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," says Whitaker, "have marginal notes by him in Spanish." 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,

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.

therefore, to garrison his castle of Skipton, which was very shortly afterwards besieged by Lambert, Poyntz, and Rossiter: for the first entry of a soldier slain within it, on this occasion, appears in the parish register of Skipton with the date of December 23d, 1642. The defence was intrusted to, and ably conducted by, sir John Mallory of Studley, near Ripon, one of the oldest and most faithful friends of the family. Lord Henry, however, lived not to see the termination of the siege, which was protracted until December 22, 1645, when it surrendered upon articles; for, being at York in 1643, he was seized with a burning fever, and died at one of the prebend's houses in that city, on the 11th of December of the same year.

From the memoranda of lady Clifford, who survived her lord little more than three months, and was interred in York cathedral, Dr. Whitaker has extracted the following very curious items of the expenses attending his lordship's funeral. They are such as mark not only the affectionate care of her ladyship, but that attention to business and pecuniary economy, which was then thought not derogatory from the highest rank.

"1643. Disbursed since the 11th day of Dec.

the yeare aforesaid, on which day it pleased God to take the soule of my most noble lorde out of this miserable, rebellious age, I trust, to his eternall joyes!

"Dec. 12th. Imprimis, To the govr. of Yorke's clarke, for a pass for a trumpeter, and a servant of my lorde to go to Hull, 2s. 6d.-To George Middleton, on account of several things bought at Hull, towards the funeral of my lorde, the sum of 40%. -To the paynter, for making exchuchons, 27. 1s. -To the coachmaker, for making the chariott for carrying the corps to Skipton, 47.-Dec. 13th. For one of the vergers for ringing the minster bell, being double fees for a nobleman, 17. 8s.—33 yards of black cloth for coachman and footman, 167.—Dec. 15. Mr. Beomant of York, for 3 whole pieces of black, 247. 15s. 6d. Mr. Squuyre, for fine cloth, 97. and coarse, 5/. 3s., 14/. 3s.-Ditto, bought at Hull, cloath, 27. 14s. 4d.-Several sorts of ribbon, 4s. For royal paper, for eschuchons, 12s.Mr. Adgar Tayler, 27 yards of velvet, at 26s. per yard, for a black pall for covering the corpse, 35l. 15s.-J. Plaxton, on account of wine to be bought at Skipton, 15/.-Mr. Deane the surgeon, in part, for embalming the bodye, 107.-29 yards