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In one of my previous papers on
'The Cliffords,
I mentioned the Earls of Cumberland as a bold, warlike, and restless race.
A good and typical specimen of them may be studied in the character of
George, the third earl. A few brief particulars of his career and
adventures may not, therefore, be unwelcome to my readers, for, in truth,
as Southey justly remarks in his 'Naval History
of England,' among all the naval
adventurers who distinguished themselves during Queen Elizabeth's reign,
there was no one who took to the seas so much in the spirit of a northern
sea-king as the earl.' And he explains his meaning thus:
'Some of his most noted cotemporaries were
sailors by their vocation, some became so incidentally when called upon in
the Queen's service, and others pursued that course in the hope of
repairing a broken fortune, or else of raising one; but it was this
nobleman's mere choice, which he followed to the great injury of his own
ample estates, and to the neglect of all his private and domestic duties.'
This George Clifford,
fourteenth Baron Clifford of Westmoreland, and sheriff of that county by
inheritance, and in the same descent also thirteenth lord of the honor of Skipton in Craven, Yorkshire, and also Lord Vipont and Baron Vesey, was
born in his father's feudal castle of Brougham, near Penrith (in our own
times the seat of Lord Brougham) on the 8th of August, 1558. From his
father, thirteenth Baron Clifford and second Earl of Cumberland, be
inherited a name which had figured with distinction in the wars between
the rival houses of York and Lancaster, on account of the fidelity of its
holders to the cause of the Red Rose; and, almost in the lifetime of the
subject of this paper, Shakespeare added to it a still wider renown than
genealogists and chroniclers could confer upon it. To this family also
belonged, the Fair Rosamond,' whose name is so mixed up with the royal
palace at Woodstock and the abbey of Oseney near Oxford; to say nothing of
the ' Shepherd Lord,' whose story lives enshrined in undying verse, and
about whom I have said my say.
Even when he was a boy,
George Clifford seems to have been the object of the ambitious hopes and
schemes of his father, who treated for his future marriage with a daughter
of Francis, second Earl of Bedford. But the father's early death broke off
the negotiation for a time. He was sent as a
youth to Battle Abbey, in order to be trained in the ways and manners of a
I scholar and a gentleman;' and, doubtless with the same view, he was sent
both to Oxford and Cambridge to complete his education. This, however, was
cut short by the Earl of Bedford, who, obtaining a grant of him in
wardship from the Queen, married him to his own daughter, to whom his
father had betrothed him in infancy. The marriage ceremony was performed
at the church of St. Mary Overy, in Southwark, the fair bride being two
years older than her youthful spouse.
As a young man he
appears to have spent his time in jousts and tournaments, and to have so
excelled in tilting that lie was frequently employed by the ' Virgin
Queen' as her champion. In this way he spent a good deal of his large
patrimony; and it is probable that the Queen added little or nothing to it
when she made him a Knight of the Garter, and appointed him one of the
peers who sat in judgment on the unfortunate Mary Queen of Scots. In the
course of his education it would seem that he showed a taste for
mathematical studies, which are said not only to have inclined him to, but
to have fitted him for, maritime employment.
His first adventure
afloat was destined for the South Seas; but he did not embark on this
expedition in person, having fitted out at his own cost a small flotilla
of vessels, which he dispatched under the command of one Robert Withrington, who, after having committed much havoc upon the coast of
Brazil, returned home returned home with apparently very little gain. The
earl in the following year (1587) set sail for Slut's,
in hopes of assisting Roger Williams in the defense of that town against
the Duke of Parma; but it
had surrendered before his arrival. He next took part in the defeat of the
Armada, on board the Bonaventure; and the Queen was so satisfied
with his behavior on the occasion that she gave him a commission to proceed
the same year to the Spanish coast as general. One of the royal ships, the
Golden Lion, was placed at his disposal for this expedition; but
the earl, nevertheless, victualled and furnished it at his own cost.
Although he met with little or no success in this
expedition, better luck was in store for him; for he shortly afterwards
set sail again in one of
the ships of the royal navy, called the Victory, and soon succeeded in
capturing two French ships, which, belonging to the party of the League,
were deemed fair prizes. The earl was not very scrupulous on such
occasions, at all events so says the narrative. He afterwards fell in with
eleven ships from Hamburg and the Baltic; after a few shots, they sent
their masters on board, slowing their passports. These were respected for themselves, but not for some property
belonging to a Jew of Lisbon, which they confessed was on board, and which
was valued at £4,500. This, it is needless to say, the earl
'appropriated.'
Altogether the earl
performed nine voyages by sea in his own person, and on his own account,
most of them to the West Indies,
'with great honor to himself and
service to his Queen and his country.' In 1589 he gained the strong town
of Fayal, one of the most important of the Azores; and in his last voyage,
in 1598, he succeeded in capturing the strong fort of Puerto Rico, a
Spanish city which is described at that time as ' less in circuit than
Oxford, but very much bigger than all Portsmouth within the
fortifications, and in sight much fairer:'
'No other subject,' writes Southey,
'ever undertook so many expeditions at his own cost;' and honest
Fuller styles him `the best-born Englishman that ever hazarded himself in
that kind.' He adds, in his own quaint style, that the earl's fleets
'were bound for no other harbor the port of Profit in passage thereunto.'
But, though he obtained great credit for true honor and valor, yet there
were some harsher ingredients in his character; and so, when the earl
added to his paternal coat-of-arms ' three murdering chain-shots,' there
were those who remarked that the 'canting' heraldry was never leas
misplaced.
It appears, however, that,
in spite of all the money which he cleared by his buccaneering, he lost
such large sums in the tilt-yard and in horse-racing as even to embarrass
his splendid patrimony in the north, and to lead him to sell many of his
broad acres; at all events, be is said in the 'History of Westmoreland '
to have consumed more than any of his ancestors.
When King
James travelled southward from Scotland to take possession of his new
kingdom, the earl attended him in his progress at York with such an
equipage of followers and retainers that he seemed to be rather a king
than only Earl of Cumberland. Whilst he was at York, there arose a contest
between him and the Lord President of the Northern lurches as to which
should carry the sword of state before the king, and upon due inquiry the
honor was held to devolve upon the earl.
He died not very long
afterwards, in the forty-eighth year of his age, in the Duchy House in the
Savoy, London, and was buried at Skipton. The amour which he wore may
still be seen in the castle of Appleby, in his native county. His two sons
having died before him, he left an only daughter, to whom he bequeathed a
fortune of £15,000, entailing his estates upon his brother, whom he
probably thought better able in those days to hold them fast than a woman,
however strong-minded she might be. And 'strong-
minded' indeed she proved, for she contested this disposition of her
father's property for years, but unsuccessfully; though, as a matter of
fact, upon her uncle's death they reverted to her. , She was one of the
most high minded and remarkable women of her
age,' writes Southey, I and seems to have been the last person in England
by whom the old baronial dignity of the feudal times was supported ; and
in this instance all the good connected with that age was manifested
without any of the evil. . . She had the honor of erecting Spenser's
monument:
Dr. Whitaker, in his
'History of Craven,' observes that George, Earl of Cumberland, was a great
but unamiable man. 'His story,' he continues,
'admirably illustrates the difference between greatness and contentment,
between fame and virtue. If we trace him in the public history of his
times, we see nothing but the accomplished courtier, the skilful
navigator, the intrepid commander, the disinterested patriot. If we follow
him into his family, we are instantly struck with the indifferent and
unfaithful husband, the negligent and thoughtless parent. If we enter his
muniment room we are surrounded by memorials of prodigality and debt,
mortgages and sales, inquietude and approaching want. By the grant of the
Norton's broad acres he set out with a larger estate than any of his
ancestors; in little more than twenty years he made it one of the least.
Fortunately for his family, a constitution originally vigorous
gave way, at forty-seven, to hardships, anxiety, wounds, and
probably licentiousness. His separation from his virtuous lady was
occasioned by a Court intrigue; and there are families in Craven who are
said to derive their origin from the low amours of the third Earl of
Cumberland.'
Whatever may have been
the earl's moral character during his lifetime, it seems, at all events,
to have been 'whitewashed' after his death by
his daughter, the Lady Anne Clifford, Countess of Pembroke, to whom is
attributed the writing of the long inscription on the celebrated portrait
of the earl in Skipton Castle. This inscription, after setting forth a
biographical account of the earl, and a short narrative of his adventures
and death, concludes as follows: This earl George was a man of many
natural perfections, of a great wit and judgment, of a strong body and
full of agility, of a noble mind, and not subject to pride or arrogance, a
man generally beloved in this kingdom. He died of the bloody flux,
caused, as was supposed, by the many wounds and distempers he received
formerly in his sea voyages. He died penitently,
willingly, and Christianly. His only daughter
Countess her mother, were both present with him
at his death.'
Fuller makes a casual
remark that, 'while Clifford's tower is standing
in York, that family will never be forgotten therein: And there is,
happily, no reason to believe that the tower is destined soon to fall. Mr.
R. Davies, F.S.A., in his 'Walks through the
City of York,' lately published, speaks of it as an object of pride with
his fellow-citizens, as being `the moat graceful and picturesque of all
the remains of mediaeval architecture that our ancient city can boast: It
is true that it bas had some narrow escapes from destruction; for on St.
George's Day, 1684, its interior was consumed by fire; and earlier yet, in
1596, its demolition for the purpose of quarrying its atones was averted
only by a remonstrance from the Lord Mayor and aldermen of the city; and
again, only about a quarter- ago, it was feared that it would
have to be removed in order to enlarge the county prison! It was
probably first built, not as stated by Drake and other writers, by William
the Conqueror, but in the reign of King John, or else early in that of
Henry III.
It is to be feared,
however, that the name of the Clifford family is now more likely to be
remembered in the south than in the north of England; for their northern
estates have mostly passed into the hands of the Cavendishes,
the Tuftons, and the Lowthers; whilst the real head of the house of
Clifford-Lord Clifford of Chudleigh-lives in quiet retirement in the
neighbourhood of Exeter.
Chapters From the Family Chests, 1887
Chapters From the Family Chest |
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