond the mouth of the River Plate, returned
in September, 1587, without much success to repay the cost which he had borne at his own expense. In 1588, at the age of 30,
he commanded the "Elizabeth Bonaventure," a Queen's ship of 600 tons, against the Spanish Armada and, after the decisive action
off Gravelines, carried the news of the victory to the camp at Tilbury. The reports of his gallantry so pleased the Queen
that she lent him the "Golden Lion," a ship of 500 tons with which to undertake another expedition to the South Sea. The next
year she lent him the "Victory" in which, with six other ships all equipped by him, he put out to sea from Plymouth; he luckily
fell in with Sir Francis Drake's squadron returning from Cadiz in extreme want of provisions which he relieved and proceeded
on his way.
So it went on, year after year, voyage after voyage, until in 1597 he undertook the last and
the most considerable of all his expeditions fitting out no fewer than 20 ships, almost all at his own cost. He attacked Porto
Rico and was successful in taking the town of San Juan. Here he proposed to clear out the Spaniards and establish an English
settlement but later, after sickness had broken out among the troops, he decided to abandon the place and returned to England
in 1598. He had made his reputation, but he had lost his fortune.
I have purposely laid stress on this seafaring side of his life, because it was here that
he displayed so conspicuously those same qualities of courage in times of difficulty, which we shall notice in the character
of his daughter Anne. For the rest he was a reckless spendthrift, a faithless husband, a buccaneer, a gambler, who staked
his money on the success of his ships in much the same spirit as he did on the speed of his horses; he was a man of great
quickness of wit, activity of body and easy-going disposition. He was in fact just the man for Queen Elizabeth. She made him
a Knight of the Garter and he was her champion in all the tilting from 1589 until the time of her death. In that exercise
he is said to have excelled all the nobles of his time. At court he was in such high favour with the Queen that she gave him
her glove, set in diamonds, to wear as a plume in his hat. He was so much addicted to tilting, horse-racing and other expensive
recreations that these, next to his sea voyages, were the main causes of his getting into debt and having to sell some of
his lands.As to his appearance, he is described as a man of great personal beauty, strong and active, and splendid in his
dress. On these matters we can all judge for ourselves by going to see his portrait by Nicholas Hilliard (1547-1619) in the
Exhibition of Elizabethan Miniatures now3 on view at the Victoria and Albert Museum.
This exhibition, to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the birth of Hilliard, contains
several miniatures of great interest to anyone who is studying the life and character of Anne Clifford, because first there
is one called "Anne Clifford, Countess of Pembroke, attributed to Nicholas Hilliard" lent by H.M. the King; secondly there
are three miniatures of George, Earl of Cumberland, her father, by Hilliard; thirdly there is one of her first husband Richard,
Earl of Dorset, by Isaac Oliver. There are plates of all these in the illustrated catalogue. The full-length figure of Anne's
father, lent by the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, has been described as "one of the largest and most celebrated and
picturesque of Hilliard's works." The earl is painted in the fancy dress of the Queen's Champion and he is wearing the Queen's
glove in his hat. The distant landscape behind him is adapted from the stock scenery used by Durer in his backgrounds.4 It is a striking portrait of a magnificent specimen of a man posing in his plumed hat, lance in hand, in full war-paint
of the tournament; but all the fine feathers do not make him look a nice bird to live with in the nest. He died in London
in 1605, in the 48th year of his age, and was buried in the family vault at Skipton. His wife who had been separated from
him for several years, on account of his intrigues, came with her daughter to see him before he died and was present at his
death.
Such was the father of Anne Clifford. What of her mother? We have seen that she was a daughter
of Francis Russell, Earl of Bedford, and that her marriage, which was arranged for her in her infancy, proved unhappy. The
highest praise must be given her for the pains she took in educating her daughter Anne for her high station. She engaged Samuel
Daniel, the poet (1562-1619), as tutor, and in that capacity he came to reside at Skipton and gave Anne lessons when she was
in her 11th year. After her husband's death, Anne's mother was closely occupied during the next few years in collecting documents
in support of the claim of her daughter to the family estates which her husband, by a will dated only 11 days before his death,
had left to his brother Francis and his heirs male "for the preservation of his name and family," thus cutting off an entail
of the estate which had been made by his father.
Here were all the makings of a first-class row. Continual lawsuits were waged by the mother
on behalf of the daughter. In 1607 they were both denied entrance to Skipton. So it went on until 1616 when the dowager countess
died at Brougham Castle in Westmorland, leaving the great lawsuit still unsettled. Her daughter was present at her burial
which took place in Appleby Church where her monument may still be seen. The Countess Margaret seems to have been an affectionate
mother. Her daughter Anne describes her as a "woman of great natural with and judgment, of a sweet disposition truly religious
and virtuous, and endowed with a large share of those four moral virtues - prudence, justice, fortitude and temperance."
In addition to the altar-tomb of black marble and alabaster in Appleby Church there is
another monument to the Countess Margaret. It is called "The Countess's Pillar" and stands by the side of the main road from
Penrith to Temple Sowerby about half a mile from Brougham Castle. It was erected in 1656 to commemorate the last parting between
Lady Anne Clifford and her mother. It stands about 14 feet high and is an octagonal shaft with square facings above; the sides
of the square portion bear sundials and two shields of arms (Clifford impaling Vipont, and Clifford impaling Russell) and
the following inscription: "This pillar was erected Anno 1656 by the Hon. Anne, Countess Dowager of Pembroke, and daughter
and sole heir of the Rt. Hon. George, Earl of Cumberland, and for a memorial of her last parting in this place with her good
and pious mother, the Rt. Hon. Margaret, Countess Dowager of Cumberland, the 2nd of April, 1616. In memory whereof she also
left an annuity of four pounds to be distributed to the poor within the parish of Brougham every 2nd day of April for ever,
upon the stone table here hard by." The stone table referred to is a flat slab about three yards to the east of the pillar.5
Having now seen something of how her parents spent their time we must return to Anne herself.
After her father's death in 1605 and for the rest of her life, until she died in 1676 in the 87th year of her age, Anne's
time was mainly occupied with her lawsuits, her marriages, and her building operations. To say that all of these "dragged
on" slowly and tediously is not, I think, to use too strong a phrase. 
First as to her legal difficulties, by the advice and under the direction of her mother, Anne,
in 1605, contested the settlement which her father had made in favour of his brother Francis; she grounded her claim on the
entail by King John upon Robert de Veteripont from whom she was descended. We must therefore now do what she did and look
back to the origin of this great Westmorland property and see when and how the Cliffords came into it. Briefly the barony
of Westmorland, as it was called, consisting of the honours of Appleby and all the subordinate manors, after the Conquest
was in the possession of a family called de Morville of Norman extraction. Hugh de Morville was one of the four knights who
assassinated Thomas a Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, in the reign of Henry II. Whereupon Hugh's estates in Westmorland
were seized into the King's hands and were subsequently granted by King John to Robert de Veteripont. That family ended in
two daughters of whom the elder, Isabella, married Roger de Clifford, took the manor of Brougham, a moiety of other manors,
and executed the office of sheriff. Her younger sister, Idonea, who also had a large share of the estates, married, but died
without issue, and thus the whole Veteripont inheritance became vested in the heirs of Isabella and Roger de Clifford. He
was descended from the family of the Cliffords of Clifford Castle in the county of Hereford, which was so called from being
placed on a rock or cliff near a ford across the river Wye. There followed 12 generations of Cliffords in Westmorland until
we come to Anne, the 13th generation.
Having chosen her ground for the lawsuit she proceeded to the fight with an undaunted
spirit, worthy of her gallant, sea-roving father, and a stubborn tenacity, where her possessions were concerned, that was
all her own. Unfortunately for her the King, James I, was in favour of her uncle Francis, the new earl, and, in order to strengthen
the earl's title, he granted to Francis his heirs and assigns to the effect following6 to wit: "All our castles, demesnes, and manors of Appleby and Burgh and also the whole bailiwick or office
of sheriff of the county of Westmorland, and the rents of the county of Westmorland aforesaid and the services of all our
tenants within the same county who do not hold of us by knight's service; and all that whole estate whatsoever which the said
Francis's ancestors had held in the counties of Westmorland and York." The King also took the trouble to get himself made
arbitrator of these differences, so great was his interest in the case. During the course of this litigation, as though she
had not enough on her hands already, Anne chose to get married to her first husband. Her choice, which proved to be a poor
one, was Richard Sackville, Lord Buckhurst, who, within two days of the marriage, succeeded as 3rd Earl of Dorset. He and
Anne's uncle Francis both agreed to accept the King's arbitration. Whereupon the King forthwith proceeded to make an award
greatly in Anne's disfavour. At once the fat was in the fire. Anne would have none of it. Everything was tried to persuade
her to agree to arbitration and everything failed. In her diary she mentions a family gathering in the gallery at Dorset House
at which the Archbishop of Canterbury was present: "the archbishop took me aside and talked with me privately for one and
a half hours, and pressed me both by divine and human means to set my hand to their agreement."  So finally, since everybody else had failed to persuade her to sign away her inheritance, she was
summoned with her husband to a private audience with the King. A great scene followed in the royal presence in which King
James tried to force her to accept £10.000 from the Earl of Cumberland in lieu of which she would forego all her right and
future claim to the inheritance of her father. This she absolutely refused to do, nor could she be induced to agree to it
by any threats of persuasions. The King then implored her to put the whole matter in his hands, "but I beseeched His Majesty
to pardon for that I would never part with Westmorland while I lived, upon any condition whatever." Two days later she was
summoned again into the King's presence and, before the Lord Chief Justice, was asked once more to submit to arbitration.
Again both her husband and uncle agreed to the plan, "but I would never agree to it without Westmorland." The end of the matter
was that as she would not come to an agreement the law officers went ahead without her. The King's award was confirmed in
the court of Chancery and judgment was given against her in the same year "in the court at York for the northern parts." Thus
it was that her uncle Francis, 4th Earl of Cumberland, obtained possession of the estate which he and his son, Henry, enjoyed
until the death of the son without male issue in 1643, when at last Anne came into the property under the provisions of her
father's will.
In the meantime, while the legal disputes were dragging on, Anne had married and started
her family. She married in 1609 at the age of nineteen. It was not a happy marriage and little love was lost between them.
He was gay and she was serious; moreover the quarrel over her inheritance, in which, as we have seen, he sided against her,
was a constant cause of friction and trouble. Dorset had the appearance of what used to be called a spark. I have already
mentioned his miniature, painted by Oliver, in the Victoria and Albert Museum. The catalogue of that exhibition quotes a contemporary
description of Dorset as "a man of spirit and talent, but a licentious spendthrift." In an illustrated article about this
exhibition written by Denys Sutton in Country Life,7 there is a reproduction of this particular
miniature as to which the writer says with point that the "portrait of Richard Sackville, 3rd Earl of Dorset, fits the contemporary
description of him." Carl Winter refers to it in his "King Penguin" book as one of Oliver's largest and most imposing miniatures
reflecting the fashionable style of oilpaintings of Marcus Gheeraets, the younger.
Anne bore Dorset three sons who died in infancy, and two daughters of whom Margaret, the elder,
married John Tufton, Earl of Thanet, and ultimately inherited the Westmorland property. Life with Dorset dragged on; a good
deal of temper was shown on both sides. On one occasion the earl and countess started from London to go to Brougham Castle
to see Anne's mother. They travelled in some style with two four-horse coaches and 26 horsemen. But they quarrelled at Lichfield
and Lord Dorset turned back. Anne went on, with ten persons and 13 horses, and hardly had she arrived at Brougham when a letter
came from the angry husband to say that the men and horses were return at once. Anne decided that it would be wiser for her
to go with them, so taking leave of her mother at the spot now marked by the Countess's Pillar near Brougham, she returned
to her bad-tempered husband. After 15 years this unhappy marriage came to an end with the death of Lord Dorset in 1624. Anne
was left a widow with two daughters.
 Shortly afterwards she had a sever attack of smallpox "which disease did so martyr my face that it
confirmed more and more my mind not to marry again." Why, with the memory of her father and her first husband and their goings-on,
she should have even contemplated another marriage, may seem strange; nevertheless, six years later she was married to her
second husband, Philip Herbert, 4th Earl of Pembroke and Montgomery, on 3rd June, 1630, at Chenies in Buckinghamshire. They
had two sons who died soon after they were born. Pembroke is said to have been a handsome young man - the same was true of
Anne's father and first husband and perhaps that was her type - and in the early part of James I's reign he was acknowledged
to be the chief of the royal favourites; he was made a Knight of the Garter; High Steward of Oxford University; a privy councillor;
and later, in 1626, Lord Chamberlain of the Household. But his character was thoroughly unpleasant. Pennant refers to him
as "that brutal simpleton"; the Dictionary of National Biography says that his domestic arrangements were much complicated
by his immorality; and we have a first-hand description of him written by a man called George Sedgwick who served under him
as paymaster of the regiment raised by Pembroke in the service of Charles I.
Sedgwick was a native of Westmorland who, after some years at Sedbergh School, was sent to Cambridge;
but being unable to support himself at the university went up to London and waited on Anne, who was now Lady Pembroke. Luckily,
Sedgwick had in his possession a letter written to his grandfather by Margaret, Countess of Cumberland. Needless to say, "as
soon as Lady Pembroke saw that letter of her dear mother, who she loved with an entire affection" she sent at once for one
of her lord's secretaries and got Sedgwick a job as a young clerk in the Lord Chamberlain's office. Afterwards, when Pembroke
had fallen from power and been dismissed from the office of the Lord Chamberlain and had identified himself with the parliamentary
opposition, Sedgwick remained on in his employment dealing with his private affairs and estate, and in this way got to know
him very well. "Though he had £18,000 a year," writes Sedgwick, "yet through the vast charge in keeping hounds, hawks and
hunting-horses he died £55,000 in debt. This Earl Philip could scarce either write or read; not that he wanted good breeding
and education, but he would never be brought to mind his book, being addicted to all manner of sports and recreations. He
was very temperate in eating and drinking, but much given to women, which caused a separation between him and his virtuous
Lady Anne several years before his death." Sedgwick, in another part of his manuscript, writes "In her first widowhood (as
I have heard her say) she resolved, if God ordained a second marriage for her, never to have one that had children and was
a courtier, a curser and swearer. And it was her fortune to light on one with all these qualifications in the extreme." Poor
Anne! She was well aware how unlucky she had been and in later life, when the wounds had healed, she wrote of her two husbands:
"These two lords were, in their several kinds, as worthy noblemen as any in the kingdom; yet it was my misfortune to have
crosses and contradictions with them both. So the marble pillars of Knole in Kent and Wilton in Wiltshire were to me but gay
arbours of anguish."
Her second husband died in 1649 and at long last she was free to return to the North Country
where she had always wished to be. Here she lived for the next 26 years, until her death in 1676 at the age of 86, in honour
and prosperity, loved, and perhaps feared by some on account of her strength of will, the uncrowned queen of North Westmorland.
Freed at last from the worries and anxieties of lawsuits and husbands, she was able to enjoy her position and possessions.
Westmoreland is a county that has been fortunate in her daughters. In our earliest history lessons
we were told of the good qualities of Catherine Parr, who was born at Kendal Castle and was the only lucky wife of Henry VIII
in that she had the good fortune to outlive him. And in recent times we have seen women who, by their own gifts and energy,
have rendered great service in music, in literature, in art, on the magistrates' bench, in hospitals and all good causes.
Their good influence and their names have been known from one end of the county to the other. The place and power of Anne
Clifford was perhaps different from and greater than any of her successors, by reason of her immense wealth and her hereditary,
permanent office of High Sheriffess of the county of Westmorland.
On her arrival in the north, Anne started at once to rebuild or repair six of her ancient castles:
Appleby, Brougham, Brough and Pendragon in Westmorland; Skipton Castle and the tower of Barden in Yorkshire. "Her passion,"
writes the author of her biography in the National Dictionary, "for bricks and mortar was immense." This, however, must be
taken metaphorically not literally, for though I have seen a great deal of her work I do not think she ever put one brick
upon another. Elsewhere, all over England, builders were using new and more graceful designs and materials, but Anne in her
rebuilding kept to the old strong, stone structures. She restored no less than seven churches or chapels - the churches of
Skipton, Appleby and Bongate and the chapels of Brougham, Nine Kirks, Mallerstand and Barden. She founded the almshouses which
we can see to-day at Appleby, and restored the one which had been built and endowed by her mother at Bethmesley. It was her
custom to reside at fixed times at each of her six castles. "She lived in vast hospitality," writes Pennant, "at all her castles
by turns, on the motive of dispensing her charity in rotation among the poor of her estates." Sedgwick records that she continued
"a year or two in Yorkshire and a year or two in Westmorland, to the great benefit of both counties, expending the rents that
she had in these counties." Her journeys from one place to another were like royal progresses; she travelled in a horse-litter,
and often took new and bad roads from castle to castle in order to find a reason for spending money among the indigent by
employing them in the repairs.
"One strange and unexampled piece of charity she did," writes Sedgwick, "which few ladies would
have done. Her husband, the Earl of Dorset, had two bastard daughters; one died in her minority, the other she married to
one Mr. Belgrave, a divine, bestowed a portion on her, and preferred him to a living in her gift in Susses, worth £140 a year."
Among her smaller "pieces of charity" it was her habit, when she went to stay with friends,
to give them door-locks,made for her by George Dent of Appleby, at a cost of £1 each. One of these she gave to George Sedgwick
when she visited him at Collinfield, Kendal, and it is still there. Another of these door-locks, dated 1670, is at Great Asby
Rectory, bearing her initials, A.P.
But though generous to her friends and dependents she was frugal in her personal expenses, dressing,
after her second widowhood, in black serge, living abstemiously, and pleasantly boasting that "she never tasted wine or physic."
In whatever castle she happened to be living, every Monday morning, she caused ten shillings to be distributed among twenty
poor householders of that place, besides the daily alms that she gave at her gate to all that came.
All the groceries, spices, stuffs, and the like that were used in her house, all wines, malt,
hay, corn and straw for her stables, she bought locally from neighbours and tenants, always paying in cash when they came
for it. Seldom did she get anything from London, as she wished the country people to benefit. How different from a family
that I remember reading about in a novel when I was young! "They had a house in the country," wrote the novelist, "where they
knew nobody, and had their friends down from London with the fish." The methods pursued by Anne seem to have been the exact
opposite, her maxim being local labour, local materials and local friends.
In writing about the building activities of Anne Clifford, some mention must be made of her
steward, Gabriel Vincent. He died in 1665 in Brough Castle, and his tombstone may be seen to-day in Brough Church. It is a
flat stone on the floor, between the pulpit and the front pew, partly covered by an ugly but no doubt necessary radiator.
The inscription on it records that it is in memory of "Gabriel Vincent, Steward to the Right Hon: Anne Clifford, Countess
Dowager of Pembroke, Dorset and Montgomery, Chief Director of all her buildings in the North, who died in the Roman Tower
of Brough Castle like a good Christian 12 Feb. 1665, looking for the Second Coming of Our Saviour."
Anne was devoted to the Church and helped many clergy with her bounty; she was well versed in
the Scriptures which she was able to quote on occasion. She constantly read the Psalms appointed for the day and had three
or four chapters of the Bible read to her daily by some of her women. She was a careful student of history and had a good
library of well-chosen books. She kept her accounts most exactly. Besides which, Sedgwick informs us, she kept, in a large
folio paper book, a diary wherein she had entered the occurrences of each day and the names of all strangers that came to
her house whether on visits or on business.
And so she died in a good old age leaving behind her a happy memory and a legend that has lasted
to this day.
Two stories are still told about her. The first is this: The Secretary of State to Charles II
wrote to her, naming a candidate for her pocket borough of Appleby. To this she replied: I have been bullied by an usurper,
I have been neglected by a court, but I will not be dictated to by a subject; your man shan't stand."
The second story is that when she was invited to come to the court of Charles II she answered
that she could not possibly attend His Majesty's Court, unless she came in blinkers.
That these two stories may not be genuine does not perhaps matter so much as the fact that they
were recognised by those who knew her as characteristic of herself, and they have been handed down from her time to ours as
illustrations of her independent spirit. No-one can doubt her strength of will. To-day she would probably be regarded as "a
very bossing sort of woman," but we must remember that she had suffered much and must be forgiven much on account of her abiding
love of Westmorland and for all that she did for that county.
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