Gervase Clifton, 1st Baron Clifton
Gervase Clifton, 1st Baron Clifton (c. 1570 – 14 October 1618) was an English nobleman.
Contents
Origins
Clifton was a son of Sir John Clifton (d.1593) of Barrington Court, Somerset, by his wife Anne Stanley, daughter of Thomas Stanley, 2nd Baron Monteagle (1507–1560). Sir John Clifton's father was a London merchant, Sir William Clifton (d.1564), who had purchased the manor of Barrington from Henry Grey, 1st Duke of Suffolk.[1] Sir William Clifton was the son of Gervase Clifton of the Customs House, London, a younger son of Sir Gervase Clifton (d.1508), Knight of the Bath (1494), of Clifton Hall, Nottingham, High Sheriff of Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire and the Royal Forests in 1502,[2] 14th in descent from the 11th century Alvaredus de Clifton, warden of Nottingham Castle "in the time of William Peverell, bastard son of William the Conqueror".[3] From Robert Clifton, the eldest son of Sir Gervase Clifton (d.1508), were descended the Clifton baronets, which title was created in 1611.[4]
Career
He was educated at St Alban Hall, Oxford (1586), Gray's Inn (1588). In 1591, he became a Knight of the Shire of Huntingdonshire, settled in Leighton Bromswold and married Katherine, a daughter of Sir Henry Darcy (a previous Knight of the Shire) that year and was knighted by 1597. From 1597 to 1598 and also in 1601, Clifton was MP for Huntingdonshire. In 1605 he sold his paternal estate of Barrington Court and moved his seat to Leighton Bromswold, County Huntingdon. In 1608 he was raised to the Peerage by writ of summons Baron Clifton, of Leighton Bromswold, County Huntingdon. This ancient form of creation by writ enabled the title to descend via female lines.
On 30 December 1617, Lord Clifton was imprisoned in the Tower of London for threatening Sir Francis Bacon when the latter ordered a survey of Clifton's land. He was then prosecuted by the Star Chamber on 17 March 1618 and moved to Fleet Prison, where he stabbed himself to death in the following October. His only son had died in 1602 as a result of wounds received from a bear, which had broken free during a bear-baiting show at Nottingham, and so Clifton's title passed to his daughter, Katherine.
References
- ↑ Victoria County History, Vol.4, Somerset, Baggs, A.P. & Bush, R.J.E., Bush, Parishes: Barrington ed. R W Dunning, London, 1978, pp. 113-121 [1]
- ↑ The History and Gazetteer of the County of Derby Vol 1 (1831) Stephen Glover. Appendix p 10 Henry VII.
- ↑ Betham, William, The Baronetage of England: or The History of the English Baronets, Volume 1, Ipswich, 1801, p.49 et seq.[2]
- ↑ Debrett, John, The Baronetage of England, revised, corrected and continued by G.W. Collen, London, 1840, p.119 [3]
Sources
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- History of Parliament
- Tudor Place[unreliable source]
- Burke's Peerage & Gentry, 107th edition[dead link]
| Peerage of England | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by
New creation
|
Baron Clifton 1608–1618 |
Succeeded by Katherine Stuart |
- Use British English from January 2015
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- Articles lacking reliable references from January 2015
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- 1570s births
- 1618 deaths
- Alumni of St Alban Hall, Oxford
- Barons in the Peerage of England
- Nobility who committed suicide
- Suicides in London
- Suicides by sharp instrument in the United Kingdom
- People who committed suicide in prison custody
- English people who died in prison custody
- Prisoners who died in England and Wales detention
- 16th-century English people
- 17th-century English people
- People of the Tudor period
- Clifton family
- Prisoners in Fleet Prison
- English MPs 1597–98
- English MPs 1601
- Members of Gray's Inn
