CLIFFORD, Thomas (1630-73)

Clifford was made a ward after the death of his father, shortly after his return from crown service in the Bishops’ Wars. His estate was burdened with charges for his paternal grandmother, who died in 1663, and his mother, who remarried, to Gregory Cole (d. 1660), in 1645. In 1650 Clifford married Elizabeth Martin from a cadet branch of the recusant Martins of Dorset. She was coheiress of her brother, who had died in 1643. In a will made in August 1659, Clifford provided for the sale of an estate worth £1,490 to pay his debts. Hartmann, Clifford, 8–9, 14–17, 21–22. Gilbert Burnet, the future bishop of Salisbury, was thus correct in his belief that Clifford was ‘born to a small fortune’; in 1667 Samuel Pepys^‡ was told that Clifford’s estate was worth only £140 per annum. Burnet, i. 412; Pepys Diary, viii. 185–6.

Clifford’s first political patrons were Sir Edward Seymour^‡, who backed him as a candidate for Totnes in the election to the Convention, and Sir Hugh Pollard^‡. His energy and activity in local and national office was impressive from the outset. He served in the Devon militia and as a justice of the peace, a county assessor and deputy lieutenant, but it was his industry in the Commons which initially brought him to the attention of Sir Henry Bennet, later earl of Arlington, and James Stuart, duke of York. HP Commons, 1660–90, ii. 91–92. Clifford was appointed a gentleman of the privy chamber in 1660 and York personally recommended him for re-election for Totnes in 1661.

In September 1662, Bennet described Clifford as a man of ‘virtue and good parts’ and his particular friend. M. Lee, The Cabal, 121. He was to remain Clifford’s political patron for the next decade. Clifford was active in the Commons, and in 1663 he and Solomon Swale^‡ were described as ‘two of the greatest proctors the bishops had’ in the lower House. Seaward, Cavalier Parlt. 89. On 17 Sept. 1666 Pepys described Clifford as ‘a very fine gentleman, and much set by at court for his activity in going to sea, and stoutness everywhere and stirring up and down’. Pepys Diary, vi. 288. Clifford’s wartime efforts were rewarded and he was appointed comptroller of the king’s household in November 1666 and made a privy councillor. CSP Dom. 1666–7, pp. 298–9. In May 1667 he was appointed to the treasury commission that replaced Thomas Wriothesley, 4th earl of Southampton. Pepys, who worked closely with Clifford during the Dutch war, noted his rise to power with Arlington’s patronage, but went on to say that, despite his faults, he heard nothing but good reports of Clifford’s work at the treasury. Pepys Diary, ix. 205.

By 1669 Clifford was recognized as one of the king’s leading ministers, who were known collectively as the Cabal. His views chimed in well with the pro-French, pro-Catholic and pro-prerogative views of the times and he was appointed to the Privy Council committee on foreign affairs, the king’s inner circle of advisers. In the late 1660s he prepared a secret paper for Charles II that argued that war with the Dutch ‘would in all respects suit with the interests of England’, so long as the king could be sure of victory. J. Spurr, England in the 1670s, p. 7. It was also at this juncture that Charles II was said to have revealed his own conversion to Catholicism to Arlington, Clifford and Henry Arundell, 3rd baron Arundell of Wardour.

Clifford’s own conversion to Catholicism is difficult to date, although by 1669 he had developed a close friendship with the Benedictine Hugh (Serenus) Cressy, himself a Catholic convert, and was reading various works of Catholic theology and apologetics. Cressy argued that Catholicism and the acceptance of the royal supremacy of a Protestant king were not incompatible, an argument conducive to Clifford’s view that the Church of England and the Church of Rome could be reunited by this approach in the longer term. Hartmann, Clifford, 186–7, 190–201; EHR, cxxviii. 271-4. Whatever his private thoughts, Clifford outwardly adhered to the Anglican faith. His son Thomas entered an Oxford college in 1668 and when, in March 1671, he was dying in Florence, the suggestion that he be ministered to by an Irish priest was vetoed by Sir John Finch, on the grounds that ‘to his father, the knowing that his son died a Catholic might be a greater affliction than his death’. HMC Finch, ii. 501. After dining with Clifford on 17 Apr. 1671, Evelyn suspected him of ‘a little warping to Rome’. Evelyn Diary, iii. 577. On 17 July of the same year, Anthony Sparrow, bishop of Exeter, dedicated a new chapel at Ugbrooke, Clifford’s home to St. Cyprian, the advocate of the unity of the Christian Church. Hartmann, Clifford, 204. In October 1672 Clifford acted as godfather to a son of Sir Christopher Wren^‡, along with Gilbert Sheldon, archbishop of Canterbury. HMC Hastings, ii. 159.

Given that Clifford was already a party to the king’s secret conversion, he was an obvious choice as a negotiator of the secret treaty of Dover with France. He personally drafted instructions for Arundell, the king’s secret envoy, several versions of the treaty articles, and correspondence with the French ambassador, Colbert de Croissy, and Charles II’s sister, the duchess of Orleans. Add. 65138, passim. Together with Arundell, Arlington and Sir Richard Bellings, Clifford was a signatory of the treaty on 22 May 1670. In December 1671 he was commissioned, along with Arlington, George Villiers, 2nd duke of Buckingham, Ashley and John Maitland, earl of Guilford (better known as duke of Lauderdale [S]), ‘the juncto about this grand affair’, to negotiate the official version of the French Treaty, without the secret Catholic clause. Verney ms mic. M636/24, Sir R. to E. Verney, 28 Dec. 1671; Add. 36916, f. 235.

Clifford was increasingly seen as an important figure. Indeed, an opposition pamphlet, The Alarum, dropped in Westminster Hall in 1669, portrayed him as an advocate of royal prerogative and absolutism. Further, the public was warned that he had ‘too much ambition and too little money to be content’. Lee, Cabal, 123. There were other critics, too, Sir William Coventry^‡ telling Pepys in March 1669 ‘of the folly, ambitions and desire of popularity of Sir Thomas Clifford and yet the rudeness of his tongue and passions when angry’. Pepys Diary, ix. 472.

With the king committed by his treaty with Louis XIV to a war against the Dutch, measures were necessary to boost the treasury’s finances. Clifford was an exponent of what became known as the ‘Stop of the Exchequer’, proposing that course of action at a meeting of the Privy Council on 2 Jan. 1672. The freeze on the majority of outgoing payments allowed the incoming revenue to be channelled into military expenditure. TNA, PC 2/63, pp. 142, 144–5. The policy was supported by the king and on 18 Jan. 1672 it was reported that Arlington and Clifford ‘in all appearance does gain ground exceedingly of the other faction’. Hatton Corresp. (Cam. Soc. n.s. xxii), 76. As a corollary to war, and to the need to allay religious fears prompted by an attack on the Protestant Dutch, the committee of foreign affairs met twice on 6 and 9 Mar. to discuss the possibility of a declaration of religious liberty. Clifford took a leading role in discussions, assuring the king and all present that he had dispensing power in matters of religion and could suspend the penal laws. Indeed, as Clifford and Charles II seemed to speak with one voice, they may have been acting in concert. Spurr, England in the 1670s, pp. 28–29; Miller, Charles II, 189.

A Declaration of Indulgence was duly issued on 15 Mar. and war declared two days later. The declaration also had implications for the state’s power, and the author of A Letter From a Person of Quality (1675) (variously attributed to Anthony Ashley Cooper, earl of Shaftesbury, or Shaftesbury’s associate John Locke), later claimed that in conversation Clifford had said that the king, ‘if he would be firm to himself, might settle what religion he pleased, and carry the government to what height he would; for if men were assured of the liberty of their consciences and undisturbed in their properties’, with adequate armed forces at Tilbury, Hull and Plymouth, none would have the ‘will, opportunity or power to resist’. Hartmann, Clifford, 219–20. Others were less sanguine: Colonel Richard Talbot, the future earl of Tyrconnel [I], feared that the declaration ‘would turn to the ruin of them all’ and claimed that he had tried to moderate the ‘furious’ tendencies of Clifford and Arundell. Dublin Pub. Lib. Gilbert ms 227, ff. 33–34, Ormond’s Irish narrative.

For his efforts, Clifford was rewarded with a peerage on 22 Apr. 1672, later paying £60 for a family pedigree that traced his ancestry back to the Middle Ages. Hartmann, Clifford, 224. In order to support the dignity of his new honour, he was granted the reversion of the manor of Rodway Fitzpaine and site of Cannington Priory, Somerset, worth £2,000 per year. Som. Heritage Centre, DD/BR/ww/6; Add. 21948, ff. 427–8; CTB, 1669–72, p. 1278. Clifford was now very close to York: Colbert reported that he had joined the duke in pressing the king to take the final step and declare his conversion. Hartmann, Clifford, 229. He was also closely involved with the duke’s agents in Europe, Talbot and Henry Mordaunt, 2nd earl of Peterborough, who were negotiating for York’s marriage. It was Clifford who transmitted the king’s private instructions to the lord lieutenant of Ireland, Arthur Capell, earl of Essex, on the sensitive matter of dispensing with the oaths of allegiance and supremacy in Ireland and ensuring that one of Queen Catharine’s chaplains, Father Patrick Maginn, was granted lands in Ireland. Add. 21505, f. 29; Bodl. Rawl B. 492, f. 32.

By the winter of 1671, Clifford was suffering from gout and rheumatism. Hartmann, Clifford, 212. Further stress was added when he had to take over many of the tasks of Arlington during the summer of 1672, when the secretary was in Holland. Add. 25117, f. 5; Bulstrode Pprs. 239. By the third week of July Clifford’s health was so poor that he wrote to Arlington,

I am in such pain with my old distemper I had in the winter, and it is now in my leg as well as in my shoulder. I am almost as very a cripple as the Lord Keeper [Sir Orlando Bridgeman^‡]. For many reasons I wish you back and among them that I might be carried to Bath. CSP Dom. 1672, p. 347.

Clifford did go to Bath on 21 July, accompanied by Father Maginn, and was well enough to correspond with Whitehall by mid-August, expecting to return to London by the 21st. Stowe 200, f. 162; CSP Dom. 1672, p. 469. He then went to inspect the fleet, returning on 30 August. Add. 70081, newsletter, 31 Aug. 1672. On 7 Sept. he informed Lauderdale that ‘the Cabal are all impatient for your return to us’, and suggested that ‘most of us go with the opinion that it is not yet too late in the year for our whole fleet to go out to sea again’, a course adopted so as to remove the need to pay off the seamen, and thus avoid meeting Parliament in October. Add. 23135, f. 203. Thus Parliament was prorogued on 30 Oct. 1672 until February 1673, although the opportunity was taken to introduce Clifford into the Lords, flanked by Arundell and Francis Newport, 2nd baron Newport.

The reconstruction of the ministry in November 1672, attendant upon the replacement of Lord Keeper Bridgeman by Shaftesbury as lord chancellor, saw Clifford promoted to be lord treasurer. The king declared that there was ‘nobody fitter’ for the post, but Clifford’s appointment led to a breach with his erstwhile patron Arlington, who had also coveted the place. Arlington thought Clifford ungrateful; despite the efforts of York to effect a reconciliation, none was forthcoming. Life of James II, i. 482. It was soon reported that ‘the king had a good deal of the French money lately, of which the treasurer, my Lord Clifford wholly disposes’, and that the lord treasurer personally compiled the lists of money to be paid out every Saturday. Hatton Corresp. 100. Further, on 4 Dec. it was reported that Clifford was ‘very vigorous’ and would have the treasury in excellent order by the time Parliament resumed in February so that the Commons would grant the necessary supplies. Add. 21948, f. 434. The implication that Clifford would be involved in managing Parliament was confirmed on 21 Dec. when Clifford and Arlington met with nine members of the Commons ‘about the Parliament’. CSP Dom. 1672–3, p. 630. Before Christmas, Charles II appealed to Clifford and Arundell to attempt to persuade York to take the Anglican sacrament. At the second time of asking Clifford went to York, recalling that he ‘found the duke not to be moved in his resolution of not going against his conscience’. Life of James II, i. 482–3. Clifford was more successful with electoral management, ensuring in February 1673 that Walter Langdon^‡, who had married Clifford’s sister-in-law, was returned at a by-election for East Looe.

With a difficult session in prospect, Clifford seems to have sought out the astrologer Elias Ashmole to answer the question whether the Declaration of Indulgence ‘will not occasion such a contest in the House of Commons at their next meeting as to hinder the king’s supplies unless it be set aside’. Ashmole Diary, ed. Josten, iv. 1296. When the new session opened on 4 Feb. 1673 Clifford was absent, confined to his house with gallstones. Hartmann, Clifford, 257. He missed three of the first four days of the session, but then sat every day, attending on 35 days, a little over 92 per cent of the total. With the Commons threatening to use supply as a weapon to force the king to withdraw the Declaration, Clifford obtained the proxies of John Seymour, 4th duke of Somerset, on 10 Feb., and Peterborough on 17 Feb., in case the matter came to a vote in the Lords.

On 10 Feb. 1673 the Commons voted by 168 to 116 that the king could not suspend penal statutes in ecclesiastical matters, and on 14 Feb. an address on the matter was ordered to be presented to the king. Following this address there was a delay while the king and his advisers pondered their options. Initially, Clifford, with Arlington, advocated being ‘kind in the handling of this address’, in order to secure supply, while remaining firm to the Declaration. Haley, Shaftesbury, 320; Miller, Charles II, 201. When the king finally replied on 24 Feb., it provoked a further address on the 26th, wherein the Commons told the king that he had been ‘misinformed’ as to his powers. In response to this, as Arlington told the French ambassador, Clifford was one of the king’s advisers advocating a dissolution in an attempt to solve the problem. Haley, Shaftesbury, 321.

Eventually, the king decided that the Lords should be asked for their ‘advice’, in the hope of procuring a vote in defence of his prerogative. On 1 Mar. the king referred the Commons’ address to the Lords for their advice, together with his answer to it and the Commons’ response. Clifford was one of eight peers named to draw up an address thanking the king for his ‘great favour in communicating this business’ to the Lords. After several days’ debate, he was one of a large committee appointed on 5 Mar. to draw up ‘heads for a bill of advice’ to be presented to the king. It was to this committee that Clifford proposed providing the king with the ‘power (if it be not in him already) to suspend penal statutes in matters ecclesiastical out of time of Parliament’, although ‘except it be in great exigencies and emergencies’ the king would not do so without naming them. HMC 9th Rep. pt. ii, 25. Nothing came of these proposals as, after six hours of debate in council on the 7th, with Clifford in the minority in recommending a dissolution before Parliament ‘could offend the royal dignity further’, the king decided to withdraw the Declaration. CSP Ven. 1673–5, p. 27. When this was announced the following day, Clifford was named to a committee of nine to thank the king for his speech. On 12 Mar. he reported back to the House that the king had given orders for his speech to be printed.

A corollary of the Commons’ efforts to obtain the withdrawal of the Declaration of the Indulgence was a campaign against the growth of popery. On 6 Mar. 1673 Clifford was one of seven peers named to manage a conference acquainting the Commons with the Lords’ amendments to the lower House’s address against the growth of popery, and on the 7th he was named as a reporter of the conference. Next came the introduction of a bill designed to exclude Catholics from civil and military office, with the clear threat that a failure to pass this legislation would result in the loss of the supply bill. When the Test bill reached its third reading in the Lords on 20 Mar. 1673, Clifford ‘could not resist the inspiration of God’, and launched an impassioned attack upon it as ‘a dirty bill’, the monstrum horrendum or frightful monster from Virgil’s Aeneid. Haley, Shaftesbury, 323.

As Colbert described it to Louis XIV, Clifford, ‘driven by premature zeal, made a speech, or rather a sermon’, in the Lords, accusing the Commons of an attack on the privileges of the Lords and an intrusion by them into purely Church matters. Although his speech ‘had the approbation of much of the upper chamber, especially the duke of York and even the bishops’, when it came to the attention of the Commons, ‘it ignited a fire there to the extent that only outbursts and imprecations against the government were heard’. In particular, Lord (Cavendish William Cavendish, the future duke of Devonshire), proposed that ‘while the king was permitting them to present their grievances to him, they should start with bad counsellors’. TNA, PRO 31/3/128, pp. 46–48. Charles Powlett, styled Lord St. John, the future duke of Bolton, Michael Malet^‡ and William Sacheverell^‡ also ‘moved against’ Clifford, ‘but the motion was not further seconded’. Ashmole Diary, iv. 1315; Dering Diary, ed. Henning, 148–9; Grey, ii. 152–4. Clifford’s speech may have been an attempt to foment a privilege dispute with the Commons so that the bill would be lost. Swatland, 192. Certainly, he was surprised when the king, on Arlington’s advice, disavowed it. Miller, Charles II, 203. Indeed, according to Colbert on 25 Mar., Arlington felt that Clifford’s speech was an extravagance:

at a time when the King of England has consented to everything the Parliament wishes in the matter of religion and is even making a severe proclamation against the Catholics, nothing is so astonishing as to hear his lord high treasurer, the chief repository of all his secrets, take the part of the said Catholics with unparalleled eloquence and boldness. PRO 31/3/128, pp. 49–51.

While this controversy raged, what was termed ‘the lord treasurer’s bill’ received its first reading in the Lords on 7 March. This was a bill for the settlement of the rectory of Chudleigh upon Clifford and others, which was reported from committee by Humphrey Henchman, bishop of London, on 10 March. It was reported from committee in the Commons with some amendments by Sir Robert Howard^‡ and returned to the Lords on 15 Mar., receiving the royal assent at the end of the session. Meanwhile, Clifford was also named to four committees on general legislation and added to the committee for privileges (20 Feb.). Most importantly, for the war effort, on 28 Mar. he reported from the committee of the whole the supply bill for raising £1,238,750.

With the Test Act on the statute books, there was speculation that both Clifford and York would ‘receive the sacrament’ on 30 Mar., Easter Sunday. NAS, GD 406/1/11648. However, Clifford had already told the Venetian ambassador in confidence on 21 Mar. that he intended to retire into the country. CSP Ven. 1673–5, p. 31. Another burst of speculation occurred in the days before Whitsunday, 18 May. On the 15 May Henry Ball reported that ‘the town’ believed that Clifford would receive the sacrament then, and it was widely believed that he would spend the 17th in preparation for the event. CSP Dom. 1673, p. 255. Unfortunately, on that day his coach overturned in the Strand, spilling Clifford and Father Maginn into the street. Sir Joseph Williamson^‡ was told that the ‘whole town is no longer in doubt of my Lord Treasurer’s being a Roman Catholic’, and that it was noted that Clifford had ‘always observed popish holy-days, and would never do business on any of them, and that his chapel was only for fashion and for his servants, his Lordship nor Lady never frequenting it’. Williamson Letters (Cam. Soc. n.s. viii), 2, 6–7.

There was also a spate of speculation on Clifford’s successor, should he leave office. On 18 May, Sir Robert Carr^‡ thought that he would ‘go off’ and be replaced by Sir Thomas Osborne, the future earl of Danby. CSP Dom. 1673, p. 266. Writing the following day, Sir Ralph Verney^‡ was somewhat sceptical of reports that Clifford would ‘lay down his staff’, and be succeeded by Osborne because ‘I cannot easily think he will leave his place so easily’. Verney ms mic. M636/26, Sir R. to E. Verney, 19 May 1673. Arlington was certainly unhappy at the prospect of Osborne, backed by Clifford, York, Lauderdale and Buckingham, succeeding to the treasury. PRO 31/3/128, pp. 76–77.

With the deadline for taking the Test approaching, on 4 June 1673 it was reported that Clifford ‘holds his resolution of quitting’ and that Osborne would pay him a considerable pension. HMC Hastings, ii. 163. Clifford resigned on 19 June, ‘with great cheerfulness and constancy of countenance, whatever was his complexion within’, and was replaced by Osborne. Williamson Letters, 57. Rumours abounded about the financial settlement between them. Sir John Reresby^‡ believed that Buckingham had facilitated Osborne’s succession by ‘making a bargain’ between them for half of his salary, Reresby Mems. 88. and Williamson was told that Clifford would ‘get £20,000 presently’ and £4,000 per annum (which was half the usual lord treasurer’s salary) while Osborne was in post. Williamson Letters, 47-8.

Reports that Clifford would go ‘suddenly into the country and wholly retires’ proved accurate, for by 24 June it was reported that he had gone to Ugbrooke and ‘intends a very private life’. Williamson Letters, 51; Hatton Corresp. 107. On 3 July a warrant was issued for a pardon for all Clifford’s actions before 30 June 1673. CSP Dom. 1673–5, p. 418. On 14 July he was still in the country, but by the 25th he was at Tunbridge, where he met Evelyn, who thought that he was at the spa to ‘divert his mind more than his body’ and that, having promised York he would resign, ‘this grieved him’. Evelyn met Clifford again at Wallingford House on 18 Aug., packing up for his departure to Ugbrooke. On 25 Aug. it was reported that Clifford was departing for the country ‘for all together’. Williamson Letters, 87, 105, 128; Evelyn Diary, iv. 16.

At the end of September 1673, John Tillotson, the future archbishop of Canterbury, told Sancroft (referring to the forthcoming meeting of Parliament) that ‘some will have it that Clifford is not October proof, having lately taken a journey somewhere westward’. Bodl. Tanner 42, f. 34. On 26 Sept. Clifford wrote from Ugbrooke to his successor about the allowance given to the Speaker of the House of Commons. Add 28053, f. 73. On 3 Oct. it was again reported that Parliament might attack Clifford, who was not expected to attend the session but was ‘ready to take wing upon the first notice’. However, by this time Clifford was ill of the stone and, according to his kinsman Prowse, given over by his doctors. Williamson Letters, 29, 40. Officially, he died from ‘the stone’, while at his house in Devon on 17 Oct. 1673. CSP Ven. 1673–5, p. 162; CSP Dom. 1673–5, p. 573. Both Tillotson and Ashmole noted that Clifford had died of ‘bleeding’. Bodl. Tanner, 42, f. 48; Ashmole Diary, iv. 1349n. Evelyn had no difficulty in believing that it was suicide. Evelyn Diary, iv. 18–22.

Clifford was buried quickly and privately at his chapel in Ugbrooke, as stipulated in his will. He left four unmarried daughters, for whom he provided portions of £2,500. His son Simon was to be maintained by his wife until the place of teller of the exchequer, of which Clifford had obtained the reversion (in 1671, after the death of his eldest son, Thomas, to whom a reversion had been granted in 1667), fell to him (which it did in July 1684). Both Simon and Charles (a godson of Charles II) were also to receive £1,000 apiece. His eldest surviving son, Hugh Clifford, 2nd Baron Clifford, succeeded to most of his estates, which would be ‘a support to his maintenance’ until the reversion of the pipe office, which Clifford had secured in July 1673, fell to him. Significantly, in a petition at the end of 1675, Lady Clifford referred to having ‘nine children indifferently provided for’. CSP Dom. 1675–6, p. 465.

Sir William Temple^‡ noted Clifford’s death as ‘a very great loss to the duke and to the papists’, but in the months that followed, when the Commons sought to place the blame for the king’s religious policies on his counsellors, Clifford provided a ready scapegoat. Essex Pprs. (Cam. Soc. n.s. xlvii), 133; Verney ms mic. M636/27, Sir R. to E. Verney, 15 Jan. 1674. During the attack on Lauderdale in the Commons in April 1675, Burnet revealed that Clifford had agreed with the Scottish minister in favouring the maintenance of the Declaration by force. Dering Diaries, ed. Bond, 68–69. Critics pointed to the increase in secret service payments during Clifford’s administration, although the whole establishment had grown in these years. Eg. 3351, f. 89; HMC Lords, iii. 407. However, Lady Clifford was able to secure a full discharge of her husband’s accounts after his death. Hartmann, Clifford, 255. Later assessments have concluded that Clifford was part of an exceptionally able treasury commission and continued its work as lord treasurer. C.D. Chandaman, English Public Revenue, 1660–1688, pp. 230–1.

In Advice to A Painter to Draw the Duke by, attributed variously to Henry Savile^‡, Andrew Marvell^‡, John Ayloffe and John Wilmot, earl of Rochester, Clifford was described as the ‘mad Cethegus of his age’, but Evelyn saw him as ‘a valiant, uncorrupt gentleman, ambitious, not covetous, generous, passionate, and a most constant, sincere friend to me’. POAS, i. 217; Evelyn Diary, iv. 20. The duke of York later recalled, in his Advice to his Son, that Clifford was the only minister of Charles II that ‘served him throughout faithfully and without reproach’. Life of James II, 638. Less approvingly, a contemporary squib likened Clifford’s loyalty to that of a ‘mastiff dog’. Lee, The Cabal, 1; Add. 23722, f.4. According to Thomas Bruce, 2nd earl of Ailesbury, he was ‘of a haughty and aspiring spirit and kept to his point’. Ailesbury Mems. 12. To Sir Edward Dering, he was ‘the factotum of that time’. Dering Diaries, ed. Bond, 112. Burnet described Clifford as a ‘man of great vivacity’, adding that he had been ‘reconciled to Rome before the Restoration’, and that at one point he had aspired to be a cardinal. Burnet, i. 412; ii. 3. Modern commentators have portrayed him as a competent administrator, but also as ‘quick-tempered, stubborn and inflexible’, and as man of ‘genuine faith’, who pursued ideas to their conclusion and took the consequences, which other men avoided by being more flexible. Lee, The Cabal, 135, 156; HJ, xxix. 318.