John Clifford, 7th Baron de Clifford

John Clifford, 7th Baron de Clifford (c.1389 – 13 March 1422), also 7th Lord of Skipton, KG, was an English peer. He was slain at the siege of Meaux.

Family

John Clifford, born about 1389, was the only son of Thomas Clifford, 6th Baron Clifford (d. 18 August 1391), and Elizabeth de Roos (d. March 1424), daughter of Thomas de Roos, 4th Baron Roos of Helmsley, by Beatrix Stafford, daughter of Ralph de Stafford, 1st Earl of Stafford. He had a sister, Maud Clifford, who married firstly, John Neville, 6th Baron Latimer, and secondly, Richard, 3rd Earl of Cambridge.

Career

At his father's death on 18 August 1391, Clifford, then aged about three, inherited the title and the position of hereditary High Sheriff of Westmorland. He was summoned to Parliament from 21 September 1411 to 26 February 1421.

He took part in a great tournament at Carlisle between six English and six Scottish knights, and in the war in France. He was at the Siege of Harfleur and at the Battle of Agincourt, where he was indented to serve Henry V with 3 archers. He accepted the surrender of Cherbourg. He was made a Knight of the Garter on 3 May 1421. He was a legatee in the will of his cousin, Henry V.

He was slain at the Siege of Meaux on 13 March 1422, and is said to have been buried at Bolton Priory. His widow, who died 26 October 1436, is buried at Staindrop, Durham.

Marriage and issue

He married, in about 1404, Elizabeth Percy, the daughter of Henry "Hotspur" Percy and Elizabeth Mortimer, daughter of Edmund Mortimer, 3rd Earl of March, by whom he had two sons and two daughters:

• Thomas Clifford, 8th Baron de Clifford, who married Joan Dacre, daughter of Thomas Dacre, 6th Baron Dacre, by Philippa de Neville, daughter of Ralph Neville, 1st Earl of Westmorland.
• Henry Clifford.
• Mary Clifford, who married Sir Philip Wentworth (c.1424 – 18 May 1464) of Nettlestead, Suffolk, beheaded at Middleham, Yorkshire, after the Battle of Hexham, by whom she had a son and two daughters.
• Blanche (or Beatrix) Clifford, who married Sir Robert Waterton (d. 10 December 1475), son of the Lancastrian retainer, Robert Waterton (d. 17 January 1425). There were no issue of the marriage.

After Clifford's death, his widow married secondly, in 1426, Ralph Neville, 2nd Earl of Westmorland (d. 3 November 1484), by whom she had a son, Sir John Neville, who married Anne Holland, daughter of John Holland, 2nd Duke of Exeter.