Robert, his son, fourth lord, fought by the side of Edward the Black Prince at the memorable battles of Cressy and Poictiers.
Roger, his brother, the fifth lord, styled "one of the wisest and gallantest of the Cliffords," also served in the wars in France and Scotland, in the reign of Edward III.
Thomas, his son, sixth lord Clifford, one of the most chivalrous knights of his time, overcame, in a memorable passage of arms, the famous French knight, "le Sire de Burjisande," and, at the age of thirty, was killed in the battle at Spruce in Germany.
John, his son, the seventh lord, a Knight of the Garter, carried with him to the French wars three knights, forty-seven esquires, and one hundred and fifty archers. He fought under the banner of Henry V. at the battle of Agincourt, attended him at the sieges Harfleur and Cherbourg, and was eventually slain, at the age of thirty-three, at the siege of Meaux in France.
Thomas, his son, eighth lord Clifford, described as "a chief commander in France," was grandson on his mother's side to the celebrated Hotspur, Harry Percy, and gained renown by the daring and ingenious stratagem which he planned and successfully executed for taking the town of Pontoise, near Paris, in 1438. The English had lain for some time before the town, with little prospect of reducing it, when a heavy fall of snow suggested to Lord Clifford the means of effecting its capture. Arraying himself and his followers with white tunics over their armour, he concealed them during the night close to the walls of the town, which at daybreak he surprised and carried by storm. Two years afterwards he valiantly defended the town of Pontoise against the armies of France, headed by Charles VII. in person.
In the Wars of the Roses they were not less prominent. The last mentioned Thomas, though nearly allied by blood to the house of York, took part with his unfortunate sovereign, Henry VI., and fell on the 22nd of May, 1455, at the first battle of St. Albans, receiving his death-blow from the hands of Richard Duke of York, at the age of forty.
John, his son, the next and ninth lord, called from his complexion the Black-faced Clifford, thirsting to revenge the fate of his father, perpetrated that memorable act of cruelty, which for centuries has excited indignation and tears, the murder of the young Earl of Rutland, brother of Edward IV., in the pursuit after the battle of Wakefield, on the 30th December, 1460. The latter, whilst being withdrawn from the field by his attendant chaplain and schoolmaster, a priest, called Sir Robert Aspall, was espied by Lord Clifford; and being recognised by means of his apparel, "dismayed, had not a word to speak, but kneeled on his knees imploring mercy and desiring grace, both with holding up his hands and making dolorous countenance, for his speech was gone for fear. 'Save him,' said his chaplain, 'for he is a prince's son, and peradventure may do you good hereafter.' With that word, the Lord Clifford marked him and said, 'By God's blood, thy father slew mine, and so will I do thee and all thy kin;' and with that word stuck the earl to the heart with his dagger, and bade his chaplain bear the earl's mother and brother word what he had done and said."
The murder in cold blood of this unarmed boy, for he was only twelve or at most seventeen years old, while supplicating for his life, was not the only atrocity committed by Lord Clifford on that eventful day. "This cruel Clifford and deadly blood-supper," writes the old chronicler, "not content with this homicide or child-killing, came to the place where the dead corpse of the Duke of York lay, and caused his head to be stricken off, and set on it a crown of paper, and so fixed it on a pole and presented it to the queen, not lying far from the field, in great spite and much derision, saying, 'Madam, your war is done; here is your king's ransom;' at which present was much joy and great rejoicing."
Lord Clifford fought at the second battle of St. Albans, on the 17th of February, 1461. It was in his tent, after the Lancastrians had won the victory, that the unfortunate Henry VI. once more embraced his consort Margaret of Anjou, and their beloved child.
Lord Clifford is usually represented as having been slain at the battle of Towton. He fell, however, in a hard fought conflict which preceded that engagement by a few hours, at a spot called Dittingale, situated in a small valley between Towton and Scarthingwell, struck in the throat by a headless arrow, discharged from behind a hedge.
A small chapel on the banks of the Aire formerly marked the spot where lay the remains of John Lord Clifford, as well as those of his cousin, Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland, who perished later in the day upon Towton Field, on the 29th of March, 1461.
For nearly a quarter of a century from this time, the name of Clifford remained an attainted one; their castles and seigniories passed into the hands of strangers and enemies. The barony of Westmorland was conferred by Edward IV. upon his brother Richard Duke of Gloucester; the castle and manor of Skipton he bestowed, in the first instance, upon Sir William Stanley; but in the fifteenth year of his reign he transferred them to his "dear brother," which lordly appanage he retained till his death on Bosworth Field.1
The young widow left by the Black-faced Clifford, was Margaret daughter and sole heiress of Henry de Bromflete, Baron de Vesci. She had borne her husband three children, two sons and a daughter, now attainted by parliament, deprived of their honours and inheritance, and their persons and lives in hourly jeopardy from the strict search which was being made for them. The seat of her father at Lonsborrow in Yorkshire, surrounded by a wild district, offered a retreat from their enemies; and thither, as soon as the fate of her lord was communicated to her, driven from the stately halls of Skipton and Appleby, of which she had ceased to be mistress, flew the young widow with her hunted children, and saved them from the rage of the victorious party by concealment.
Henry, the elder son, at the period of their flight to Lonsborrow was only seven years old. He was there placed by his mother, in the neighbourhood where she lived, with a shepherd who had married one of her inferior servants, an attendant on his nurse, to be brought up in no better condition than the shepherd's own children. The strict inquiry which had been made after them, and the subsequent examination of their mother respecting them, at length led to the conclusion that they had been conveyed beyond the sea, whither in truth the younger boy had been sent, into the Netherlands, and not long after died there. The daughter grew up to womanhood, and became the wife of Sir Robert Aske, from whom descended the Askes of Yorkshire, and the Lord Fairfax of Denton in the same county.
When the high born shepherd boy was about his fourteenth year, his grandfather, Lord de Vesci being dead, and his mother having become the wife of Sir Lancelot Threlkeld, a rumour again arose and reached the court that the young Lord Clifford was alive; whereupon his mother, with the connivance and assistance of her husband, had the shepherd with whom she had placed her son, removed with his wife and family from Yorkshire to the more mountainous country of Cumberland. In that wild and remote region, the persecuted boy was "kept as a shepherd sometimes at Threlkeld amongst his step-father's kindred, and sometimes upon the borders of Scotland, where they took land purposely for those shepherds who had the custody of him, where many times his step-father came purposely to visit him, and sometimes his mother, though very secretly."
In this obscurity the heir of the Cliffords passed the remainder of his boyhood, all his youth, and his early manhood; haunting, in the pursuit of pastoral occupations, the lofty moorland wastes at the foot of Blencathra, or musing in the solitude of the stupendous heights of that "Peak of Witches;" at other times, ranging amid the lonesome glens of Skiddaw Forest, or on the bleak heath-clad hills of Caldbeck and Carrock.
Thus being of necessity nurtured much in solitude, and, habited in rustic garb, bred up to man's estate among the simple dalesmen, to whom, as well as to himself, his rank and station were unknown, he was reared in so great ignorance that he could neither read nor write; for his parents durst not have him instructed in any kind of learning, lest by it his birth should be discovered; and when subsequently he was restored to his title and estates, and took his place among his peers, he never attained to higher proficiency in the art of writing than barely enabled him to sign his name.
One of the first acts of Henry VII. was to restore the lowly Clifford to his birthright and to all that had been possessed by his noble ancestors. And his mother, who did not