CLIFTON, Gervase

The date of birth of this MP, an illegitimate son of the wealthy Nottinghamshire knight Sir Gervase Clifton, is difficult to establish, but he was certainly older than his father’s legitimate son and heir, Robert. Indeed, if, as seems likely, he is to be identified with the individual of this name who was serving in Normandy in the 1420s he was born well before his father’s marriage. Having mustered in the retinue of Sir Ralph Butler, captain of Arques, in 1422, a Gervase Clifton served as lieutenant there for at least eight years. Our MP’s subsequent military reputation is most likely to be explained by this early service in the Norman garrisons.13 Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris, fr. 25766/808; 25767/39, 44; 25769/460; 25770/633,735.

Yet Clifton’s good fortunes initially rested on his association with John Kemp, archbishop of York (1425-52), and subsequently cardinal (from 1439) and archbishop of Canterbury (1452-4). Kemp had served as chancellor of Normandy in the final years of Henry V’s reign, and Clifton may have first come to his notice while in France, rather than through mutual links among the leading families of the east Midlands.14 The Commons 1386-1421, iv. 61; S.J. Payling, Political Society in Lancastrian Eng. 16. Kemp came from Kent, and it was to the widow of one of the wealthiest men in the county, William Scott of Brabourne, that he arranged a marriage for his protégé Clifton, not long after Scott’s death in February 1434. The match was not achieved without some difficulty. Clifton may have been much younger than his prospective bride, Isabel, who, it was claimed later, only agreed to marry him if he allowed her to purchase lands with the 1,000 marks she had been left in dower, her intention presumably being to make provision for her children by Scott. Clifton undertook to allow her free rein.15 C1/67/234. The wealth and standing in Kent society which this marriage promised Clifton are evident in his assessment for the subsidy of 1435. In Hilary term 1436 he certified before the barons of the Exchequer that he was possessed of land in the county worth £134 p.a.; only Richard Wydeville* and Sir Ralph Butler certified themselves as having more.16 E159/212, recorda Hil. rot. 14. The marriage did, however, involve Clifton in frequent and lengthy lawsuits. Scott had appointed Isabel his executrix and with her new husband she brought several pleas against his debtors. In some cases this litigation dragged on for more than ten years.17 CP40/700, rot. 33d; 707, rots. 36, 70d, 161, 163; 711, rots. 15, 52, 54, 98; 713, rot. 203; 723, rot. 141; 731, rot. 46; 740, rot. 497.

Clifton does not appear to have established his position in Kentish society immediately after his marriage, for three years elapsed before he was first appointed to the county bench. Yet after that appointment his rise proved rapid, so that in November 1439 he was not only pricked as sheriff but within a matter of days elected as knight of the shire for the Parliament called to assemble at Westminster on 12 Nov. Although no election indenture survives for this Parliament, Clifton’s fellow Member for Kent is known to have been James Fiennes, one of just four esquires for the King’s body. This has prompted the suggestion that he himself had joined the household circle that was to dominate Kentish politics in the 1440s. Yet his election may have had more to do with the continued influence of his patron, Cardinal Kemp. Certainly, it was because of Canterbury’s ‘reverence’ to the cardinal that Clifton was admitted to the freedom of the city, in November 1440, without paying the usual entry fine.18 Canterbury chamberlains’ accts. 1386-1445, CCA-CC-F/A/1, f. 271v. The move was probably associated with his wife’s purchase of the aldermanry of Westgate: C1/67/234. Military service took him to France in the following year, in the retinue of the King’s lieutenant, Richard, duke of York. He was present at York’s successful entry into Pontoise on 6 Aug. 1441 and was one of the three captains the duke left to garrison the town.19 R. Holinshed, Chrons. (1807-8 edn.), iii. 195.

It was probably Clifton’s military credentials that led to his appointment as deputy to Humphrey, duke of Gloucester, the warden of the Cinque Ports and constable of Dover castle, at some point after Michaelmas 1444. He replaced Sir Reynold Cobham of Sterborough, Gloucester’s father-in-law, and his appointment and movement into Gloucester’s service can most likely be explained by his connexions with Cobham’s family. Earlier, Sir Reynold had included him among the feoffees of certain manors in Kent, and in 1448 Clifton was to act alongside Cobham’s widow in donating land in Surrey to St. Peter’s College, Lingfield.20 CPR 1446-52, pp. 214-15; C138/451/1; M. Mercer, ‘Kent and National Politics’ (London Univ. Ph.D. thesis, 1995), 27, 43. An intimate relationship of a different order is indicated in the will of Sir Reynold’s son, Sir Thomas Cobham, dated 2 Apr. 1471. Sir Thomas left Clifton his psalter and 100 marks, and referred to Gervase Clifton esquire (probably Sir Gervase’s nephew of that name) as his ‘right trusti frend’ and ‘uncle’ of his bastard son: PCC 2 Wattys (PROB11/6, ff. 13v-15). As Sir Thomas died on 26 Apr. it looks as if he joined Clifton in arms against Edw. IV. In CP, iii. 355 he is wrongly called Sir Reynold. Duke Humphrey also made Clifton treasurer of his household, probably before May 1446, when he obtained reassignment of two returned tallies at the Exchequer on the duke’s behalf. As such, shortly after Gloucester died he received payment from the receiver-general of the duchy of Lancaster for the arrears of the duke’s annuity.21 E403/762, m. 1; DL28/5/6. He seems not to have been directly involved in the events leading to Duke Humphrey’s death at Bury St. Edmunds in February 1447, and despite being a leading member of his household there is no evidence that he accompanied his lord to East Anglia.

Like other members of Gloucester’s affinity in Kent, Clifton made an accommodation with James Fiennes, now created Lord Saye and Sele, who succeeded the duke as warden of the Cinque Ports. His transition to Fiennes’ service as lieutenant of Dover castle may have been made easier by the fact that Fiennes was a kinsman of his wife. In 1448 Clifton was among those, alongside Fiennes, to whom Sir William Septvance’s widow surrendered her dower lands, and shortly before Fiennes died he made Clifton one of his own feoffees.22 CCR, 1447-54, p. 68; C1/19/46. While our MP was Fiennes’s deputy at Dover, in the spring of 1449, he joined Robert Wenyngton alias Cane* of Dartmouth and another Kentishman, Alexander Iden, in taking a force to sea for the ‘rebukyng of the robbeurs and privaters’. The shipping provided for the expedition relied heavily on the manpower of the Cinque Ports, for example recruiting men from New Romney and Lydd.23 E28/78/106; Letters and Pprs. Illust. Wars of English ed. Stevenson, i. 489; R.A. Griffiths, Hen. VI, 428; Issues of the Exchequer ed. Devon, 463; E. Kent Archs., New Romney recs., assmt. bk. 1448-1526, NR/FAc 3, f. 9v. Despite their orders, within a month of setting sail the naval commanders seized off the Isle of Wight the 110 ships of the Bay fleet, comprised of Hanseatic, Flemish and Dutch vessels, in a spectacular act of piracy. It is unclear whether Clifton and his Kentish men were personally involved in this notorious incident, but it seems unlikely as the following year when Cade’s rebels called for the restoration of the Hanseatic trade and the arrest of those responsible for the capture of the Bay fleet, they did not name him among the malefactors.24 I.M.W. Harvey, Jack Cade, 57.

The importance of any bond established between Fiennes and Clifton in the 1440s should not be exaggerated. Throughout that decade and beyond our MP’s strongest attachment remained to Cardinal Kemp. He was among Kemp’s servants associated with him in a grant by Thomas Seyton* of the manor of Grove, Buckinghamshire, in 1445, and the following year he witnessed a quitclaim on the cardinal’s behalf.25 Add. Ch. 7383; VCH Bucks. ii. 335; CCR, 1441-7, p. 375. Together with his lord in April 1448 he obtained at the Exchequer the wardship and marriage of Thomas Horsey, and when the archbishop of Canterbury, John Stafford, died in 1452, Clifton was selected, along with others including his stepson John Scott† and John Lewknor* (Kemp’s kinsman), to receive a grant of the temporalities of the archbishopric to hold until Kemp was translated from York.26 CFR, xviii. 87, 100, 105, 264. Lewknor’s father, Sir Thomas*, was Kemp’s cousin and Clifton was also associated with John’s brother, Richard*, in an enfeoffment of lands in Suss. by his brother-in-law, William Fynch. This later resulted in lengthy litigation both in Chancery and at common law: C1/25/182; 26/12-15; CP40/780, rot. 67. It may have been because of these links with Kemp, which distanced him from Fiennes, that when, in June 1450, Kent was engulfed by Cade’s rebellion, the rebels made no mention of our MP in relation to the alleged extortions and malpractices of the treasurer and his henchmen. Clifton took up arms to resist the rebels, for in August a warrant for payment of £100 was issued to reimburse him and his stepson Scott, who together with John Fogg† and Robert Horne* had confronted Cade’s forces near Ashford, for their costs.27 CPR, 1452-61, pp. 329-30; E404/66/210. The previous month he had received payment at the Exchequer on behalf of his friend the sheriff of Kent, Alexander Iden, for the rebel leader’s capture and escort to the King’s presence.28 Issues of the Exchequer, 467. After being elected as mayor of Canterbury that Michaelmas, at the beginning of December Clifton began his own second term as sheriff of Kent, further evidence of the need for skills as a soldier in the difficult circumstances of the aftermath of the insurrection. On 18 Dec. he was commissioned to arrest the remnants of the rebel force.29 CPR. 1446-52, p. 436.

Clifton’s growing reputation was made more apparent in June 1451 by his appointment as treasurer of the town and marches of Calais. This came at a crucial time, both militarily and politically, for the beleaguered English outpost. Humphrey, duke of Buckingham, had resigned his post as captain of the town around March the previous year, after serving for an eight-year period marked by mutiny in the garrisons and the steady accumulation of arrears in the soldiers’ pay. The French, after their victory in Normandy, now threatened to invade the pale of Calais, and to augment its defences a substantial force was assembled under the leadership of John Stourton II*, Lord Stourton (appointed lieutenant of Calais and captain of Rysbank tower), and Sir Ralph Butler, now Lord Sudeley (given the command at Calais castle).30 G.L. Harriss, ‘The Struggle for Calais ‘, EHR, lxxv. 31. At the end of July Clifton set sail from Sandwich with a personal retinue of 40 men-at-arms and 104 archers; and a further force of 285 men was also sent over to serve under him for half a year. Part of the funding for this force was provided by the Exchequer, but Clifton’s old patron, Cardinal Kemp, also lent £200 for the purchase of saltpetre.31 E404/67/207, 213, 223. Edmund Beaufort, duke of Somerset, was appointed as the new captain in September, but Clifton remained in Calais for the rest of the year. In December he organized the transport of reinforcements both to Calais and Guînes, led by Richard Wydeville, Lord Rivers, and William, Lord Saye and Sele.32 E404/68/58; E 403/786, m. 7.

The new year bought fresh military responsibility for our MP. In February 1452 he was among those named to a commission of array in Kent, an action aimed against the intentions of Richard, duke of York, who was gathering an army in the west to march on London. Clifton and his fellow commissioners’ prompt actions allowed the King’s forces to move quickly to counter York’s own attempts to raise the county with his ally Sir Edward Brooke*, Lord Cobham. It seems likely that our MP was in the royal camp at Dartford.33 CPR, 1446-52, p. 577; P.A. Johnson, Duke Richard of York,107-12. Four months later he was again called upon for service overseas. On 20 June he and Sir Edward Hull* indented to keep the seas for three months from 17 July with 1,000 men each. Their purpose, ostensibly, was to defend Jersey from French attack, but given the size of their force the French, perhaps correctly, feared a descent on Normandy. Nevertheless, the deteriorating situation in Gascony prevented them from making any more aggressive moves. While Hull duly returned ashore after the three months’ period, Clifton remained with his men for a further two months at his own cost. During this period he joined forces with John Talbot, earl of Shrewsbury, in Gascony, taking part in the siege of Bordeaux as well as defending Lebourne, St. Emilion and Castillon from assault by the French.34 E404/68/143, 151; E403/788, m. 4; CPR, 1452-61, p. 78. It was shortly after this period of service at sea and in France that Clifton was knighted, perhaps on the same occasion when on 5 Jan. 1453 the King’s half-brothers were ceremonially ennobled at the Tower of London.35 John Benet’s Chron. (Cam. Misc. xxiv), 208.

Clifton’s military undertakings between 1449 and 1452 had proved expensive for him. In 1449 he and Iden had been allowed to borrow money to finance their naval expedition with payment promised from the forthcoming parliamentary subsidy, and in March 1450 Clifton had been assigned 400 marks for his ‘great costs and expenses’ in keeping the seas.36 E 403/773, m. 16; 775, m. 1; 777, m. 14. It may be that the pressure of his responsibilities as treasurer of Calais led him to resign the post of the duke of Buckingham’s lieutenant in Dover, probably in the spring of 1452, for this was an office that also demanded a great deal of its incumbent, besides the duties of holding the admiralty court and conducting parliamentary elections (as he had done in 1449 and 1450). Clifton was certainly resident in Dover castle for at least part of that year, as the jurats of Romney sent delegations to him and his wife to intercede on behalf of one of their number, John Lowys*. However, by 12 June he had been replaced .37 C219/15/6, 7; 16/1; New Romney assmt. bk. NR/FAc 3, f. 18; SC6/1280/13. In July 1453 the sheriff of Kent was ordered to make distraint on his property over his failure to render proper account for the money he had received for his expedition of the previous year.38 E159/230, brevia retornabilia, Hil.

By the end of 1453 the financial burdens upon Clifton as a consequence of his office at Calais were proving intolerable. That year Parliament had passed an act requiring the treasurer and victualler of Calais to render account every two years, under pain of a fine of £500, and in 1455 the Exchequer began process against him to recover a fine for his failure to do so.39 E159/231, recorda Trin. rot. 6. He was probably unable to present his account, however, because of his own problems in securing the sums due to him as treasurer and in paying the garrison’s wages. In the early 1450s the payment of the arrears of earlier captains, Buckingham, Stourton and Sudeley, was consistently given priority over the garrison’s current wages for which Clifton held responsibility. In May 1454 the soldiers took matters into their own hands by resorting to mutiny, and seized the staplers’ wool stocks in Calais, threatening to sell them below the market price to realize their overdue wages. Despite being treasurer, Clifton was excluded from the commission, led by Viscount Bourgchier, sent to Calais to settle the dispute.40 Harris, 33-39. Indeed, in that year he was busy dealing with the personal consequences of the financial turmoil. For example, he brought four cases in the Exchequer of pleas against tax collectors who had refused to honour assignments, while concurrently he was the defendant in a suit begun by two Bristol merchants who alleged that he had defaulted on an obligation made to them.41 E13/145B, rots. 33, 55d, 59d, 65, 70.

It was against this background of financial difficulty and lawsuits, that Sir Gervase was elected to his second Parliament as a knight of the shire for Kent. His election proved controversial. On 5 July 1455 the King’s council wrote to Clifton’s friend, Sir John Cheyne II*, the sheriff of Kent, warning him that ‘we be enfourmed there is besy labour made in sondry wises by certaine persones for þe chesyng of the said knightes’, and that the peaceful proceeding of the election was threatened. Cheyne was ordered to observe the statutes concerning parliamentary election and report any malefactors to the council.42 PPC, v. 246-7. On the 7th, just two days before the Parliament was to assemble at Westminster, Cheyne made proclamation in the county court at Rochester, and, according to a bill presented later in the Exchequer of pleas, Sir Thomas Kyriel* and Richard Culpepper‡ were duly elected, only for Cheyne to alter the return, erasing Culpepper’s name and replacing it with Clifton’s.43 E13/146, rots. 11, 11d, 36, 36d, 43, 46d. It seems unlikely that Cheyne’s actions were motivated by animus against the duke of York, who had recently taken control of the government of the kingdom in the aftermath of the battle of St. Albans. Although both he and Clifton had served at Calais under York’s now dead rival the duke of Somerset, the more immediate concern of their own financial difficulties may have been the overriding factor in Clifton’s election. Cheyne himself had also fallen foul of the Act of 1453 regarding the rendering of his account as victualler of the town and marches of Calais, and the previous year he and Sir Gervase had jointly lent £466 13s. 4d towards their defence.44 E401/839, m. 8; E403/798, m. 4. Once at Westminster Clifton was appointed to a parliamentary committee to investigate the garrison’s finances and on 5 Aug., shortly after the end of the Parliament’s first session, he secured a pardon of his offences relating to the office of treasurer.45 PROME, xii. 337-8; C67/41, m. 32.

Nevertheless, this pardon does not seem to have eased the pressure on him. Despite the arrangements made in 1455, the finances of Calais continued to be in desperate straits throughout the second half of the decade. When Clifton presented his account for the year ending 24 June 1457 he was found to be still some £7,650 in arrears, and by the end of Henry VI’s reign the deficit had reached a massive £37,160. Moreover, his duties in Kent, where he was expected to act on numerous commissions and as a j.p., kept him away from Calais for long periods of time. In the accounting year 1456-7, for example, he was only present in the pale for four weeks.46 E101/195/7; Harris, 49-50. Following the French raid on Sandwich in August 1457 he became increasingly concerned with the defence of Kent, where in its immediate aftermath he was placed on commissions of array, and took the initiative in organizing the defences of the Cinque Ports. His third pricking as sheriff in November 1458 forced his attentions to remain focused on the stability of the county.47 Griffiths, 815-16; CPR, 1452-61, pp. 371, 401, 405, 408, 490; New Romney assmt. bk. NR/FAc 3, f. 33. Nevertheless, he was still personally responsible for money delivered to the various garrisons across the Channel, and this continued to involve him in litigation and debt. The previous month he obtained a royal writ ordering the Exchequer to stop process against him for £746 which had been delivered to Philip Bealknap for the defence of Guînes castle over the past four years, and in November he entered a statute staple bond with two London merchants for £700, a debt presumably contracted in relation to his office at Calais.48 PSO1/20/1045; E159/235, brevia Mich. rot. 19d; C131/74/3.

The final months of Sir Gervase’s shrievalty coincided with the outbreak of open hostilities between the crown and the Yorkist lords. On 12 Oct. 1459 the latter fled England in disarray after the desertion at Ludford Bridge of Andrew Trollope’s contingent of soldiers from Calais. It seems unlikely that Clifton himself was present on the field, but his sympathies probably lay with Trollope, in whose ship he had made the passage from Sandwich to Calais on more than one occasion.49 E101/195/7, f. 41. Indeed, by this date he was firmly identified with the Lancastrians against his erstwhile superior at Calais, the earl of Warwick. The reason for this is obscure: he had shown no particular political affiliation before then, passing easily between service to Cardinal Kemp, the dukes of Gloucester and Buckingham and Lords Saye and Sele. Perhaps the explanation lay in an inherent loyalty to the King and an abhorrence of treason. He was soon busy organizing the Crown’s attempt to replace Warwick as captain of Calais by Henry Beaufort, duke of Somerset, and on 10 Nov. the Exchequer was ordered to reimburse him £172 for victuals for the retinues of Somerset and Lord Rivers destined for Calais.50 Letters and Pprs. Illust. Wars of English, ii. 512. Somerset had been appointed to replace Warwick as capt. of Calais on 9 Oct: DKR, xlviii. 404. Clifton himself appears to have remained in Kent because on 4 Dec. he was among those commissioned to seize Warwick’s ships in Sandwich and six days later he was ready to take a large force to defend the seas against the Yorkist lords.51 CPR, 1452-61, pp. 525, 555. Evidently he was delayed, because on 15 Jan. 1460 a Yorkist force led by John, Lord Dynham, and (Sir) John Wenlock* raided Sandwich, reclaiming Warwick’s ships and capturing Lord Rivers and his son. Whether Clifton was present at the time is unclear, but the following day he was appointed to a commission of array in Canterbury, presumably a belated attempt to resist the invaders. Two months later he was named on a commission of oyer and terminer to hear indictments relating to the raid on Sandwich.52 CPR, 1452-61, pp. 564, 611; C.L. Scofield, ‘The Capture of Rivers and Woodville’, EHR xxxviii. 253-5. Both his importance and his commitment to the Crown were confirmed in the spring of 1460 when he was appointed treasurer of the King’s household in place of Sir Thomas Tuddenham*, although he almost certainly stayed in and around Kent rather than joining the King in the Midlands. On 22 June, in anticipation of an imminent Yorkist invasion, he was placed on a commission of array in five counties and three days later (the day before the Yorkist earls landed at Sandwich), he finally secured a pardon of all penalties and forfeitures arising from the Act of 1453 concerning his account as treasurer of Calais.53 CPR, 1452-61, pp. 595, 614.

On 10 July the earls of Warwick and March defeated the royal army and captured Henry VI at Northampton. Sir Gervase was not present at the battle; rather, a week later he was reported to have joined Lords Clifford and Scales in their defence of the Tower of London. Even so, he successfully escaped the fate of (Sir) Thomas Brown II* (who was tried and executed for his part in directing fire-power on the City), and before too long he rode north to add his weight to the forces raised by Margaret of Anjou in the north of England. It seems certain that he was present on the side of the victorious queen at the battle of Wakefield at the end of the year, and on 4 Mar. 1461 was among those Lancastrians exempted from the new King Edward IV’s pardon.54 CCR, 1461-8, p. 55. Sir Gervase probably also fought at Towton on Palm Sunday, where the author of one contemporary chronicle mistakenly reported him to have been killed in battle alongside his colleague from Calais, Andrew Trollope.55 Three 15th Cent. Chrons. (Cam. Soc. n.s. xxviii), 159-60.

Clifton’s decision to lend his armed strength to those loyal to Henry VI might seem to have put him beyond reconciliation with the new regime. Yet this was not the case. On 31 July 1461 Edward IV pardoned him of all offences committed before 20 July and on the following 20 Dec. he was also pardoned of all misdemeanours as treasurer of Calais and sheriff of Kent, and their related financial penalties.56 CPR, 1461-7, pp. 25, 86. He thus escaped the Act of Attainder passed in Edward’s first Parliament against those other adherents of Henry VI mentioned in the March proclamation. The explanation for this extraordinary turnaround of his fortunes most probably lies in the intervention of his stepson John Scott, who had supported Edward from the moment he had landed in Kent the previous summer, was knighted on the eve of his coronation and was now controller of the royal household. Scott had frequently acted with his stepfather in both public and private affairs throughout the 1440s and 50s and this amicable relationship continued into the next decade.57 J.R. Scott, Mems. Fam. of Scott, pp. lix-lx.

Yet Sir Gervase would have found it increasingly difficult to accommodate himself within the pro-Yorkist political society of Kent in the early 1460s. Instead, he relocated his interests to the east and north Midlands, where he had maintained personal links throughout the previous two decades. In July 1451, for example, he and John Scott had received an Exchequer lease of certain manors in south Lincolnshire.58 CFR, xviii. 214. Although a little over a year later the letters patent were surrendered and the lands granted instead to the earl of Richmond: ibid. 234-5. Moreover, his links with his paternal family, the Cliftons of Clifton, had stayed close, despite his illegitimate birth. His half-brother (Sir) Robert could call on Sir Gervase’s support in his quarrel with another Nottinghamshire landowner, John Browe*, who in 1462 brought a suit against him over a robbery allegedly committed in the county during the previous reign. Significantly, in this suit our MP was himself described as residing at the family home of Clifton.59 KB27/804, rot. 5d; 809, rot. 79d.

The death in 1457 of Sir Gervase’s wife, Isabel,60 Scott, 105. had resulted in his loss of the lucrative Scott estates in Kent which she had held in dower, but his successful pursuit of a second bride, Maud, Lady Willoughby, provided more than adequate compensation. The twice-widowed Maud was an important landowner in her own right and coheiress of the estates of her late uncle Ralph, Lord Cromwell (d.1456). In May 1462 she and her new husband Clifton joined Humphrey Bourgchier* (the new Lord Cromwell) and his wife, Joan, the other coheiress, in making an agreement with Lord Ralph’s feoffees concerning the division of the valuable inheritance. Under its terms the two women were each to receive lands with an annual worth of 500 marks. In fact, Maud’s share, mainly situated in Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire,61 Magdalen Coll., Misc. 365. was estimated in a valor compiled around the same time at £323 p.a. (some £10 short of an equal division), while Joan’s was valued at £346 p.a.62 Magdalen Coll., Estate Pprs. 127/35. The circumstances surrounding Clifton’s marriage to Lady Willoughby are obscure and indeed it seems strange that he was able to secure this match after being present on the Lancastrian side at Wakefield and Towton. While his pardon was most likely due to the intervention of John Scott or even to that of his half-brother Robert, his marriage to Maud may probably be explained by his previous involvement in the settlement of the Cromwell estates even before Lord Ralph’s death, and his connexion with Bishop William Waynflete of Winchester. In November 1454 four of Cromwell’s original feoffees of 1444 had appointed him among a group of feoffees for the transfer of the disputed manor of Ampthill, Bedfordshire, to Edmund, Lord Grey of Ruthin. This responsibility, which he shared with household men like (Sir) Thomas Stanley II* and John Say II*, Cromwell’s servants, such as Richard Illingworth* and John Tailboys*, and lords like the earls of Devon and Arundel, may also have arisen from his service to Cardinal Kemp, who had been a close friend and political supporter of Cromwell.63 CAD, vi. C.6071; C67/41, m. 30; S.J. Payling, ‘Ampthill Dispute’, EHR, civ. 903. Since 1457 Clifton had been associated with Waynflete, Cromwell’s chief executor, in the endowment of lands for Magdalen College, Oxford.64 Southern Hist. xi. 21.

Despite and partly because of this apparently advantageous marriage, Clifton was soon again in trouble. First, it is clear that he was still beset with the financial problems that had troubled him in the late 1450s. On 15 Mar. 1463 he entered into a statute staple bond for £200 with the London mercer, Hugh Wyche*, and John Brown and two years later the sheriff of Lincolnshire was ordered to arrest and imprison him for the debt. Then, in October 1465 the sheriff of Kent was also ordered to attach him, this being in respect of a debt contracted seven years earlier. On both occasions the sheriffs returned that Clifton could not be found because he was already in prison. In fact, he had been in prison since at least Trinity term 1463.65 C131/73/6, 74/3; KB27/809, rot. 79d. This imprisonment probably related to his marriage to Maud, because, as she was a ‘King’s widow’, Clifton should have obtained a royal licence before any nuptials. According to a later Chancery case, Maud was also arrested at this time for marrying without the King’s consent, and held in custody first at Anthony Wydeville, Lord Scales’s manor of Middleton, Norfolk, and then in London.66 C1/66/96. Furthermore, the marriage attracted the enmity of Humphrey Bourgchier, husband of the other Cromwell co-heiress, and also, perhaps because of Clifton’s Lancastrian background, that of other leading members of the Yorkist establishment. In November 1465 Scales brought charges of treason against Clifton, possibly at Bourgchier’s instigation as he wanted to acquire Maud’s portion of the Cromwell inheritance, and a commission of oyer and terminer was issued to investigate treasons committed by him and William de Aver, a London yeoman.67 CPR, 1461-8, p. 490. Whether these charges had any basis in fact is unclear, and although Clifton escaped the extreme penalty he was only granted a pardon upon payment of a large fine, secured by the intervention of his stepson Sir John Scott and son-in-law, John Jerningham. In return for agreeing to stand surety for him in 1,000 marks, Scott and Jerningham were appointed receivers-general of Maud’s dower lands in Lincolnshire.68 C1/66/93. The ploy of Scales and Bourgchier succeeded, however: Clifton, faced with forfeiture of his interest in his wife’s estates, conveyed them to Scales for the lifetime of Maud at the end of the month. Scales then allowed Humphrey to take the profits in return for a life grant of lands in Norfolk.69 CCR, 1461-8, p. 330; Magdalen Coll., Cromwell pprs. 261/14.

Following the accusations of treason and despite his subsequent pardon, Clifton’s situation became increasingly desperate. He was estranged from his wife soon afterwards. Maud claimed that at her marriage she had been possessed of goods worth £1,000 and lands worth 1,000 marks p.a. and that by 1465 all these goods had been lost and her lands reduced in value to 700 marks p.a. through her husband’s negligence. Furthermore, he had refused to allow her any money to live on and she had been reduced to borrowing from her friends. Deprived of her livelihood through the ‘cohercion’ of her husband, she threw herself upon the protection of John Neville, earl of Northumberland.70 C1/66/95-96. Maud made these claims in a Chancery case brought after 1471 by Scott and Jerningham in an attempt to recover the 1,000 marks they had forfeited as a result of Clifton’s subsequent offences. They, in reply, claimed that the King had appointed Northumberland custodian of Maud’s lands in 1465 and she had left her husband of her own free will and allied with Northumberland to prevent them recovering their debts. Moreover, our MP’s indebtedness continued to be a problem. In July 1465 he had been outlawed for failing to respond to the suit of two London merchants for a debt of £99.71 CPR, 1467-77, p. 161. Clearly, he could not prosper under the Yorkist regime, and it may have been the dashing of his hopes that led him to re-establish contact with old Lancastrian friends. These probably included Hugh Mille* and (Sir) Robert Whittingham II*, with whom he had acted as a feoffee for the Magdalen College estates in the 1450s. In June 1468 a servant of Whittingham’s named Cornelius Sutor was arrested at Queenborough and found to be carrying letters on behalf of Queen Margaret. Under torture he implicated several others, including Clifton, the London alderman Sir John Plomer, and a servant of John, Lord Wenlock.72 Southern Hist. xi. 12-13; Letters and Pprs. Illust. Wars of English, ii (2), [790]. On 5 July Clifton was among those indicted at the London Guildhall before a commission of oyer and terminer headed by the duke of Clarence, accused of planning to bring Margaret of Anjou into the realm with a large army to destroy Edward IV. However, at some point between the first indictment and the enrolment of the commission’s proceedings three days later his name was dropped from those accused of treason, as, it seems, no specific charges could be brought against him. Yet Clifton’s involvement in the alleged plots was still suspected: when Bishop Waynflete obtained a general pardon in October it specifically excluded contact with him and others suspected of conspiracy in the summer. On 1 Dec., along with Mille and Sir Thomas Mallory*, he was exempted from a general pardon. Nevertheless, it seems that he suffered no punishment as a consequence of his implication in the plot. No explanation can be offered for his escape as it seems entirely likely that he was in communication with the Lancastrian exiles at this time; perhaps his stepson Scott once again came to his rescue. On 10 Jan. 1470 he was pardoned of all offences committed before 5 Dec. the previous year and all those lands which he had previously forfeited were restored to him.73 KB9/319; CPR, 1467-77, p. 180; C67/46, m. 38; Southern Hist. xi. 12-13. This extraordinary reversal of his fortunes may also reflect the King’s weakness at the beginning of 1470. Having escaped from the captivity of the earl of Warwick the previous October, Edward may have been anxious to widen the basis of his support by reconciling old adversaries.

Despite this olive-branch, Clifton’s Lancastrian allegiances became apparent in October 1470 when Henry VI was re-crowned King after the flight of Edward IV and his closest supporters to the Low Countries. Sir Gervase’s activities during the Readeption are obscure, but it seems unlikely that he sat as a knight of the shire for Kent or anywhere else in the Parliament which assembled at Westminster in November. He was certainly not appointed to either of the two Readeption commissions of the peace issued for the county.74 CPR, 1467-77, pp. 617-18; Mercer, 114-15. Nevertheless, there is no doubt where his sympathies lay. On 27 Apr. 1471, in the aftermath of the Yorkist victory at the battle of Barnet, he was named among those surviving Lancastrians who were condemned as King Edward’s ‘open and notorious traitors, rebels and enemies’,75 CCR, 1468-76, p. 189. and on 4 May he fought alongside the forces assembled under the banner of Margaret of Anjou at the battle of Tewkesbury. Having escaped the slaughter, Clifton, along with the duke of Somerset and other remnants of the defeated Lancastrian army, sought sanctuary in Tewkesbury abbey. Still in armour, Edward IV entered the abbey and demanded that the rebels be surrendered to him, but after pleadings by one of the abbey priests ‘that turnyd oute at his messe and the sacrament in his handys’, he agreed to pardon them. Reassured by this promise, they left the church on the following Monday, 6 May, only to be arrested and tried in Tewkesbury market place by an impromptu commission headed by the King’s brother, Richard, duke of Gloucester. Clifton and the others were then beheaded at the ‘hyghe crosse’.76 John Benet’s Chron. 233; J. Warkworth, Chron. Reign Edw. IV (Cam. Soc. x), 18-19; Arrivall of Edw. IV (ibid. i), 31.

It is of interest to note that Sir Gervase’s remains were removed to the Scott family church at Brabourne and buried next to his first wife, Isabel. The decision to bury him there may have been taken by Sir John Scott, but might equally have resulted from the actions of his son-in-law, John Digges, whose relationship to Clifton was remembered on our MP’s brass. The Clifton arms, impaling Digges’s and quartered with those of Scott and Fynch, also adorned the east window of the church.77 Archaeologia Cantiana, x. 262-5; Vis. Kent (Harl. Soc. xlii), 65. Maud outlived her estranged husband by some considerable time. She continued a long and partly successful struggle to regain her Cromwell inheritance, in which she was aided by powerful patrons, principally Richard Fox, bishop of Durham and Sir Reynold Bray†. After making her will on 18 July 1497, she died on the following 30 Aug. and in keeping with her position as coheiress of the Cromwell estates, she was buried at the collegiate church at Tattershall.78 CIPM Hen VII, ii. 12-14, 33; iii. 776; PCC 17 Horne (PROB11/11, f. 139).