See also

Lady Elizabeth PERCY (c. 1390-1437)

1. Lady Elizabeth PERCY, daughter of Sir Henry Percy (Harry Hotspur) (1364-1403) and Elizabeth MORTIMER ( - ), was born circa 1390. She married in 1404. She married John CLIFFORD in 1404. She died on 26 October 1437.

 

They were great grandparents of Jane Seymour, wife of Henry VIII.

 

John CLIFFORD, son of Thomas CLIFFORD (c. 1363-1391) and Elizabeth ROS (c. 1390-c. 1437), was born in 1388 in Appleby, Westmoreland. He had the title '7th Lord Clifford'. He died on [Julian] 13 March 1421 in Meaux. He was killed at the Siege of Meaux, Seine-et-Marne, France. He was buried in Bolton Abbey/Friars Minors, Ipswich, Suffolk. He and Elizabeth PERCY had the following children:

 

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Thomas CLIFFORD (1414-1455)

Second Generation

2. Thomas CLIFFORD, son of John CLIFFORD and Lady Elizabeth PERCY, was born in 1414. He had the title '8th Lord Clifford'. He married Joan DACRE circa 1424 in Skelton, Yorkshire. Thomas was killed at the Battle of St. Albans.

 

When his father died at Meaux in France Thomas was only seven years old. He was commissioned in 1434/5 along with his uncle the Earl of Northumberland to array the northern counties against the Scots. In 1449 he was conservator of the truce between England and Scotland and in 1450-1he was one of three Ambassadors from Henry VI to James III of Scotland. In 1437 he laid siege to Pontoise near Paris. He dressed his soldiers in white and under the cover of a snowstorm they scaled the ramparts and captured the fortress. The King called on him again in 1452 and 1454 to muster men and ships from the north to relief Calais. The Hundred Years War with France drew to a close and Thomas returned home but by May 1455 the struggle for control of the English throne had erupted into violence and Thomas Clifford was killed at the first battle of St. Albans. Thomas 8th Lord Clifford had married Joan Dacre in 1424 and they had six children.

 

Joan DACRE was born circa 1418. She died circa 1455. She and Thomas CLIFFORD had the following children:

 

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John CLIFFORD (1435-1461)

Third Generation

3. Lord John CLIFFORD, son of Thomas CLIFFORD and Joan DACRE, was born in 1435. He was baptised on 8 April 1435 in Conisborough Castle. He had the title '9th Lord Clifford'. He married Margaret BROMFLETE circa 1453. He died on 28 March 1461 in Towton (Ferrybridge). He was killed at the battle of Towton, Ferrybridge, Yorkshire.

 

John, ninth lord Clifford, was one of the principal leaders of the party of the house of Lancaster, and for his cruelty and inhumanity obtained the surname of the Butcher. He stabbed in cold blood, after the defeat of the Yorkists in the battle of Wakefield 24 December 1460, Edmund earl of Rutland, next brother to king Edward the fourth, who was at that time seventeen years of age, in pretended revenge of the death of his father. This nobleman married Margaret, daughter and heiress of Henry Bromflete baron Bromflete and baron Vesci; in consequence of which marriage the title of Vesci descended to the family of Clifford. He was killed at the battle of Towton 29 March 1461 in the twenty-sixth year of his age. In fact, the stories of his cruelty may well have been exaggerated, and the stabbing in cold blood may not have happened. Henry, his son, obtained a reversal of his attainder from Henry VII.

 

Margaret BROMFLETE, daughter of Henry BROMFLETE ( - ), was born in 1436. She died on 12 April 1493. She and John CLIFFORD had the following children:

 

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Henry, Lord Clifford (1454-1523). Henry, was born in 1454. He had the title '10th Lord Clifford'. He married Anne ST JOHN circa 1486 in Skipton, Yorks.. He died on 23 April 1523.