Thomas Clifford (1414 - 1455)

Born 25 Mar 1414 in Skipton, Yorkshire, England

Ancestors

Husband of Joan (Dacre) Clifford — married after 1 Aug 1424 in England [uncertain]

Descendants

Died 22 May 1455 at age 41 in St Albans, Hertfordshire, England

Problems/Questions Profile manager: Magna Carta Project WikiTree [send private message]

Magna Carta Surety Baron Descendant (see text). Join: Magna Carta Project Discuss: magna_carta

Biography

Birth and Parentage

Sir Thomas Clifford, 8th Lord Clifford, Sheriff of Westmoreland, was the son of Sir John de Clifford, 7th Lord Clifford and Elizabeth Percy, daughter of Sir Henry Percy ("Harry Hotspur") and Elizabeth Mortimer.^[1][2][3] He is said to have been born on 25 March 1414 at Skipton Castle, Yorkshire.^[4] However, his father's Inquisitions Post Mortem state he was born on 20 August 1414.^[5] His proof of age states he was born at Skipton in Craven, baptised in the church there, and was 21 on 1 September 1435.^[6]

Thomas became heir to his father's estates on 13 March 1422 when he was almost eight years old, but his wardship and the right to determine his marriage were granted to his mother and grandmother for a payment of 800 marks^[4] of which 300 marks (£200) was for the right to determine marriage.^[3]

Inheritance

Thomas made proof of age in 1435/6,^[3] at which point he came into possession of his inheritance.^[4] This included the baronies of Westmorland and of Skipton, Yorkshire,^[4] making him a major landowner in Northern England. His holdings were augmented when he inherited the dower property of his mother after her death in October 1436.^[4] Following his coming of age, he was summoned to Parliament as a Baron in December 1436, continuing to receive similar summonses until 1453.^[4][1][2][3]

Thomas was also hereditary Sheriff of Westmorland.^[1][2][3]

Marriage and Issue

On 1 August 1424 his mother and grandmother entered into an agreement that he would marry Joan Dacre, the daughter of Sir Thomas Dacre, 6th Baron Dacre of Gilsland, and Philippa Neville, daughter of Sir Ralph Neville, 1st Earl of Westmorland.^[4][1][2] The agreement reflected a Clifford-Percy alliance.^[4] The date of marriage is not known.

Thomas and Joan had four sons and five daughters, with all sons being knighted:^[1][2]

• Sir John,^[1][2] b. 8 Apr 1435, m. Margaret Bromflete^[7]
• Sir Roger,^[1][2] m. Joan (or Jane) Courtenay^[8]
• Sir Thomas^[1][2]
• Sir Robert^[1][2]
• Maud, m. 1st Sir John Harington, m. 2nd Sir Edmund Sutton^[1][2]
• Anne, m. 1st Sir Richard Tempest, m. 2nd William Conyers, Esq.^[1][2]
• Elizabeth,^[1][2] who was married to Robert Plumpton in 1446, when she was about six^[9] (so she was born about 1440), and after his death in 1450 m. Robert's brother Sir William Plumpton^[1][2][9] (this was permissible under canon law as the first marriage had not been consummated), and then m. 3rd John Hamerton^[1][2]
• Joan, m. Sir Simon Musgrave^[1][2]
• Margaret, m. Robert Carre^[1][2]

Military Activity against the Scots and in France

In 1434 or 1435 Thomas may have been in France as part of the retinue of the Duke of Bedford.^[4] Holinshed states that he took part in the 1437 capture of Pontoise by forces commanded by John Talbot, though Holinshed gives his first name as John.^[10] In 1439 Thomas defended Pontoise against the French.^[1][2] The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, however, states that 16th-century descriptions of Thomas's role in the Hundred Years' War are probably exaggerated.^[4]

Thomas was also involved in defending Northern England against the Scots. In 1436 he was one of the Commissioners ordered to resist Scottish forces which had attacked Berwick-upon-Tweed and Roxburgh.^[4] In 1448-9, when fighting with the Scots intensified, Thomas was one of the Lords ordered to defend the border.^[4] He helped to negotiate and maintain the subsequent truces.^[4][11] In 1451, he was one of the ambassadors to James II of Scotland.^[3]

In 1452^[4][11] and 1454^[11] Thomas was ordered to assemble naval forces for the relief of Calais.

Attempted Second Marriage

In 1453 Thomas contracted to marry Isabel Dacre, widow of John Dacre, Knt., a lady in waiting to Queen Margaret of Anjou, the wife of King Henry VI, but this marriage never took place. Isabel married, in 1454, Sir John Boteler (Butler) of Bewsey instead.^[1][2]

Choosing Sides in the Wars of the Roses

Thomas's aunt Maud, from whom he inherited a bed in 1446,^[4] married Richard, Earl of Cambridge, father of Richard Duke of York as her second husband.^[12] Despite his aunt's marriage connection to the Duke of York's father, in February 1452, when Richard Duke of York attempted to secure a position at the centre of government and to be recognised as heir of Henry VI,^[13] Thomas was one of the peers who resisted him at Dartford in Kent.^[4]

1st Battle of St Albans and Death

Thomas remained loyal to Henry VI when the Wars of the Roses broke out. The first battle in this war was the Battle of St Albans on 22 May 1455. Richard Duke of York marched south to try and stop Henry VI gathering a council of peers at Leicester. The two armies met at St Albans, Hertfordshire, which Henry VI's forces reached first, and they took steps to defend the town. Thomas was in the forefront of the defenders. In a short fierce battle, Richard Neville, the Earl of Warwick broke through an unguarded part of St Albans and Thomas was killed in the main street.^[4][14] His body was initially left there^[4] before being buried in the Lady Chapel of St Albans Abbey.^[4][1][2]

Research Notes

Burial Records

Alton Rogers received an e-mail dated June 21, 2006 from David Kelsall, then St. Albans Cathedral Archivist, who wrote: "You will find reference to the burial of [Thomas] Clifford in the Lady [Virgin's] Chapel at St. Albans in: Registra quorundam Abbatum Monasterii S. Albani, qui saeculo XV floruere. Transcribed in the Rolls series, 2 vols., London, 1872-1873." A second e-mail sent by David Kelsall to Alton Rogers, dated February 29, 2008, added: "Although he was certainly buried here, alas there is now no indication or ledger stone to show exactly where."

Royal Ancestors

Through Thomas Clifford's mother:
Charlemagne, Holy Roman Emperor^[15] - 21th great grandfather.
William I, "The Conqueror", King of England^[16] - 11th great grandfather.
Henry II, King of England^[17] - 8th great grandfather.
Philippe IV, King of France ^[18] - 5th great grandfather.
Edward I, "Longshanks", King of England^[19] - 5th great grandfather.
Edward III, King of England^[20] - 3rd great grandfather.

Magna Carta Surety Baron Ancestors

See below for Thomas Clifford's Magna Carta ancestry.

Sources

1. ↑ ^{1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 1.11 1.12 1.13 1.14 1.15 1.16 1.17 1.18} Douglas Richardson. Royal Ancestry: A Study in Colonial and Medieval Families, 5 vols, ed. Kimball G. Everingham (Salt Lake City: the author, 2013), volume II, pp. 246-247 CLIFFORD 15-16. See also WikiTree's source page for Royal Ancestry.
2. ↑ ^{2.00 2.01 2.02 2.03 2.04 2.05 2.06 2.07 2.08 2.09 2.10 2.11 2.12 2.13 2.14 2.15 2.16 2.17 2.18} Douglas Richardson. Magna Carta Ancestry: A Study in Colonial and Medieval Families, 4 vols, ed. Kimball G. Everingham, 2nd edition (Salt Lake City: the author, 2011), Vol. I, p. 508, CLIFFORD 11, Google Books
3. ↑ ^{3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5} George E. Cokayne. The complete peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain, and the United Kingdom : extant, extinct, or dormant, Vol III, London : The St. Catherine Press, Ltd, 1910, p. 293, Internet Archive
4. ↑ ^{4.00 4.01 4.02 4.03 4.04 4.05 4.06 4.07 4.08 4.09 4.10 4.11 4.12 4.13 4.14 4.15 4.16 4.17 4.18} Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, entry for 'Clifford, Thomas, eighth Baron Clifford', print and online 2004, available online via some libraries
5. ↑ King's College London, 2014. | Mapping the Medieval Countryside [online]. Available at http://www.inquisitionspostmortem.ac.uk/view/inquisition/21-952/ [Accessed: 22/11/2020] Inquisitions Post Mortem for John de Clyfford, knight 1422
6. ↑ King's College London, 2014. | Mapping the Medieval Countryside [online]. Available at http://www.inquisitionspostmortem.ac.uk/view/inquisition/24-564/ [Accessed: 22/11/2020] Proof of age for Thomas, son of John, lately lord Clifford, knight, and kin of Thomas de Clyfford, knight, and Elizabeth his wife 1435
7. ↑ Douglas Richardson, Magna Carta Ancestry, Vol. II, p. 508, CLIFFORD 12, Google Books
8. ↑ Douglas Richardson, Magna Carta Ancestry, volume II, p. 318, KNYVET-11, Google Books
9. ↑ ^{9.0 9.1} Plumpton, Edward, Sir. Plumpton correspondence. A series of letters, chiefly domestick, written in the reigns of Edward IV. Richard III. Henry VII. and Henry VIII, Camden Society, London, 1839. Pg lxiv.
10. ↑ William Shakespeare. Henry VI Part 2, ed. Ronald Knowles, The Arden Shakespeare, 1999, p. 358, footnote 46
11. ↑ ^{11.0 11.1 11.2} Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Vol. XI, pp. 77-78, entry for 'Clifford, Thomas de (1414-1455)', Wikisource
12. ↑ Wikipedia: Richard of Conisburgh, 3rd Earl of Cambridge.
13. ↑ Wikipedia: Richard of York, 3rd Duke of York]
14. ↑ Wikipedia: First Battle of St Albans
15. ↑ Douglas Richardson. Royal Ancestry: A Study in Colonial and Medieval Families, 5 vols, ed. Kimball G. Everingham (Salt Lake City: the author, 2013), volume V, page 481 Appendix Line B and C. 8th great grandfather of Maud of Flanders, wife of William The Conqueror
16. ↑ Great grandfather of Henry II (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_the_Conqueror)
17. ↑ Great grandfather of Edward I (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_II_of_England)
18. ↑ Maternal grandfather of Edward III of England (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_IV_of_France)
19. ↑ Grandfather of Edward III (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_I_of_England)
20. ↑ Mahler, Leslie. "Samuel Levis, Quaker Immigrant to Pennsylvania", The Genealogist, Spring 1999, Vol 13, No 1, p. 30-36, (PDF download)

See also:

• Richardson, Douglas. Magna Carta Ancestry: A Study in Colonial and Medieval Families, 4 vols, ed. Kimball G. Everingham. 2nd edition. Salt Lake City: the author, 2011. See also WikiTree's source page for ‘’Magna Carta Ancestry.’’ Volume 1, page 507-508, CLIFFORD 10-11
• Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, entry for 'Clifford, Thomas, eighth Baron Clifford', print and online 2004, available online via some libraries
• Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Vol. XI, pp. 77-78, entry for 'Clifford, Thomas de (1414-1455)', Wikisource
• Weis, Frederick Lewis. Ancestral Roots of certain American Colonists who came to America before 1700, 8th ed., Genealogical Publishing Company, 2004. p. 9, Line 5-35

Acknowledgements

Click the Changes tab to see the edits to this profile. Thank you to everyone who contributed.

Magna Carta Project

Thomas Clifford is in a trail badged by the Magna Carta Project in September 2015 from Gateway Ancestor Robert Peyton to Magna Carta Surety Barons Richard de Clare, Gilbert de Clare, John de Lacy, and Saher de Quincy. These trails are set out in the Magna Carta Trails section of the Gateway's profile.

Thomas Clifford appears in a Richardson-documented trail from from the Levis/Need Gateway Ancestors (Samuel Levis, Hannah (Levis) Blunston, Sarah (Levis) Bradshaw, Mary Need and Joseph Need) to Magna Carta Surety Barons Hugh le Bigod and Roger le Bigod (vol. II, pages 221-223 NEED). This profile is also in trails identified by the Magna Carta Project from the Levis/Need Gateways to surety barons Saher de Quincy, John de Lacy, Gilbert de Clare and Richard de Clare. These trails were developed as part of the Samuel Levis trail to the Bigods by John Sigh and were badged in February 2020 by Michael Cayley. The trails can be seen in the Magna Carta Trails sections in the profiles of Samuel Levis and Mary Need.

See Base Camp for more information about identified Magna Carta trails and their status. See the project's glossary for project-specific terms, such as a "badged trail".

Magna Carta trails

WikiTree's Relationship Finder shows that Thomas was a descendant of at least 10 Magna Carta Sureties, by at least 47 lines, but they are not all on trails that have been reviewed/approved (i.e., badged) by the Magna Carta Project as of 14 January 2020. Also note that the paths returned by the Relationship Finder (RF) often do not follow the same trail badged by the Magna Carta Project. I have updated the status in the table below based on whether or not there is a project-reviewed/approved (badged) trail for the surety baron that goes through this profile (but you may need to follow the badges rather than the RF path). ~ Noland-165 17:59, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

Thomas Clifford's descendants also inherit Magna Carta trails to 8 of these same Surety Barons from his wife Joan Dacre (Bigod-1, Bigod-2, Bohun-7, Clare-651, Clare-673, Clavering-13, Lacy-284 and Quincy-226).