# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Clifford, Roger de (1333-1389)

​CLIFFORD, ROGER de, ninth Lord Clifford, fifth Baron of Westmoreland (1333–1389), was born 10 July 1333 (Scr. and Gros. Roll, text, i. 197). His father (d. 20 May 1344) was Robert de Clifford, second son of Robert de Clifford (1273–1314) [q. v.], the founder of the northern branch of this family; his mother (d. 25 July 1362) was Isabella, daughter of Maurice, lord Berkeley. He succeeded his elder brother, Robert, probably in or before 1352, and certainly before 10 Aug. 1354, on which day he made proof of his age (Dugdale, i. 240; Whitaker, pp. 310-11; Hist. Peerage, 117; Hist. of Westmoreland, i. 279; Escheat Rolls, ii. 118, 248).
Clifford entered on his military career when hardly more than twelve, being armed at the time of Jacob van Arteveldt's death on 17 July 1345 (Scr. and Gros. Roll, i. 197). In August 1350 he was engaged in the seafight with the Spaniards near Winchelsea; and in 1355 he accompanied his father-in-law, Thomas de Beauchamp, earl of Warwick, on the expedition to Gascony (Whitaker, 314-315; Dugdale, i. 340). He was again serving in Gascony in 1359, 1360, and in the French expedition of the Duke of Lancaster in 1373. A document dated at Brougham 10 July 1369 shows him engaging the services of Richard le Fleming and his company for a year. In the same way he retained Sir Roger de Mowbray; and was himself retained, with his company of nearly eighty men, by Edmund, earl of March, on 25 Sept. 1379 (Dugdale, i. 340; Whitaker, 317). On 15 March 1361 he was called upon to assist Lionel, duke of Clarence, in his great Irish expedition on pain of forfeiting his Irish estates. A similar summons to defend his lands in Ireland was issued on 28 July 1368 (Rymer, vi. 319, 595). His chief services, however, were rendered on the Scotch borders. In July 1370 he was appointed one of the wardens of the west marches; but according to Sir H. Nicolas he is found defending the northern borders fourteen years earlier (Rymer, vi. 657; Dugdale, i. 340; Scrope Roll, ii. 469, &c.) Resigned the truce with Scotland on 24 Aug. 1369, and was warden of both east and west marches on five occasions between 1380 and 1385. In 1377 he was made sheriff of Cumberland and governor of Carlisle, a city whose walls he appears to have inspected and found weak in the preceding year. To the last two offices he was reappointed on Richard II's accession. He was made a commissioner of array against the Scots (26 Feb. 1372), and one of a body of commissioners to correct truce-breakers and decide border disputes 26 May 1373, having sat on a similar commission in September 1367. In August 1385 he accompanied Richard's expedition against Scotland with sixty men-at-arms and forty archers. His last border service seems to have been in October 1388, when he was ordered to adopt measures of defence for the Scotch marches (Rymer, vi. 570, 637, 714, vii. 9, 475; Nicolas, Scr. and Gros. Roll, ii. 469, &c.)
Clifford was summoned to all parliaments from 15 Dec. 1356 to 28 July 1388 (Dugdale, i. 340; Hist. Peerage, 117). He was trier of petitions in many parliaments from November 1373 to September 1377. In August 1374 he was appointed one of the commissioners to settle the dispute between Henry de Percy and William, earl of Douglas, relative to the possession of Jedworth Forest. In the parliament of November 1381 he was member of a committee to confer with the House of Commons. On 12 Oct. 1386 he gave evidence in the great Scrope and Grosvenor case at St. Margaret's Church, Westminster. Two years later (May 1388) he was with. Richard, earl of Arundel, in his naval expedition to Brittany (Scr. and Gros. Roll, i. 197, ii. 469, &c.; Rymer, vii. 45). He died 13 July 1389, being then possessed of enormous estates, chiefly situated in Yorkshire, Northumberland, Cumberland, and Westmoreland, but spread over several other counties (Dugdale, i. 341; Escheat Rolls, iii. 113).
Clifford married Maud or Matilda, daughter of Thomas de Beauchamp, earl of Warwick, who perhaps died in 1402-3 (cf. Escheat Rolls, iii. 286). By her he had two sons, Thomas, his successor (d. 1391?) [q. v.]; and, as is said, Sir William Clifford, the governor of Berwick (d. 1419), and three daughters: Mary, who married Sir Philip Wentworth of Wentworth, Yorkshire; Margaret, who married Sir John Melton, knight; and Katherine, the wife of Ralph, lord Greystock. Dugdale gives him a third son, the Lollard, Sir Lewis Clifford (d. 1404), whom, however, Sir H. Nicolas shows to have been probably his brother, but certainly not his son (Dugdale, i. 340-2; Whitaker, 314-16; Nicolas, Scr. and Gros. Roll, ii. 427, &c.) The genealogical table in Whitaker gives Clifford two brothers, John de Clifford and Thomas de Clifford, said to have been the ancestor of Richard de Clifford, bishop of London [q. v.]; also three sisters.
[Whitaker's History of Craven (ed. 1877) contains copious extracts from the account of the Clifford family drawn up by Sir Matthew Hale in the seventeenth century; together with a genealogical table facing p. 311; Scrope and Grosvenor Roll, ed. by Sir Harris Nicolas, of which vol. i. contains the text and vol. ii. lives of many of the witnesses, compiled by the editor; for other references see Clifford, Robert de.]
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