CLIFTON, Sir Robert (c.1385-1442), of Denver, Norf.

A cadet member of a prominent East Anglian family, Clifton was a distant cousin of his contemporary Sir John Clifton of Buckenham Castle. Both men were descended from Adam Clifton (d.1367). Adam’s 2nd son and namesake was the MP’s father; his eldest son Constantine was Sir John’s gt.-gdfa.: CP, iii. 307-8; CPR, 1361-4, p. 498; CIPM, xix. 956. An important and very wealthy local figure, Sir John owed his fortune to his inheritance, his marriage and his war service in France. A soldier of some note like his relative, Robert Clifton also had an eventful career as a royal ambassador. About 26 years old when his father died in 1411, he inherited the feudal lordship of the Norfolk hundred and a half of Freebridge, the manor of Denver (a few miles south of Lynn) and various lands, most of which were situated in the west of the county. Early in the following year the Crown ordered the local escheator to grant him seisin of Freebridge, but since his mother, Margery, possessed a jointure interest in the other properties, as well as her customary dower rights in her late husband’s lands, she probably retained much of Sir Adam’s estate for the rest of her life. There is no record of when she died, so it is not known how long Clifton was obliged to wait until coming fully into his own. His inheritance was valued at some £60 p.a. by his father’s inquisition post mortem (almost certainly an underestimate); there is little evidence of his adding significantly to it in subsequent years. CFR, xiii. 231; CCR, 1409-13, p. 267.

Clifton had an important responsibility thrust upon him at an early age because he was pricked as sheriff of Norfolk and Suffolk in November 1412, an appointment confirmed upon the accession of Henry V a few months later. When he came to render his account in 1413, he was pardoned the considerable sum of £160 since many of the old increments and profits of his bailiwick were no longer collectable or were of less value than in the past, and because the death of Henry IV had disrupted the exercise of his official duties. CPR, 1413-16, p. 141. Within a few years of completing his term as sheriff, Clifton received a knighthood, an honour which he is likely to have earned in the King’s wars. A member of the household of Henry V’s uncle, Thomas Beaufort, duke of Exeter (a magnate with territorial influence in west Norfolk), he evidently accompanied Beaufort to France in the spring of 1418. Not long after crossing the Channel, the duke was sent to besiege the city of Rouen. During the siege, which lasted from the end of July until early in the following year, Clifton shared lodgings with Sir William Bowet and several other knights, among them Sir Henry Inglose*, Sir William Oldhall* and his relative, Sir John Clifton. After the fall of Rouen, Beaufort laid siege to the fortress of Château Gaillard, which surrendered in September 1419. According to William Worcestre, Sir Robert subsequently distinguished himself at nearby Fleury-sur-Andelle, where he overcame 600 Frenchmen with a force of only 80 men-at-arms. William of Worcestre, Itins. ed. Harvey, 355, 359, 361. In 1420 Beaufort helped to negotiate the Treaty of Troyes with the French and participated in the siege of Melun, but it is unclear whether Clifton was involved in these events or the battle of Baugé (where his patron was captured) the following year.

The duke of Exeter returned to England after Henry V’s death, but it is possible that Clifton arrived home before him. Clifton continued his association with Beaufort following his return to England, since he acted as a mainpernor for the duke three years later, when the Crown granted Beaufort the keeping of certain estates which the late earl of March had held in East Anglia and south-east England. CFR, xv. 85. Some years after Beaufort’s death in 1426, the Crown farmed out his honour of Wormegay, a former Bardolf lordship, to William de la Pole, earl of Suffolk. Several former Beaufort retainers, among them Sir Thomas Tuddenham*, joined de la Pole’s affinity, but there is no evidence that Clifton followed their example. It is nevertheless worth noting that his relative, Sir John Clifton, was on good terms with the earl. H.R. Castor, King, Crown and Duchy of Lancaster, 86, 87, 99.

Clifton did not begin his second term in the shrievalty until February 1423, although he accounted from the previous Michaelmas. As sheriff his name appears on the returns for Norfolk and Suffolk to the Parliament of that year, but he is unlikely to have attended both elections in person, since the two indentures bear the same date, 4 Oct. C219/13/2. In the middle of the same decade he was involved in trying to settle a quarrel between the lawyer, William Paston, and Walter Aslak. Allegedly Aslak had plotted to murder his opponent; but Humphrey, duke of Gloucester, intervened before matters could get out of hand. The two men were ordered to submit their differences to arbitration and Clifton was one of those nominated to arbitrate on Aslak’s behalf. An award was made, but in 1426 Aslak was accused of refusing to abide by its terms. Paston Letters ed. Davis, i. 9-11. Clifton is unlikely to have taken part in any further efforts to resolve the dispute since he would appear to have gone abroad: in January that year the Crown licensed a Lombard banker, Alessandro de Ferentis, to issue him a letter of exchange payable for £60 in foreign parts. CCR, 1429-36, p. 372. If this was for use as an ambassador, no evidence of his mission has survived.

Clifton was returned to his only known Parliament in the summer of 1433. During it the Commons granted the King a fifteenth and tenth, and shortly after it was dissolved he and John Roys*, his fellow knight of the shire, were commissioned to distribute allowances for that tax within Norfolk. One of the Parliament’s primary concerns was the problem of lawlessness, and the government imposed an oath for keeping the peace throughout the realm. It was again in their capacity as former MPs that the two men helped to administer this oath in their county in 1434.

In the same year Clifton was involved in a transaction by which Thomas Charles and his wife settled certain lands in Barmer and elsewhere in north-west Norfolk on him and his heirs. CP25(1)/169/187/98. If this marked his acquisition of these lands, it is likely that he engaged in sheep-farming, an important commercial activity in that part of the county, since fold liberties were included in the conveyance. The following February he was one of those to whom John, son of Sir Edward Hastings, made a quitclaim of various Hastings properties in Norfolk, Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire. CCR, 1435-41, p. 59. Well known for his dispute with Reynold, Lord Grey of Ruthin, over the right to the title and arms of Lord Hastings, Sir Edward was Clifton’s son-in-law. The exact date of Hastings’s marriage (his second) to the MP’s daughter Margery is unknown although it preceded the jointure arrangements he made for her in July 1432. CP25(1)/292/67/132. The MP was party to further settlements made for his son-in-law and da. in 1435: Norf. RO, Hastings mss, MR 90 241 x 3; MR 92 241 x 3; MR 317 242 x 5; Wodehouse mss, KIM 2B/19; KIM 2C/14. Another prominent East Anglian knight with whom Clifton was associated was a connexion by marriage to Hastings, Sir Simon Felbrigg KG, who appointed him a feoffee of his will. Test. Vetusta ed. Nicolas, ii. 245. After Sir Edward’s death in 1438, Margery married John Wymondham*, who was to acquire the reversion of the Felbrigg manors at Felbrigg and Aylmerton from Sir Simon’s widow. Besides Margery, Clifton had at least two other daughters and a son, Thomas. Thomas would appear to have attained his majority by December 1435, when he acted as a mainpernor for his father, along with Sir John Clifton, Sir William Oldhall and others. CFR, xvi. 256.

In the same month the King’s Council appointed Clifton and the canon lawyer, Stephen Wilton, ambassadors to treat with the Holy Roman Emperor, the archbishop of Cologne and other imperial princes, and made each of them an advance of 100 marks. The purpose of the mission, during which both men received daily wages of 10s., is nowhere stated but it came in the wake of a rapprochement between France and Burgundy. The Emperor had recently declared war on the duchy’s ruler, Philip the Good, and it is clear that the English were seeking to form an alliance against their erstwhile Burgundian allies. PPC, iv. 308; E403/721, m. 11; C81/701/3147-8; E404/52/168; J. Ferguson, English Diplomacy, 60; R. Vaughan, Philip the Good, 67. The two men left London on 27 Dec. and were presumably returning to England when they were captured and imprisoned by the duke of Burgundy on the following 25 Apr. E101/323/3. At some stage after their capture Clifton’s wife, Alice, his daughter, Margery Hastings, and his son, Thomas, petitioned the King, asking him to secure his release, for ‘Syr Robert was nat oonly sent for the kynges Weel but for the Weel as hit is supposed of alle the land’. SC8/308/15353. This petition is undated, but it is almost certainly connected with the MP’s imprisonment, rather than with the debts he owed to the Crown at the end of his life (as assumed by M.G.A. Vale, English Gascony, 117). The Crown seems to have responded to this appeal, since in November 1437 another envoy, Peter Cousin, acquired a licence to take with him certain sums of money and articles of dress prior to travelling to Hainault to seek the ambassadors’ freedom. Eventually released on 10 May 1438, Clifton and Wilton reached London 14 days later. DKR, xlviii. 321; E101/323/3.

Clifton returned to the continent in the summer of 1439, following his appointment as constable of Bordeaux the previous March. He travelled to the duchy of Guyenne as a member of an expedition led by John Holand, earl of Huntingdon, whom the Crown had made lieutenant of Gascony. Holand’s household servants and retainers made up the bulk of his force, but it also contained contingents led by Clifton (who brought with him no fewer than 15 lances and 90 archers), E101/53/22. and several other knights. The earl had been appointed lieutenant for six years but he returned to England in December 1440. Among those who remained behind were men with significant roles in the duchy’s administration, including Clifton and Sir Thomas Rempston†, seneschal of Gascony. The immediate impact of Holand’s expedition was to prompt French counter-operations in south-west France. Vale, 112, 123, 246. By 1442 the English in Gascony were facing a critical situation, for the French king, Charles VII, appeared in the duchy at the head of a large army. M. Keen, Eng. in the Later Middle Ages, 394-5.

In the midst of this crisis Clifton died at Bordeaux, in the early hours of 23 Sept. 1442. Corresp. Bekynton, ii. 203 No doubt the last few weeks of his life were difficult ones because even that city seemed under threat. Just over a month before he died, an English embassy, comprised of the King’s secretary, Thomas Bekynton, and other officers of the royal household, arrived in the duchy. The object of their mission was to discuss an alliance with Jean, count of Armagnac, who had proposed that his daughter should marry Henry VI, but its chief effect was to impress upon the government that more active steps were needed to save Gascony. Oxf. DNB, ‘Beckington, Thomas’. Of particular interest is a diary or journal kept by one of Bekynton’s servants, since it several times refers to Clifton and describes his death and funeral. Upon arriving in Bordeaux on 16 July (two days after hearing the disturbing news that the French had captured Rempston), the envoys breakfasted with him at the castle. Bekynton had further dealings with Clifton in the weeks immediately following his arrival. In late July and early August, for example, he helped to resolve a dispute between him and William Bec, a former judge of appeals in Gascony. Bekynton was one of the last people to see the constable alive, for he was with him at his deathbed. By 22 Sept. Clifton was gravely ill and near to death, and the bishop prompted him to make a will. He died at about 4 o’clock the next morning and the following afternoon his funeral was held at the castle. The service, the form of which was recorded by the diarist in Bekynton’s party, opened with the ‘Pater Noster’, followed by an antiphon, psalms, readings and prayers. The next day a mass was sung for him at the Carmelite church in Bordeaux, where he was buried in the chancel. Clifton was perhaps lucky to have such a burial, since the diarist also noted that he had been excommunicated at the behest of Bernard Groos, a member of the local nobility to whom he had failed to repay a loan of 100 francs. Corresp. Bekynton, ii. 185, 193, 195, 196, 203-4, 409.

Clifton had made his will in the low chamber (‘camera bassa’) of Bordeaux castle, in the presence of John Blakeney*, a public notary from the diocese of Norwich who had accompanied Bekynton to France. Not surprisingly, given that he was in extremis when he made it, the will is a short one. Reg. Wylbey, ff. 128-9. The will bears the date ‘25 Sept. 1442’, two days after the date of Clifton’s death as recorded by Bekynton’s servant. It seems unlikely that the diarist made a mistake with his dates: possibly the will was completed posthumously from a previous draft. The inq. post mortem for the MP’s lands gave yet another date for his death: 27 Sept. At least one of his requests was not fulfilled, since he asked to be buried in the priory church at Buckenham (where the representatives of the senior branch of his family lived). He also asked that a chaplain should sing at Buckenham priory for eight years, for the souls of himself, his parents and his benefactors. To the parish church at Denver, to which he had the right of presentation, he left a new robe and a mantle. He bequeathed little to his immediate family, leaving, for example, no more than £12 to his wife, Alice, and only five marks to his daughters, Alice and Eleanor, both of whom were nuns, to share between them. Most, if not all, of the other people to whom he gave gifts of money were either subordinates or servants. He set aside sums of six marks and five marks respectively to Edmund Harsik and Stephen Quentyn and similar or smaller amounts to the rest, including the castle’s kitchen boy, who was to have 26s. 8d. Clifton appointed three executors: Alice, Harsik and Quentyn. One of those named as witnesses was William Tyrell I*, a member of Bekynton’s retinue. The will was not proved until January 1447, but two months after Clifton’s death the Norfolk escheator held an inquisition post mortem regarding his lands. The jury returned simply that he had held the hundred and a half of Freebridge in tail-male and that his heir was his son, Thomas. His manor of Denver and other lands in west Norfolk did not feature in the inquisition, perhaps as a result of a settlement he had made during his lifetime. CIPM, xxvi. 12; CCR, 1461-8, pp. 242-3; CP25(1)/170/192/13.

In December 1442 the Crown ordered the escheator to assign Alice Clifton her dower and to allow Clifton’s son to take possession of the lordship of Freebridge. CCR, 1441-7, p. 85. Freebridge was taken back into the King’s hands about three years later, while the Crown attempted to recover the arrears of the MP’s account as constable. He had evidently died in straitened circumstances and two days after his death local officials had seized his goods in Bordeaux for the King. Corresp. Bekynton, ii. 204. Freebridge was restored to Thomas in July 1446, when the King pardoned him and Clifton’s executors for all the MP’s debts, including thirds of ransoms and other profits of war customarily paid to the Crown. The pardon was granted in consideration of the dead man’s good service in Normandy, Aquitaine, Gascony, Flanders and other parts overseas and of the losses he had incurred while an imprisoned ambassador. CCR, 1441-7, pp. 444-5. Thomas died in 1452, some four years before his mother, Alice, and was succeeded by his son, a namesake of the MP. CFR, xix. 1, 136; C140/8/32.