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William Douglas's, the King's enemy's, upon Mary Maudin's day, 26 Edw. I., at which time he (Douglas) was taken and imprisoned; and this was in satisfaction of £500 per annum land in Scotland, with an agreement, that if it did not arise to so much, it should be made good out of other lands in Scotland, and if not, to defaulk. But these acquisitions of land in Scotland were not such as our Robert could build much upon as they were gotten by power, so they could not be preserved or kept without difficulty. Peace or war between the two nations might be fatal to these his purchases. The latter might make

the retaining of them difficult or casual, and the former might occasion a restitution of such prizes. Robert, therefore, not willing to build any great confidence on these debateable acquisitions, in the beginning of the reign of Edward II. cast his eye upon a more firm possession, and this was the castle, and house, and honour of Skipton."

So far for a sample of Sir Matthew's style, which is neither elegant nor particularly lucid. Robert de Clifford married Matilda, one of the daughters and co-heirs of Thomas de Clare. He was concerned in several of the invasions of Scotland, and probably as successful as any of the other marauders. In 1297 he entered Annandale with the power of Carlisle (of which he was Governor), and slew 308 Scots near Annan Kirk. In 1301 he signed the famous letter from Edward II. to Pope Boniface VIII.,* claiming the seignory of Scotland, by the name of Chatellain of Appleby. In 1306, immediately after the coronation of Robert Bruce, he entered Scotland with the Earl of Pembroke, and defeated Bruce at St. John's town. But he went upon his neighbour's land once too often, and was slain at Bannockburn, June 25th, 1314; the most

* No small part of the power assumed by the Popes in disposing of Kingdoms was authorised by the conduct of Kings and nations themselves, who admitted or denied that right as suited present convenience, without ever looking to remoter conse quences. Monarchs and factions played off the papal authority against each other. No Pontiff carried his pretensions higher than Boniface, who assumed the title of Master of all Kings, caused two swords to be carried before him, and added a second crown to the Tiard. Had he, however, always judged over Kings as justly as he did in the case of Scotland, the powers he claimed might well have been conceded to the then acknowledged head of the Christian Church. The Scotch had solicited his interference in their favour, which was virtually acknowledging his right to dispose of kingdoms. Hereupon he wrote a severe expostulation to Edward, commanding him to desist from his oppressions, and demonstrating the rightful independence of the Scotch, as well by arguments of ancient history, as by the allowances and concessions of English Kings. To this letter Edward, who had ever been a rigorous dealer with the Church, replied in a bold strain, deriving his seignory over Scotland from the Trojan Brutus, and the times of Ely and Samuel, and appealing to Heaven with the usual insolence of regal hypocrisy. A hundred and four Barons assembled in Parlia ment at Lincoln set their seals to this instrument, in which they take care to inform

disastrous day which England ever saw, but for which every true Briton, whether born north or south of the Tweed, is thankful. His body was sent by the victor to Edward II., at Berwick, but the place of its interment is uncertain, though Dr. Whitaker conjectures Bolton Abbey. Of this Robert, first Lord of Skipton of the Cliffords, Sir Matthew Hale observes that "he always so kept the King's favour, that he lost not the love of the nobility and kingdom, and by that means had an easy access to the improvement of his honours and greatness. He was employed upon all occasions, in offices of the highest trust, both military and civil, having the advantage of a most close education in his youth, under a Prince most eminent for both. He lived an active life, and died an honourable death in the vindication of the rights of his Prince and country." It will be remarked, that Sir Matthew, in asserting the rightfulness of a usurpation unparalleled till the partition of Poland, only used a mode of speech familiar to former times, when it was always taken for granted that the claims of the English were just. Our elder poets, historians, and jurists always speak of the Scotch and of the French who adhered to their native princes as rebels.*

Roger, second Lord Clifford of Skipton, joined the Earl of Lancaster's insurrection against Edward II., was severely wounded and taken prisoner at the battle of Boroughbridge, March 16th, 1322, and sentenced to death, along with Lancaster, and the other Lords, whom the

Boniface, that though they had justified their cause before him, they did not acknow ledge him for their judge.---Hume.

* As late as the reign of Elizabeth, the people cherished a hope that the right of the English crown in France was not dead, but sleeping. The adored memory of the fifth Harry, the Lancastrian hero, tended to keep alive a feeling that the fleurs de lys were not barren ornaments in England's escutcheon. The poets and dramatists flattered the delusion, as must be evident to all who have read Drayton's Battle of Agincourt, and his spirit stirring ballad on the same subject. Shakspeare, in his Henry the Fifth, not only falls in with the same prejudice, but takes the pains to versify from the Chronicles a long speech of the Archbishop of Canterbury against the Salique Law, which no audience could have heard out, who did not feel something more than a poetical interest in the question. There can be no doubt that many people then attended the theatre for the purpose of learning the history of their country, and "held each strange tale devoutly true." These auditors listened as patiently to " muster roll of names," or dates, in blank verse, as litigants will do to unintelligible law-jargon, which they suppose to explain their title to a disputed field or pathway. How else could Shakspeare have ventured to set on end near sixty such lines as the following:

Nor did the French possess the Salique law,
Until four hundred one and twenty years
After defunction of king Pharamond,

a

issue of that day had made traitors," so that all the lands were seized into the king's hands as forfeited; but by reason of his great wounds being held a dying man, the execution was respited for that time, and after the heat of the fury was over, his life was spared by the said king, so as he died a natural death, in the 1st year of King Edward III. He died childless and unmarried." Robert de Clifford being his brother and heir, Robert, the third Lord, regained his lands, by the general act of restitutiou of all the Earl of Lancaster's party, passed in the Parliament of the 4th Edward III. Nothing very remarkable is mentioned concerning him, nor of his two immediate successors, Robert and Roger, of whom the former died young and childless. The latter was engaged in the French and Scottish wars of Edward III., but of his exploits no record remains. "The chain of feudal dependence reached from the cottage to the throne." Accordingly we find that Roger Lord Clifford retained Sir Thomas Mowbray, "for peace and for war," at a salary of £10 yearly, and was himself retained by the Earl of March, for service in Ireland, for which he was bound to provide five Knights Bachelors, thirty-four squires, and forty mounted archers, properly equipped for one year, for which the said Roger was to receive wages at the rate of ten marks a man, passage outward and homeward, to be provided by the said Earl of March, who was to share in the prisoners and other prizes of war, according to the customary proportion, &c. Such at least appears to be the signification of an ancient indenture, in obsolete French, dated London, the 25th Sep., in the third year of Richard II. It is not without interest, as throwing light upon the inter-dependencies of military service in those days; but Dr. Whitaker should not have concluded that all his readers would understand half-anglicised French of the 14th century, but should have explained the document in plain terms.

Thomas, the sixth Lord, lived not much more than two years after his father's death. He died beyond seas. His daughter, Maud, was second wife to that Richard, Earl of Cambridge, who suffered the penalties of treason, in the reign of Henry V. His son John " was a soldier, and he lived under a martial prince, who by indenture, dated Feb. 8, 4th Henry V., retained him in his service for the war in France for one year: the contract was to this effect, that this Lord, with fifty men at arms, well accoutred, whereof three to be knights, the rest Esquires, and one hundred and fifty archers, whereof two parts to serve on horseback, the third on foot, should serve the king from the day he should be ready to set sail for France, taking for himself four shillings for every knight; for every Esquire, one shilling; for every archer, six-pence per

Who died within the year of our redemption
Four-hundred fifty-six.

diem." According to the general computation of the value of money in those days, this rate of payment seems enormously high.

Sir Matthew continues, "This was the usual means whereby Kings in those times furnished their armies with men of value; and it was counted no dishonourable thing for persons of honour upon this kind of traffic, to make themselves an advantage; indeed it was in those martial times the trade of the nobility and great men." This trade indicated a gradual decay of the genuine feudal system, and prepared the way for standing armies. This John Clifford fell at the seige of Meause, in the last year of Henry V. and was buried in Bolton Abbey.

The next Lord Clifford was slain at St. Albans, May 22, 1455, fighting for his sovereign, in whose service the family was destined to perform and to suffer much. He is first of the line whose name is familiarised to the general reader, being the subject of some powerful lines in the second part of "King Henry the Sixth."

"Wast thou ordained, dear father,

To lose thy youth in peace, and to achieve
The silver livery of advised age,

And in thy reverence and thy chair days thus
To die in ruffian battle? Even at this sight'
My heart is turn'd to stone: and while 'tis mine
It shall be stony. York not our old men spares,
No more will I their babes: tears virginal
Shall be to me even as the dew to fire;
And beauty that the tyrant oft reclaims

Shall to my flaming wrath be oil and flax.
Henceforth I will not have to do with pity."

The " younger Clifford," by whom this dreadful resolution is supposed to have been made, has been recorded as the most merciless in a merciless time. But such is the appetite of man for horrors, that the facts even of civil war are not bad enough to satisfy it without aggravation. The Clifford who fell at St. Alban's was not a very old man, being only in his forty-first year, nor was Rutland, whom the son of that Clifford is said to have butchered with his own hand, after the battle of Wakefield, a child, but a youth of nineteen, who had probably killed his man before he was killed himself. Yet John, the ninth Lord Clifford, must have been a wholesale homicide to be distinguished as he was, since Leland says, "that for slaughter of men at Wakefield he was called the Boucher." Shakspeare, or whoever was the author of King Henry VI., has palliated his thirst of blood by ascribing it to filial vengeance; but if the father fell only by the chance of war, the son could not be entitled, even by martial morality, to pursue his revenge beyond the measures of war. It was to his tent that King Henry, when taken

captive, at the second battle of St. Albans, by the party which used his name, was brought to meet his victorious Queen, and there he knighted his young Edward, then a boy of eight years. Seldom has a Prince so meek been entertained by a subject so ferocious. Clifford was slain the day before the battle of Towton, after the rencontre at Ferrybridge. Having put off his gorget, he was struck in the throat with a headless arrow, and so was sent to his own place, wherever that might be. This happened in the small valley of Dittingdale, or Deidingdale, between Towton and Scarthingwell. The place of his interment is uncertain, but he was not gathered in the tomb of his forefathers. The common

report was that he was flung into a pit with the crowd of carcases, and none thought fit to seek for his bones. So detestable is cruelty, even to a cruel generation, that nobody esteemed black-faced Clifford too good to rot omong his fellow cut-throats of the "swinish multitude."

John, Lord Clifford, though dead, was attainted, and his estates, castles, &c., forfeited in the 1st of Edward IV. The castle, manor, and Lordship of Skipton, were granted to Sir James Stanley, and afterwards, in the 10th year of King Edward IV., to Richard, Duke of Gloucester, according to the terms of the grant "for the encouragement of piety and virtue in the said Duke," who retained it till his death.

Thus was the house of Clifford driven from its possessions, and deprived of its rank. The children of the ruthless warrior sought and found a refuge among the simple dalesmen of Cumberland. Who has not heard of the good Lord Clifford, the Shepherd Lord? He that in his childhood was placed among lowly men for safety, found more in obscurity than he sought,-love, humble wisdom, and a docile heart. How his time past during his early years, it is pleasanter to imagine, than safe to conjecture; but we doubt not, happily, and since he proved equal to his highest elevation, his nurture must needs have been good. His mother Margaret, with whom came in the barony of Vescy, was married to Sir Lancelot Threlkeld, who extended his protection over the offspring of her former husband. Much of Henry Clifford's boyhood is said to have been passed in the village named after his kind step-father, which lies under Blencathara, on the road between Keswick and Penrith. The only extant document relating to the Cliffords during the domination of the House of York, "is a deed of arbitration between Lancelot Threlkeld, knight, and Lady Margaret, his wife, the Lady Clifford, late the wife of John Lord Clifford, on the one part, and William Rilston, one of the executors of the will of Henry de Bromflete, Lord Vescy, deceased, in which the said Lancelot and Margaret promise" to be good master and lady to the said William, and to move the children of the said John, late Lord Clifford, to be loving and tender

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