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Clifford
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Clifford

prebendary of Islington (17 March 1418); archdeacon of Middlesex (2 May 1418).

About April 1401 Clifford was promoted by papal provision to the see of Bath and Wells; but, as the king refused him the temporalities, he was transferred to Worcester (19 Aug. 1401), and his original bishopric given to Henry Bowet (Le Neve, i. 42; Godwin, pp. 378-9). In 1402 he helped to conduct Blanche, the eldest daughter of Henry IV, to Cologne, and there married her to Louis, son of Rupert, king of the Romans (Green, iii. 326). Three of his letters written about this period are preserved (Smith, Worcester, pp. 100-1; Wilkins, Concilia, iii. 278; Coxe, Cat. C. C. C. ii. 26). From Worcester Gregory XII translated him to London by a bull dated 22 June 1407, the same year in which Henry Bowet was translated to York (Le Neve, ii. 294; Ypod. Neustr. p. 423). On 23 and 25 Sept, 1413 he was present in the chapter-house of St. Paul's at Sir John Oldcastle's trial for heresy, and it is from the Archbishop of Canterbury's elaborate letter to him that we derive our knowledge of the details of this great case. Two years later (17 Aug. 1415) he assisted the same prelate's successor, when John Claydon, the London Lollard, was handed over to the civil power (Rymer, ix. 61; Wilkins, iii. 371). On 28 May 1415 he was ordered to array his clergy against the enemies of the king and church. Little more than a year later (20 July 1416) he was appointed one of the English ambassadors to the council of Constance, and he had certainly quitted England on this service by 16 Dec. (Rymer, ix. 254, 371, 420). While at Constance he received at least one letter of instruction written by the king's own hand. In the deliberations he took a very prominent part, and was even proposed for the papacy. It was he who at the 'early morning' conclave of 11 Nov. 1417 uttered the words 'Ego Ricardus episcopus Londoniensis accedo ad dominum meum cardinalem de Columpna,' and thus secured the election of Martin V. On Sunday, 31 Jan. 1417, he entertained the Duke of Bavaria, the king of the Romans, and the Burgrave (Rymer, ix. 436, 466; Ypodigma Neustr. pp. 475-6).

While bishop of London Clifford took a considerable part in matters not strictly ecclesiastical. He was acting as the archbishop's deputy when the convocation held at St. Paul's (Corpus Christi day, 1413) granted a tenth to the king, and was present at the Westminster great council (16 April 1415) when Henry V determined to recover his inheritance in France (Wilkins, iii. 351; Rymer, ix. 222). Little more than a month before his death he was in communication with the archbishop about the privileges of Oxford and Cambridge graduates (16 July 1421). He died 20 Aug. 1421, and was buried 'under the marble stone where formerly stood the shrine of St. Erkenwald' (Wilkins, p. 401; Godwin, i. 187). It was this bishop who (15 Oct. 1414) supplanted the old use of St. Paul's by that of Sarum.

[Wilkins's Concilia, vol. iii.; Le Neve's Fasti, ed. Hardy, vols. i. ii. iii.; Smith's Worcester in 'English Dioceses;' Register of St. Paul's, ed. Simpson (1873); Godwin, De Præsulibus, ed. Richardson (1743); Walsingham's Ypodigma Neustriae (Rolls Series); Coxe's Catalogue of Oxford MSS.; for other authorities see Clifford, Robert de and Roger de.]

T. A. A.

CLIFFORD, ROBERT de, fifth Baron Clifford by tenure, first baron by writ (1273–1314), only son of the Roger de Clifford who was killed in North Wales in 1282, by his wife Isabella, daughter and coheiress of Robert de Vipont, was born about Easter 1273 (History of Westmoreland, Ann. Wint. 109; Rishanger, 87, 103; Ann. Dunst. 291; Parl. Writs, i. 536; Cal. Geneal. 139, 331). Clifford was thus left heir to the Clifford estates of his grandfather, Roger de Clifford [q. v.], who died in 1285, and to a moiety of the Vipont inheritance shared between his mother (? d. 29 Nov. 1301) and her sister Idonea de Leyborne (Cal. Geneal. 331, 540, &c.; Ann. Wigorn. 550).

Clifford was summoned to do service by proxy for his Northumbrian estates about July 1282, being at that time under age. In 1285 he is found paying 100l. relief as one of Ralph Gaugy's heirs, and according to Sir Matthew Hale was in the king's employ when only nineteen (Parl. Writs, i. 230, 241; Siege of Carlaverock, 186). It is not, however, till 1297 that he comes forward prominently. In this year he was appointed justice of the forests beyond Trent, an office which he still held in April 1300, and apparently in 1305. In the previous May (1297) he had been summoned to attend Edward across the sea, but can hardly have done so, as on 12 July he was appointed captain of the Cumberland fortresses and ordered to invade Scotland with Henry de Percy (Parl. Writs, 536; Siege of Carl. 186; cf. Rymer, ii. 774). In the course of the same year (1297) he was made captain and guardian of the Scotch marches and the county of Cumberland (18 Oct., 14 Nov.); and towards the middle of June 1297 as a baron received a personal summons to the York muster for 12 Nov. 1298 (Parl. Writs, 536). In 1297 he was appointed governor of Carlisle; in 1298 governor of Not-