by King Edward in 1472. It may be that he deliberately avoided attracting Yorkist attention in his early years, although probably not to the extent portrayed in the local mythology.
The Yorkist regime came to an end in 1485 with the invasion of
North of England for him, and Clifford's career as a loyal Tudor servant began. Soon after Bosworth, the King gave him responsibility for crushing the last remnants of rebellion in the north. Clifford was not always successful in this, and his actions were not always popular. On more than one occasion, he found himself at loggerheads with the city of York
, the civic leadership of which was particularly independently minded. When another Yorkist rebellion broke out in 1487, Clifford suffered an embarrassing military defeat by the rebels outside the city walls. Generally, however, royal service was extremely profitable for him: King Henry needed trustworthy men in the region and was willing to build up their authority in order to protect his own.
Although Clifford's later years were devoted to service in the north and fighting the Scots (he took part in the decisive English victory at Flodden in 1513) he fell out with the King on numerous occasions. Clifford was not an easy-going personality; his abrasiveness caused trouble with his neighbours, occasionally breaking out in violent feuds. This was not the behaviour the King expected from his lords. Furthermore, Clifford had married a cousin of the King, yet Clifford's infidelity to her was notorious among his contemporaries. This also drew the King's ire, to the extent that the couple's separation was mooted. Clifford's first wife had died by 1511, and Clifford remarried. This was also a tempestuous match, and on one occasion he and his wife ended up in court accusing each other of adultery. Clifford's relations with his eldest son and heir, the eventual Henry Clifford, 1st Earl of Cumberland, were equally turbulent. Clifford rarely attended the royal court himself, but sent his son to be raised with the King's heir, Prince Arthur. Clifford later complained that young Henry not only lived above his station, he consorted with men of bad influence; Clifford also accused his son of regularly beating up his father's servants on his return to Yorkshire.
Clifford outlived the King and attended the coronation of
HenryVIII in 1509. While continuing to serve as the King's man in the north, Clifford carried on his feuds with the local gentry. He also indulged his interests in astronomy, for which he built a small castle
for observation purposes. Clifford grew ill in 1522 and died in April of the following year; his widow later remarried. Young Henry inherited the title as 11th Baron Clifford as well as a large fortune and estate, the result of his father's policy of frugality and avoiding the royal court for most of his life.
Richard, Duke of York, who had claimed the throne in 1460.[6]
These engagements became increasingly bloody, comments the author Robin Neillands, "either in the actual battle or the subsequent rout".[7] At the Battle of Wakefield in December 1460 Clifford's father supposedly encountered York's second son Edmund, Earl of Rutland, on Wakefield Bridge, as the latter was attempting to flee the destruction of his father's army. John, Lord Clifford, crying "by God's blood, thy father slew mine and so shall I slay thee", stabbed Rutland to death.[8][note 1] Lord Clifford himself died on 28 March the following year during another clash at Ferrybridge, North Yorkshire. Tradition states that he was killed by a headless arrow to the throat and buried, along with those who died with him, in a common burial pit.[10][11]
The next day, the bulk of the Yorkist and Lancastrian armies faced each other at the
William Stanley received the Lordship of Westmorland and the Barony of Skipton respectively.[17] The latter included the Clifford caput baroniae, Skipton Castle.[18]
Lady Anne Clifford, suo jure 14th Baroness Clifford, who wrote the first history of her family
Popular belief later held that as a boy of seven, Clifford was spirited away from his home in
Lady Anne Clifford, in her 17th-century family history. The early modern historianJessica Malay, argues that "with EdwardIV on the throne (elder brother of the Earl of Rutland) and the Clifford hereditary lands forfeit, the Clifford dynasty was threatened with extinction".[20] Lady Anne was, she says, "keen to emphasise the role of women in the survival of the Clifford dynasty", and as such created a "dramatic narrative" in which Margaret deliberately defies the crown for the sake of her dead husband's heir. Anne clearly believed that King Edward sought revenge for the murder of his younger brother, which put young Clifford's life in danger.[20][note 3] Malay suggests that, while Anne Clifford believed the story of the shepherd's family taking her ancestor in, modern historians generally discount it as folklore, to greater or lesser degrees.[20] It has received some traction; the 19th-century genealogistGeorge Edward Cokayne accepted the story of Clifford's being "(for security against the disfavour with which his family was viewed by the reigning house) concealed by his mother" and raised as a shepherd,[19] as did the antiquarian J. W. Clay in a 1905 article for the Yorkshire Archaeological Journal.[28] The scholar R. T. Spence also repeated the story in his 1959 University of London PhD thesis on the later Cliffords (writing that Clifford was "brought up as a Shepherd boy to escape the fate of his father's victim").[29] Three years later Dickens (in his edition of the Clifford Papers) described how Clifford "aged about seven, lay in real danger and was brought up first as a shepherd".[21][note 4]
The
illiterate. In reality, says Summerson, Clifford "was later to be not just literate but even bookish, owning volumes on law and medicine". Summerson agrees that "it may be that the Clifford heir thought it prudent to keep a low profile" in the early years of the new regime.[1] While the medievalist Vivienne Rock subscribes to the theory that Clifford grew up ill-educated, she agrees that in later life "he did become an able administrator for his substantial estates".[35][note 5]
Inheritance and estates
Ross described the Clifford estates—centred on Cumberland, Westmorland, Durham and Yorkshire—as "valuable and strategically important in the troubled north".
royal pardon.[1] This was despite an attempt by Clifford's brother Thomas to raise an—albeit unsuccessful—pro-Lancastrian rebellion in Hartlepool.[40] Henry Clifford was duly allowed to inherit the estates of his maternal grandfather, Henry Bromflete, Lord Vescy—who had died in 1469—but not yet his Clifford patrimony.[41] Further, as his mother was still alive, a third of his inheritance—her dower[note 6]—remained out of his control until her death in 1493.[1]
Accession of Henry VII
Tudor England: red, major towns and cities; green, other significant locations.
The North of England in Clifford's time: blue, Clifford's major castles; red, major towns and cities; green, other significant locations.
Edward IV died in April 1483 and his son
Battle of Bosworth Field on 22 August 1485.[43] Nothing is known of Clifford's career between his pardon in 1472 and the end of the Yorkist regime,[1] except that he had remained in the country.[44]Michael Hicks has suggested that his presence in the north, even though still attainted, made Gloucester's hold on the Clifford lands more fragile than was comfortable for the Duke: "no doubt Gloucester himself could keep what he had, but could his heirs?"[45] Clifford had been one of a number of stalwart[46] Lancastrian lords excluded from local power in the region during Gloucester's hegemony, first as Duke and then King.[47]
Henry Tudor took the throne as HenryVII and from that point Clifford's position swiftly, and radically, improved.
West Riding, until 1497.[49] Following Bosworth, the new King's biggest priority was securing the north, where it was suspected that the Earls of Northumberland and of Westmorland were planning an insurrection. On 18 August[50] Clifford was commissioned to raise a force to crush dissent in the region. He sent the earls to London under arrest and received into the King's grace those who wished to make peace with the new regime ("for all", notes A. J. Pollard, "but a number of named men").[51][52] On 24 October 1486, Clifford wrote to the city of York (at the time, the capital of the north) warning them not to sell arms or armour to non-residents.[52]
Clifford was present at King Henry's first parliament on 15 September 1485,[19] at which time he was legally still attainted.[53] He attended every parliament until 23 November 1514, being summoned as Henrico Clifford de Clifford ch'r.[19] During his first parliament Clifford successfully petitioned for the overturning of his father's attainder, which restored Clifford's patrimony to him.[1] He was knighted on 9November 1485.[19]
Career in the north
Clifford made a natural ally for King Henry, and soon became one of his most trusted men in the north.
Sir John Conyers,[54] one of Gloucester's closest advisers;[56] both Middleham and Richmond had been Neville strongholds before that.[57] Conyers seems to have been placed in Clifford's custody around this time, although relations between the two men seem to have improved: Clifford later jointly shared in a £1,000 bond to the King for Conyers's good behaviour.[58] In October 1486 Clifford sat on a commission to "levy for the King, all profits arising from the King's manors and lands in the counties of Westmorland and Cumberland, the lordship of Penrith and the forest of Inglewood" in expectation of an invasion by Scotland.[59]
The city of
Bootham Bar. This forced Clifford to withdraw back to York and face the rebels[62] on 13 June.[63] The subsequent encounter was not an unqualified success, notes Summerson; Clifford was defeated in a scuffle outside the gates, and lost all his baggage.[1] The military historianPhilip A. Haigh writes that Clifford was "utterly disgraced" and R. W. Hoyle describes his efforts as a "fiasco".[37][61] The city scribes "laconically recorded the disastrous outcome", writes Anthony Goodman, and emphasised how the King's man in the north "had signally failed" to contain the rising.[64]
Meanwhile, the King's army under
Corpus Christi Guild. This does not seem to have restored Clifford in the eyes of the city officialdom, as the following year they again refused him entry, claiming that his intentions threatened the city's liberties. This may well have been prescient, suggests Summerson, as in 1513 Clifford attempted to claim the city's troops for his own army.[1] In 1489 the townspeople, "denyed the entrie of the Lords Clifford and othre, that in nowise noon othre gentilman of what degreor condiconhe he of be suffred to enter this the Kyngs Chaumbre and so all to be excludet and noon to have reule bot the Maiour, Aldermen and the Shireffs".[68] The city's statement came just before rebellion again broke out in Yorkshire, this time against heavy taxes. The commons overran the city and refused to allow Clifford or the sheriff, Marmaduke Constable entry. Instead, the citizens not only allowed the rebels to enter, they provided them a degree of military assistance.[66][note 8] The medievalist David Grummitt comments that the city's reluctance to allow Clifford either office or military assistance is in stark contrast to the fervour with which they served "our ful gode and gracious lorde the duc of Gloucestre" as both Duke and King.[67]
Clifford was in London in 1494 when he and the King's second son,
Thomas Savage.[1][note 9] Clifford's lordship of the north, posits Summerson, was reciprocal: Henry extended royal power in the region by strengthening Clifford, and likewise, Clifford strengthened and augmented his own position through royal service.[1]
Patronage, alliances and local relations
Skipton Castle, the traditional seat of the Clifford family, in 2014
Clifford, although a figure of political and social influence, only ever had regional interests.
royal council for enclosing land.[1] Conversely, Clifford attempted to build good relations with his tenants and neighbours through financial generosity and hospitality, such as in 1521, when he held a "great Christmas" at Brough Castle.[1][note 10]
On occasion, Clifford made the enmity of his neighbours as a direct result of his royal service. For example, it was often to the Crown's advantage that, where possible, it influenced civic elections in favour of royal candidates. A particularly important such office was that of the
Mayor and Common Council that he intended "to mynistre as myn auncistres haith done here to fore in all thinges that accordith to my dewtie". In response, York's officials "firmly" informed Clifford that he had no such duty as his ancestors had never wielded such authority.[1]
Clifford also attempted, unsuccessfully, to influence the civic celebrations the city organised for the King's first visit to York later the same year. He wished, says Lee, to show the King the degree to which he was in control now that he had been returned to his family's traditional position; he was told by Vavasour that the city would do as it saw fit.
Brougham Castle became one of Clifford's favoured residences.
In 1487 the Earl of Oxford had been granted the wardship and marriage
tenants-in-chief to his political will than the revenue these forfeits added to his Exchequer.[77] Hicks has suggested that this behaviour made Clifford less trustworthy in Henry's eyes as a crown agent.[78] In 1496 the Captain of Carlisle, Henry Wyatt, wrote to the King[79][note 11] expressing, as Agnes Conway calls it, his "poor opinion" of Clifford. Wyatt considered Clifford's wife, Lady Anne St John, to be a more able administrator than her husband, whom he considered inefficient, and told the King so plainly.[81]
Clifford's success at improving his finances eventually placed him in the top third of the English nobility and enabled him to successfully create new connections and strengthen existing ones. This he achieved through both marriage alliances with, and
Where ye dide of laite presente your clerk unto the church of Conesburgh of your patronege, surely I cane nott (of my conscience) admytte hym to itt, fore his connyng is mervyllus slendure. I haue scyne few prestis so symple lernede in my life. If itt please you to commande some of your lernede chapplens to oppoise hym in your presence, I dowte not butte ye shall perceyue the truth. And fore the lakk of his lernynge (Which is manifesteo) I do putte hym bakk, ande fore noyne oder cause, nor at no mannys desire or motlon.[88]
Later years
In the later years of the 15th century, Clifford was frequently the target of the King's displeasure. He often failed to act as the stabilising force in the north that Henry had intended.
quo warranto proceedings in 1505. Clifford's goods were sequestered until he could show by what authority he held the office, and he also had to provide a number of large obligations for his good behaviour. These included a £1,000 bond in May that year, £200 if he departed the council without permission[89] and £2,000 on condition that he, his servants, tenants and "part-takers"[93] kept the peace with Roger Tempest. Clifford had an ongoing feud[89] with Tempest and had attacked and pulled down Tempest's house in Broughton.[93][94][note 16] Although Clifford's shrieval rights were in the event upheld,[1] the case took over a year to be decided, during which time the profits of the office went to the King. On 14 June 1506 Edmund Dudley delivered Clifford his general pardon. By this time Clifford had paid another £100 in cash ("redie money") to the King and had been pressured for £120 more.[89][note 17]
Panoramic view of Mount Grace Priory, much patronised by Clifford, as seen in 2013
King Henry died on 21 April 1509, and Clifford attended his funeral in
The Battle of Flodden as envisaged by a Victorian engraver
cannons which he took to "decorate" Skipton Castle; the contemporary Ballad of Flodden Field refers to "Lord Clifford with his clapping guns".[100]
In 1521, the
Emperor Charles V resumed war with FrancisI. King Henry offered to mediate, but this achieved little and by the end of the year England and the Empire were aligned together against France.[102] Clifford provided 1,000 marks[note 19] towards funding the campaign,[19] one of the highest sums the crown received.[41]
Personal life
Marriages, children and family problems
Clifford is known to have married twice. Possibly at the end of 1486
Margaret Beaufort, making Anne half-cousin to King HenryVII.[105] It is probable that the King and his mother had a hand in arranging Anne's marriage to Clifford.[106] Their relationship does not seem to have been peaceful, and this probably exacerbated the King's disfavour of Clifford.[1] Clifford's marriage problems were in part due to his conspicuous infidelity, which caused sufficient tension between him and Anne that their separation was suggested.[28] Anne's chaplain began negotiating this with the King and Lady Margaret Beaufort, who went as far as to offer Anne and her daughters a position in Margaret's household[106] expressing the wish that Anne "shall come up and attend upon my Lady".[107] In the event, the crisis passed and Clifford and Anne stayed together until her death in 1508.[1] She was buried in Skipton Church.[28]
By July 1511,[1] Clifford had married Florence Pudsey, widow of Thomas Talbot. She was the daughter of Henry Pudsey of Berforth and Margaret Conyers, daughter of Christopher Conyers of Hornby.[19] Clifford and Lady Florence were enjoined to the confraternity of Guisborough Abbey.[1] Their marriage, too, was fraught with difficulties, and Florence sued her husband in York consistory court for the restitution of conjugal rights. In doing so, suggest the scholars Tim Thornton and Katherine Carlton, "she did not perhaps expect her own conduct to be brought into question".[108] Clifford, though, in his turn, accused her of adultery with a member of his household,[1] one Roger Wharton. Wharton, under examination in court, confessed that "I will never denye ffor a man may be in bedd with a woman and yett do noo hurte". Thornton and Carlton continue, "in one simple statement, Wharton shed light upon the sexual mores of the Clifford household".[108] Wharton also accused Clifford of having an extra-marital relationship with one Jane Browne, also of his household.[109]
Clifford had several illegitimate children by a number of mistresses,[1][note 21] including two sons, Thomas and Anthony.[109] They both later received positions within the family, Thomas becoming deputy-governor of Carlisle Castle in 1537,[112] and Anthony being appointed steward of Cowling, Grassington and Sutton. Both were also made master foresters of Craven.[113] Thomas and Anthony may have been illegitimate, but Clifford considered them men of "substance, education and experience [and] gentlemen", and provided for them in his will.[114]
From his first marriage to Anne, he left two sons,
£40 to his son towards his upkeep at court, which Clifford had done. Clifford had urged his son "to forsake the dangerous counsels of certain evilly-disposed young gentlemen".[119] Clifford's exhortations were not wholly successful, as on at least one occasion his son was incarcerated in the Fleet Prison.[120]
Summerson suggests that Clifford was to a degree culpable for his son's behaviour, considering that if he "had ideas above his station, the responsibility was largely his father's, who not only placed him at court but also set about marrying him into the high aristocracy".
betrothal. In 1512 young Henry married Margaret Percy, daughter of the Earl of Northumberland,[1][note 25] which further augmented the Clifford family's wealth and influence in the northeast.[123]
Personality and interests
The remains of Barden Tower in 2008
Historians have speculated on Clifford's personality. Summerson, for example, suggests that Clifford was often an abrasive individual, particularly to his tenants and regularly caused the very kind of social disorder that he was expected to suppress.[1] Ross has speculated that Clifford's early years, particularly "the impact of Towton... must have been profoundly shocking and traumatic",[124] while Goodman has suggested that Clifford's solo attack on the 1487 rebels at Brougham indicates a chivalrous streak, as personal bravery was a highly prized quality.[125]Micheal K. Jones and Malcolm G. Underwood have described Clifford as "eccentric", possibly on account of his upbringing.[104]
Clifford is known to have had an interest in astrology, astronomy and alchemy.[41] A major eclipse crossed England in 1502, for which occasion Clifford is supposed to have built Barden Tower as an observatory. The astronomer S. J. Johnson has speculated that it was his witnessing the eclipse that sparked Clifford's interest in the subject, "in which he did greatly delight".[126] It is likely that Clifford's obsession with the skies—which led him to spend most of his time as a recluse in Barden Tower—was the cause of his wife's consistory suit for her conjugal rights.[127] In Barden, says Jones and Underwood, Clifford led a "strange, reclusive existence".[107]
Clifford had religious interests also and in 1515 spent a large sum on a new chapel, which was intended to be as extravagant as possible.[128]
Death
By September 1522 Clifford was described as "feebled with sickness".
Thomas Grey, Marquis of Dorset;[129] she died in 1558.[1] Clifford was buried in either Bolton Priory or that of Shap.[1] Following his death, inquisition post mortems assessed his annual income at £1332 2s. 4d,[1] and Lady Anne Clifford later reported him rich "in money, chattells, goods and great stocks of land".[29][41] His son Henry—no longer a minor—gained livery of his patrimony on 18 July 1523.[130] He was summoned two years later to parliament and created Earl of Cumberland.[131] The elevation of the Clifford family to the upper peerage, suggests Summerson, "owed much to Henry Clifford [the elder]'s labours to revive the fortunes of his family".[1] Spence explains Clifford's wealth as resulting from "the prudence and economy of a lifetime's residence on his estates",[29] combined with abstinence of court and its expense, except when made unavoidable by summonses to parliament.[41] Spence also notes, though, that the first Earl was to go on to both waste and neglect his estates in favour of extravagant court living.[132]
Cultural depictions
The
William Wordsworth wrote two pieces—Song at the Feast at Brougham Castle and White Doe of Rylstone—romanticising Clifford's career.[133] The White Doe, written between 1806 and 1807[22] describes Clifford as being "most happy in the shy recess / of Barden's lowly quietness".[41] Wordsworth depicts various aspects of Clifford's life: the loss of his estates in 1461, his rustic upbringing—and the role his father-in-law, Sir Lancelot Threlkeld played—his post-Bosworth revival and his castle building. Wordsworth also imagines the Christmas celebration at Brough Castle "and the peculiarly Wordsworthian results" of Clifford's early life. The poem, suggests the scholar Curtis Bradford, indicates that Wordsworth "was not entirely uninterested in the antiquarian romanticism so characteristic of his time".[134]Charlotte Mary Yonge compares Clifford in his shepherd hut to the roaming of the deposed King HenryVI—now supposedly a hermit—around the north, and casts them together: "both are in hiding: each is content with his lot. The boy does not dream that the hermit is really a king. That he is a man of God is clear, and young Clifford loves him, for his goodness, and most willingly places himself under Henry's tutelage".[135]
Shakespearean scholar, Peter Saccio, "following the Tudor historians, Shakespeare made Rutland a child at the time of his death. The cruelty of Rutland's slaughter, compounded when Margaret flourished in York's face a handkerchief dipped in Rutland's blood, is an outrage many times recalled by the Yorkist characters in RichardIII".[9]
beheaded York after the battle, whereas the duke almost certainly fell in the fighting.[26] Lander suggests that most of the later descriptions of Clifford at Wakefield "appear too late to be worthy of much credence".[27]
^Lander notes that this fear of EdwardIV's vengeance was not the only example of an exaggerated claim of Yorkist ferocity. Rumours such as these generally originated in the French visitor and writer Philippe de Commines's late 15th-century Mémoires. Other examples from there are the tales of the Duke of Exeter, "barefoot and ragged in the Low Countries begging his bread door to door", and Margaret, Countess of Oxford forced to live on charity and "what she myght get with her nedyll or other such conyng as she excercysed".[30]
^Ross argues that, notwithstanding Summerson's hypothesis, "it would seem strange that, if Clifford's whereabouts were known, he was not taken into custody. He was a potential focus for Lancastrian resistance, his lands were valuable, and securing his person would give those in possession [Warwick and Gloucester] rather greater security of title".[36]
^The legal concept of dower had existed since the late twelfth century as a means of protecting a woman from being left landless if her husband died first. He would, when they married, assign certain estates to her—a dos nominata, or dower—usually a third of everything he was seised of. By the fifteenth century, the widow was deemed entitled to her dower.[42]
^While Clifford was tailing the rebels, the Earl of Northumberland brought his own "great host" to the city.[61]
^This situation would continue into the career of Clifford's son, the Earl of Cumberland, during the 1540s, which was a period of much military activity and therefore one which Clifford made frequent demands on York which were equally as frequently rejected by that city.[67]
^Arthur died in Ludlow on 2April 1502, following which, says the encyclopedistJohn A. Wagner, "the northern council existed not as an official organ of government, but as a series of temporary expedients of varying forms".[70]
^Brough Castle burned down shortly afterwards,[71] following which Clifford seems to have made Brougham Castle, near Penrith, his main residence.[72]
^The letter, of 4June 1496, survives in the Wyatt family muniments as Wyatt MSS.13, and is reprinted in full in Conway's HenryVII's Relations with Scotland and Ireland 1485–1498.[80]
^Retaining was the predominant method by which the nobility attempted to control their areas of influence, and the country gentry, as the most numerous political class in any area,[82] were "the natural allies of the peerage", argues the medievalist Chris Given-Wilson. He suggests that, by this period, "most peers probably had at least a score of knights and esquires in their full-time retinues, while earls frequently had fifty or more".[83]
^Correspeondence exists between the prior, John Wilson and Clifford; for example, on 13 December 1522, Wilson wrote to Clifford informing him that because of the patronage of a London merchant, the priory now possessed a new guest house: "wee have a proper lodging at our place which a marchand of London did buld and he is now departed from hus and made knight at the roddes".[86] Grace Mount underwent much rebuilding in the early 16th-century, and this was a frequent topic of Wilson's in his letters to Clifford.[87]
^Which feud Clifford's younger brother Robert joined in, assaulting Moresby's Irthington manor in autumn 1487[92]
^Lander describes the King's treatment of Clifford during this episode as "brutal", but highlights it—along with similarly heavy bonds from other nobles—as part of HenryVII's new regime in bringing recalcitrant nobles to heel.[95]
^Clifford's under-sheriff, Roger Bellingham, was also forced to defend his office in court, and had to pay recognizances of £200 in return for a pardon.[96] Clifford's role was predominantly ceremonial; the undersheriff—appointed by Clifford only if they were acceptable to the King[97]—usually performed the bulk of the work of the office.[98]
^Dudley claimed these individuals had been charged with ruinous fines for the purposes of mulctation and believed, according to T. N. Pugh, that it was "an urgent matter of religious duty, lest the salvation of the deceased monarch's soul should be imperilled and his ascent to heaven be impeded, because he had failed to do right and justice to many of his subjects".[99]
^A medieval English mark was a unit of currency equivalent to two-thirds of a pound.[103]
^Says Dickens, "famed alike for tapestry-making and piety".[84]
^Little is known of these children. The major source for the country's gentry families in the mid-16th century is the extant records of the Heraldic visitations, a form of genealogical census of gentry pedigrees.[110] Whereas children were rarely excluded from the record on account of illegitimacy, there is no mention of either Clifford's nor his son's such offspring in the Yorkshire visitation of 1563–64.[111]
^Thomas spent much of his career on royal service in the north for HenryVIII, for which he was knighted; his offices included governor of Berwick Castle.[84]
^Possibly he was raised by Margaret Beaufort, who occasionally had charge of Henry and other royal wards.[118]
^Although the date of Clifford's letter to the council is unknown, Dickens has proposed a date of around 1517, because that year Thomas Leeke, then incarcerated in the Fleet Prison, wrote to his brother Sir John on 25 October that year and reported that Henry Clifford the younger and Sir George Darcy had until recently been imprisoned with him;[120] Clifford was reported, after two-week's imprisonment, as looking "waxen a sad gentleman".[121] Dickens speculated that Darcy was one of the "ill-disposed gentlemen" whom Clifford warned his son against.[120]
Arnold, C. E. (1984), "The Commission of the Peace for the West Riding ofYorkshire, 1437–1509", in Pollard, A. J. (ed.), Property and Politics: Essays in Later Medieval English History, Gloucester: Sutton, pp. 116–138,
Clark, L. (1995), "Magnates and their Affinities in the Parliaments of 1386–1421", in Britnell, R. H.; Pollard, A. J. (eds.), The McFarlane Legacy: Studies in Late Medieval Politics and Society, Stroud: Alan Sutton, pp. 127–154,
Cokayne, G. E. (1913), Gibb, V.; Doubleday, H. A.; White, G. H. & de Walden, H. (eds.), The Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom: Extant, Extinct, or Dormant, vol. III: Canonteign–Cutts (14 volumes, 1910–1959, 2nd ed.), London: St Catherine Press,
Coleridge, H. (1836), The Worthies of Yorkshire and Lancashire: Being Lives of the Most Distinguished Persons that Have Been Born In, or Connected with Those Provinces, London: Frederick Warne,
Condon, M. (1979), "Ruling Elites in the Reign of Henry VII", in Ross, C. (ed.), Patronage, Pedigree and Power in Later Medieval England, Gloucester: Alan Sutton, pp. 109–142,
Coppack, G. (2008), "'Make Straight in the Desert a Highway for Our God': The Carthusians and Community in Late Medieval England", in Burton, J.; Stöber, K. (eds.), Monasteries and Society in the British Isles in the Later Middle Ages (new ed.), Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer, pp. 168–180,
Cunningham, S. (1996), "Henry VII and Rebellion in North-Eastern England, 1485–1492: Bonds of Allegiance and the Establishment of Tudor Authority", Northern History, 32: 42–74,
Dockray, K. (1986), "The Political Legacy of Richard III in Northern England", in Griffiths, R. A.; Sherborne, J. W. (eds.), Kings and Nobles in the Later Middle Ages: A Tribute to Charles Ross, New York: St. Martin's Press, pp. 205–227,
Jones, M. K.; Underwood, M. G. (1992), The King's Mother: Lady Margaret Beaufort, Countess of Richmond and Derby, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
Kenny, G. (2003), "The Power of Dower: The Importance of Dower in the Lives of Medieval Women in Ireland", in Meek, C.; Lawless, C. (eds.), Studies on Medieval and Early Modern Women: Pawns Or Players?, Dublin: Four Courts, pp. 59–74,
Lee, J. (2003), "Urban Recorders and the Crown in Late Medieval England", in Clark, L. (ed.), Conflicts, Consequences and the Crown in the Late Middle Ages, The Fifteenth Century, vol. VII, Woodbridge: Boydell Press, pp. 163–177,
Malay, J. L. (2017), "Crossing Generations: Female Alliances and Dynastic Power in Anne Clifford's Great Books of Record", in Lucky, J. C.; O'Leary, N. J. (eds.), The Politics of Female Alliance in Early Modern England, Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, pp. 207–224,
Malay, J. L. (2018), "Lady Anne Clifford's Great Books of Record: Remembrances of a Dynasty", in Phillippy P. (ed.), A History of Early Modern Women's Writing, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 398–416,
Pugh, T. B. (1992), "Henry VII and the English Nobility", in Bernard, G. W. (ed.), The Tudor Nobility, Manchester: Manchester University Press, pp. 49–110,
Rock, V. (2003), "Shadow Royals? The Political Use of the Extended Family of Lady Margaret Beaufort", in Eales, E.; Tyas, S. (eds.), Family and Dynasty in Late Medieval England, Proceedings of the 1997 Harlaxton Symposium, vol. IX, Donington: Shaun Tyas, pp. 193–210,
Ross, J. A. (2015), "The Treatment of Traitors' Children and Edward IV's Clemency in the 1460s", in Clark, L. (ed.), Essays Presented to Michael Hicks, The Fifteenth Century, vol. XIV, Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, pp. 131–142,
Spence, R. T. (1959), The Cliffords, Earls of Cumberland, 1579–1646: A Study of their Fortunes based on their Household and Estate Accounts (PhD thesis), University of London,
Summerson, H.; Trueman, M.; Harrison, S. (1998), "Brougham Castle, Cumbria", Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society Research Series (8), Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society,
Thornton, T.; Carlton, K. (2019), The Gentleman's Mistress: Illegitimate Relationships and Children, 1450–1640, Manchester: Manchester University Press,
Tscherpel, G. (2003), "The Political Function of History: The Past and Future of Noble Families", in Eales, E.; Tyas, S. (eds.), Family and Dynasty in Late Medieval England, Proceedings of the 1997 Harlaxton Symposium, vol. IX, Donington: Shaun Tyas, pp. 87–104,
Walker, G. (1992), "John Skelton, Cardinal Wolsey and the Tudor Nobility", in Bernard, G. W. (ed.), The Tudor Nobility, Manchester: Manchester University Press, pp. 111–133,
