The ruin of Scarborough Castle where in 1312
Robert de Clifford captured Piers Gaveston, the momosexual lover of King Edward II. Gaveston was taken
to Warwick Castle where he was held prisoner and then executed.
The Castle was kept in reasonable condition and remained in the Clifford family until the period when Matilda Clifford, widow of the Earl of Salisbury became the baroness of Clifford. During the Baron’s War of the 1260’s, John Giffard of Brimpsfield apparently used Clifford as a base. He abducted, raped and forcibly married Matilda. He was fined but Matilda accepted her fate and stayed with John in her Marches estate.
Robert de Clifford, soldier and magnate, was born about the beginning of April 1274, the son of Roger de Clifford the younger and his wife, Isabella de Vieuxpont, coheir with her sister Idonea to the lordship of Westmorland. The Cliffords had previously been a family powerful in the Anglo-Welsh marches. The Vieuxpont marriage led to their becoming one of the most important northern baronial dynasties. Aged only eight when his father was killed in Wales, Robert Clifford's wardship appears to have been granted to Edmund of Cornwall, the king's brother, but to have been effectively disposed of by Robert's mother, who entrusted the upbringing of her son to Gilbert de Clare, earl of Gloucester; only in 1291 did Edmund recover the custody. In 1294 Clifford was said to be in the king's wardship, and he was with Edward I in Wales in the spring of 1295. He had livery of his estates on 3 May 1295, but was still trying to recover usurpations suffered during his lengthy minority more than fifteen years later. The task was complicated by the demands of war and public office in Scotland and the north of England, almost as soon as Clifford entered upon his inheritance. In 1296 he accompanied the king to Scotland, and in July 1297 he was appointed captain of the king's castles in Cumberland. At the end of that year he led a destructive raid into Annandale which defeated the local levies and burnt ten villages. In the following February another raid left Annan in ashes.
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In 1298 Clifford fought at Falkirk as a household banneret, and after the victory he was made captain and king's lieutenant in north-west England and in Scotland. As a reward for his labours Edward I granted Clifford Caerlaverock Castle and the lands of Sir William Douglas, in the process initiating a feud between the Cliffords and the Douglases, which would last for a century. A series of personal summonses to parliament which began on 29 December 1299 has led to his being styled Lord Clifford. In 1300 he accompanied the king on the Caerlaverock campaign. He engaged himself to serve in Scotland over the winter of 1301–2, and accompanied the king there in 1304, participating in a successful attack on the Scots near Peebles. Later that year he joined the forces of the prince of Wales, and with them took part in the siege of Stirling Castle. But though he remained close to Prince Edward, who in August 1305 described him as ‘our dear and well loved knight’, he also continued to serve the king, on whose behalf he was keeper of the see of Durham in 1302–3 and 1305–7, and by March 1306 he was back in Scotland, as keeper of Selkirk. Shortly afterwards he was one of the English captains ordered to attack the rebellious Robert Bruce, and in February 1307 is recorded as pursuing Robert in Galloway. He was unable, however, to prevent James Douglas from capturing Douglas Castle and massacring the garrison that Clifford had placed in it.
Trusted by Edward I and close to Prince Edward, Clifford was one of four leading barons whom the former on his deathbed is said to have begged to have the prince crowned as soon as possible, and to keep Piers Gaveston out of England—‘and thai grantede him with god wille’. Early in the new reign Clifford was appointed marshal of England, and presumably organized Edward II's coronation on 25 February 1308. On 12 March 1308 he was relieved simultaneously of the marshalcy, Nottingham Castle, and his forest justiceship, but this can hardly be construed as resulting from loss of favour at court, for on 20 August he was appointed captain and chief guardian of Scotland. On 13 October, moreover, it was ‘by the command of our lord the king’ (books of record, 2.66–7) that he concluded negotiations with his maternal aunt Idonea and her second husband, John Cromwell, which resulted in his reuniting the lordship of Westmorland, divided since the mid-1260s. More probably Edward II had decided to build up Clifford's position in the north of England, at a time when the English position in Scotland was coming under growing pressure. It is likely to have been for the same reason that a sequence of three royal grants made between March and September 1310 gave him the castle and honour of Skipton in Craven in Yorkshire. He subsequently carried out important works on Skipton Castle. That his daughter Idonea should have married Henry Percy, second Lord Percy, with whose father Clifford many times campaigned against the Scots, is a pointer to the extent to which he came to identify himself with the nobility of northern England.
Clifford served regularly in Scotland and on the Scottish borders in the early years of Edward II's reign. On 26 October 1309 he was appointed keeper of the Carlisle march, and on 20 December following was ordered to act as warden of Scotland, with a force of 100 men-at-arms and 300 foot soldiers. He had relinquished that office by 1 April 1310, but on 17 July received a protection as he was about to set out for Scotland, and was said to have parleyed with King Robert at Selkirk in December. On 4 April 1311 he was appointed keeper of Scotland south of the Forth, with his headquarters at Berwick, and in November led a raid upon the Scots in which eleven of his knights lost their horses. But he was increasingly distracted from his duties in the north by his involvement in English politics, particularly as these were directed against Piers Gaveston. Clifford may have been influenced in this by the grant to Gaveston of the honour of Penrith in December 1310, perhaps fearing that Gaveston might become his rival for pre-eminence in north-west England. But as Gaveston had formerly held the more valuable lordship of Skipton, subsequently granted to Clifford, the latter had arguably gained more from royal favour, and it is likely that Clifford was moved principally by the general baronial hostility towards the favourite, and by his own undertaking to the king's father. He was not one of the ordainers, and Edward II probably regarded him as basically well disposed; when Skipton was resumed under the ordinances on 21 October 1311, it was restored to Clifford on 13 November following.
Nevertheless, Clifford was active against Gaveston in 1312, holding the borders to prevent his seeking Scottish aid, and later besieging him in Scarborough Castle. Though not involved in Gaveston's death, he appears to have taken some of the valuables that the king and Gaveston abandoned in Newcastle—some jewels were later returned to Edward from Clifford's London house. Gaveston was executed on 19 July 1312, and for over a year Clifford was continually active as an intermediary on behalf of the earls of Lancaster and Warwick in their negotiations with the king, receiving a series of safe conducts and letters of protection. On 14 October 1313 the barons responsible for Gaveston's death received pardons, and two days later Clifford himself obtained a general pardon. Although the reconciliation between the king and his leading opponents was superficial, it allowed Edward II to turn his attention to Scotland. Summoned to attend a muster at Berwick on 10 June 1314, Clifford took part in the campaign that culminated in the battle of Bannockburn. On the day before the main engagement, he was one of two leaders of an English force that tried to get behind the Scottish force drawn up in front of Stirling Castle, either to cut off its retreat or to make contact with the castle garrison. But his men could not break the ranks of the enemy infantry, and were eventually scattered; Clifford's own withdrawal was regarded by one chronicler as shameful—he had been ‘disgracefully routed’ (Vita Edwardi secundi, 51). Perhaps anxiety to recover his honour made him over-impetuous, for on the following day, 24 June, he charged into action in the English vanguard and was killed.
Sir Thomas, (b. c. 1363 – August 18, 1391) was a Knight of The Chamber, hereditary Sheriff of Westmorland, Governor of Carlisle Castle, and Warden of the East Marches. He was summoned to Parliament by Writ from December 6, 1389. He married before 1379 Elizabeth (d. March 1424), daughter of Thomas de Ros of Helmesley, by Beatrice, daughter of Ralph de Stafford, 1st Earl of Stafford, K.G., by whom he had issue. Lord Clifford is often styled in documents "King's kinsman". He died in Europe and his place of burial is unknown.
John de3 Clifford (b. 1389, d. 13 March 1422 at the Siege of Meaux), Knight of the Garter, 7th Baron de Clifford, and hereditary Sheriff of Westmorland. He married in about 1404 the Elizabeth De Percy, daughter of Henry "Hotspur" Percy by Elizabeth, daughter of Edmund Mortimer, 3rd Earl of March. They had two sons, Thomas (8th Lord Clifford) and Henry, and two daughters, Mary and Blanche (wife of Robert Waterton, Knight). The future queen consort of England, Jane Seymour, was a descendant of John Clifford through her mother's line.
He was summoned to Parliament from September 21, 1412. He and Elizabeth received a papal indult for a portable altar in 1412. He took part in a great tournament at Carlisle between six English and six Scottish Knights, as also in the French War. Present at the Battle of Agincourt, he was indented to serve Henry V of England with 3 archers. He was slain at the Siege of Meaux in France 13 March 1422. Elizabeth died 26 October 1436 and is buried at Staindrop, Durham.
He was born on 25 March 1414, and succeeded to his father's estates on 13 March 1422, before he was quite eight years old. He appears to have been under the guardianship of his mother and grandmother, to whom the right of 'maritagium' was granted in 1423.
His summons to parliament dates from December 1436. In 1434 he was joined in commission with the Earl of Northumberland to array the northern counties against the Scots, who then threatened Berwick, and next year had livery of his lands on making proof of his age. Some fifteen years later he appears as a conservator of the truce then being arranged between England and Scotland, and occupied a similar position in 1451.
In 1452 he was called upon to muster men and ships from the northern counties for the relief of Calais; and again in 1454. About the same time he was sheriff of Westmoreland, and in this capacity was bidden to lend assistance to the Duke of York. Several years previously his name occurs as being a member of the Duke of Bedford's retinue in France, and again as defending Pontoise against the French king.
He was slain in the battle of St. Albans (1455), where his body was afterwards buried in the Virgin's chapel by the abbot. His wife, according to Dugdale, was a daughter of Thomas, lord Dacres of Gillesland; by her he had four sons—John, his successor; Sir Roger Clifford; Sir Thomas Clifford (one of Henry VIII's councillors); and Robert Clifford, who was concerned in Perkin Warbeck's rebellion. He had also five daughters.
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As a reward for loyal service during his incursion into eastern Wales, Bernard de Neufmarche, Lord of Brecon, granted his followers parcels of land to set up their own lordly manors. One of Neufmarche's supporters was Richard FitzPons, then baron of Clifford, a village on the English side of the Welsh Borders not too far from Bronllys. FitzPons probably seized the land of Cantref Selyf in the late 1080's, during Neufmarche's incursion into Brycheiniog (when he became Lord of Brecon). The lordship of Cantref Selyf and its administrative center at Bronllys remained in the Clifford family (the surname was adopted by Richard's son, Walter) until the early 14th century.
Richard FitzPons probably built the first castle at Bronllys, a typical Norman motte and bailey stronghold. Situated on a well-appointed site overlooking the junction of two rivers, the Llynfi and Dulais, the castle guarded the main route into Welsh territory. While the castle saw little military action, it did play a role in maintaining Norman dominance in the region. The Cliffords were required to pay knight's fee for the right to own the castle and its surrounding estates, and when necessary, the lord of Cantref Selyf paid the Lord of Brecon the sum of five and a half armored horses plus provided a number of soldiers.
The motte castle built by FitzPons still dominates the site. The huge mound solidly supports the stone keep, which was added by Richard's great grandson, Walter de Clifford III. The initial stronghold began its existence as a typical motte and bailey fortification, with an additional rectangular outer bailey. Today, a modern home and gardens sit on the site of the inner bailey, however, the basic form of the original castle is clearly visible in the alignment of the trees, the perimeter outline, and the masonry remains.
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The Cliffords played an active role in the politics of the age, and both Walter I and Walter II fought in the wars against the Welsh in the late 12th and early 13th centuries. Their heir, Walter III, also fought the Welsh, under the command of Hubert de Burgh, his neighbor and Justiciar of England.
In 1233, Bronllys Castle was drawn into the conflicts that shaped the future of Wales. Choosing to side with the rebellious Earl of Pembroke, Richard Marshal, the Lord of Bronllys abandoned his support of Hubert de Burgh who in turn favored King Henry III. In retaliation, the king's men seized Walter III's castles at Bronllys and Clifford. However, a few weeks later, de Clifford regained control of his castles, and a huge force of 100 sergeants and 10 horsemen were garrisoned at Bronllys to keep the peace. Negotiations between representatives of the English king and those of the Welsh leader, Prince Llywelyn ab Iorweth, took place at Bronllys.
Walter de Clifford III probably constructed the lanky stone tower shortly after he inherited the Lordship of Bronllys and Cantref Selyf in 1221. Rising three stories and lit with slender windows, the round tower retains many of its original features, including a vaulted basement and evidence that a timber hoard (or fighting platform) was secured around the rooftop. In the 14th century, the windows on the second story were embellished with `cinquefoil' heads.
In 1311, Maud Giffard, the last surviving heir to the Clifford estates, died. Within the year, Bronllys Castle became the property of a native Welshman, Rhys ap Hywel. Rhys's father, Hywel ap Meurig, had associated himself with the likes of the Mortimers and Bohuns, politically influential Marcher lords, and also offered his loyalties to King Edward I (a man driven to crush the Welsh). Rhys also supported the monarchy and was granted the lordships of Cantref Selyf and Bronllys as a reward for his loyalty.
Rhys ap Hywel died in 1328, passing ownership of Bronllys Castle to his son, Philip ap Rhys. Due to the greed of the Bohuns, who wanted complete control of the Lordship of Brecon (of which Bronllys was a member lordship), Philip lost his estates and his castles after Humphrey de Bohun IV managed to convince the king that the lordships could only be administered by a man of great power, like himself (Humphrey). So, in 1351, Humphrey de Bohun became sole Lord of Cantref Selyf and the castle at Bronllys.
In 1373, Humphrey de Bohun IV died, and the former Clifford estates reverted to the king. Finally, in 1384, Bronllys Castle was granted to the de Bohun heiress, Mary, and her husband, Henry, Earl of Derby, son of John of Gaunt. More controversy ensued, as John's brother Thomas, the Duke of Gloucester, who had married the other de Bohun heiress, Eleanor, claimed hereditary rights to the castle. However, in 1399, after the Earl of Derby was crowned King Henry IV, all property held by the de Bohuns reverted to the monarchy.
Despite another claim to the lordship of Cantref Selyf by Anne Stafford, daughter of Eleanor de Bohun, Bronllys Castle remained a royal property. Roger Vaughan of Tretower held Bronllys Castle as the monarch's custodian for much of the 15th century, until it finally passed to an heir of the Staffords, Henry Duke of Buckingham in 1478. Though the Duke of Buckingham was executed in 1483 for his support of Harri Tudor (Henry VII), his estates passed to his heir, Edward. The new Duke of Buckingham did not actually gain possession of Bronllys Castle until 1509, and it remained his property for only 12 years. In 1521 Bronllys Castle reverted to the Crown for the last time after Buckingham's ill-conceived rebellion and execution.
By 1521, however, Bronllys Castle was already "beyond repair", victimized by 100 years of neglect. Even though the castle remained in the royal inventory, it never again saw military action and continued to decay until the State took over its care in 1962.
"Bronllys Castle" by Lise Hull
