CLIFFORD, Hugh (1663-1730)

By the time of his father’s death Clifford was the eldest surviving son. Interestingly, when Anthony Ashley Cooper, earl of Shaftesbury drew up his analysis of peers in 1677-8, Clifford was classed as underage, but not as a papist. Unable to take his seat in the Lords because of the terms of the Test Act, he nevertheless entered into public life. On 10 Feb. 1685 he may have been the Lord Clifford who was thought a possible lord chamberlain to the new queen.4 HMC 5th Rep. 186. On 12 Mar. 1686 his name was included in a warrant sent to the attorney general to draw up a document authorizing him and other named Catholics to travel to London or any other place, and to remain at court ‘without taking the oaths of allegiance and supremacy’, and ‘for dispensing them from taking the said oaths etc., and from all penalties, notwithstanding’. In 1687, Clifford was added to the commission of the peace in Devonshire, Middlesex and Warwickshire, and in February 1688 he was named as a justice in Buckinghamshire.5 Glassey, JPs, 73; Duckett, Penal Laws, 297. On four lists produced in the period 1687-8 to gauge opinion towards James II’s policies, he was simply listed as a Catholic.

The Revolution of 1688 ended Clifford’s public career. It was reported in December 1688, that he had lost £8,000 ‘by the injuries offered to his house’ in Devon, ‘being a Papist’.6 HMC Hastings, ii. 203. He also lost his office as clerk of the pipe to Robert Russell^‡, a son of William Russell, 5th earl of Bedford. Erroneously, his absence from the Lords on 2 Nov. 1691 was excused because he was a minor.

More trouble was in store for Clifford in May 1692 when Jonathan Trelawny, bishop of Exeter, seized a letter ‘directed to a servant’ of Clifford’s with one enclosed to ‘Bishop Gifford’.7 HMC Finch, iv. 143-4. Further reports suggested that the correspondence named the day for an insurrection.8 Verney ms mic. M636/45, J. to Sir R. Verney, 18 May 1692. Clifford was committed to prison in Exeter and then to London in the custody of a messenger and placed in the Tower.9 Luttrell, Brief Relation, ii. 447, 454-6; PC 2/74. On 14 June 1692 the queen ordered the lord chief justice, Sir John Holt^‡, to admit him to bail on a bond of £5,000 with two sureties of £2,500 apiece, to appear the first day of the following term.10 CSP Dom. 1692, p. 325. As the fears of a French invasion passed, nothing further occurred.

Clifford did not sign the Association in 1696. However, he attended a meeting of Catholics in London in December 1697, in order to draw up an address of congratulation to William III on the peace and praying for his protection, but the meeting ‘broke up abruptly, unable to agree upon a form’.11 Luttrell, Brief Relation, iv. 318. Clifford died in Somerset on 12 Oct. 1730 and was buried at Cannington, being succeeded by his son, Hugh Clifford^†, 3rd Baron Clifford.