light the then unknown title which her daughter had to the ancient baronies, honours, and lands of the Viponts, Cliffords, and Veseys; so as what good shall accrue to her daughter's posterity by the said inheritance must, next under God, be attributed to her *"

Earl Francis, as might naturally be expected, tried every means to set aside the entail, but in vain; yet he and his son were permitted to enjoy the estates, both in Westmoreland and Craven, until their decease.

This event with regard to earl Francis occurred on the 28th of January, 1640, at Skipton castle, in the very room where more than eighty years before he had first seen the light. He married Grisold, daughter of Thomas Hughes, esq. of Uxbridge, and widow of lord Abergavennie, by whom he had four children; George, who died in his childhood, Henry, who succeeded him, and two daughters, the ladies Margaret and Frances.

His countess died as early as 1613, at Londesborough, where, after her husband's accession to the title, she had altogether resided, "not enduring

* Inscription on family portrait.

to

go

to Skipton or Brougham, while in litigation with her niece *."

This fourth earl of Cumberland appears to have been of an amiable disposition, and free from any moral stain; he was hospitable and even magnificent in his habits, and uniformly charitable throughout his long life. In March, 1617, he gave a splendid entertainment to his patron and sovereign king James, at Brougham castle; and the airs which were sung and played on that occasion were thought worthy of publication the following year t. He established two exhibitions of £15 each for scholars at the University, and when he attended at Skipton church, which he never failed constantly to do, even in the severest weather and when fourscore years old, he had always a liberal dole distributed to the poor. Yet he was, unhappily for himself, possessed of but little energy of mind, and from the mere love of

# Lady Pembroke's MS.

With this title: "The Ayres that were sung and played at Brougham Castle, in Westmoreland, in the King's Entertainment; given by the Right Honourable the Earle of Cumberland, and his Right Noble Sonne the Lord Clifford. Composed by Mr. George Mason and Mr. John Earsden. London, printed by Thomas Snodham: cum privilegio, 1618." fol.

ease, was negligent of his own interest, and ruinously improvident as to his domestic economy. He was fortunate, however, in the possession of a son highly intelligent and accomplished, and to his management he had latterly the good sense to submit the direction of his affairs.

Of this nobleman, HENRY, FIFTH AND LAST EARL OF CUMBERLAND, who was born at Londesborough, Feb. 28, 1591, lord Clarendon has spoken in high terms, describing him as a man, if not of a martial temper, yet of great honour and integrity, and who had lived on his estates in the north with very much acceptation and affection from the gentlemen and common people." He married, about the age of twenty, the daughter of the celebrated Cecil, earl of Salisbury, and soon after commenced his travels on the continent, visiting France, Italy, and Spain, with the language and literature of which latter country he seems to have been particularly conversant *. On his return to England, he was associated with his father in the lieutenancy of the northern counties; a charge

*"Several of the old Family Books of Account," Whitaker, "have marginal notes by him in Spanish.”

says

Hist. of Craven, p. 286.

which, owing to the indolence and inattention of earl Francis, had been threatened to be placed in other hands.

It was whilst he was yet abroad, that his sister, the lady Margaret Clifford, was united to Mr. Thomas Wentworth, afterwards the great but unfortunate earl of Strafford. In a letter from his father, dated the 5th of October, 1611, the near approach of this connexion, which took place at Londesborough on the 22d of the same month, is thus affectionately mentioned. "Mr. Wentworth is in earnest, and seemeth to be a very affecc'onate suiter to y'r sister: he hath been here altogether for these three weekes past, and remaines here still : your sister is lykewyse therewith well pleased and contented. His father and I are agreed of all the conditions; we shall onely want and wish your companie at the marriage, which is, I thinke, not lyke to be long deferred. God blesse them *.”

The accession of lord Henry to the earldom could have been, on many accounts, attended with little that was satisfactory in possession, or exhilarating in prospect. He had lost, in the course of

Hist. of Craven, p. 284.

the first twelve years after his marriage, three sons, who died in their infancy, being the whole of his male offspring; thus, as Whitaker has remarked,

66

by cutting off five heirs male in the compass of two generations, Providence would seem to have decreed the extinction of the name of Clifford *." The unhappy father expressed his deep sense of the irreparable loss by the following concise but impressive epitaph in the parish church of Skipton:

Immensi Doloris Monumentum Angustum

Henricus Pater Deflet
Franciscum,

Carolum,

Henricum,

A. D. MDCXXXI.

The state of the country too was such, at the period of his coming to the title, as to render all property and all dignity insecure; for the great rebellion had commenced, and the earl, as lord lieutenant of the West Riding, was necessarily and almost immediately implicated in the contest. It was in this capacity that, attempting to execute the commission of array, in June, 1642, he was resisted by sir Thomas Fairfax. He found it necessary,

* Hist. of Craven, p. 360.