heraldryofyorkmi01custuoft

280 THE HERALDRY OF YORK MINSTER.
"Victory," and, eventually, small fleets of vessels were placed under his
command, with varied results, but in which he always showed courage
and seamanship. Fuller, the historian, says quaintly of him (as he was
known to dabble in commerce), " His fleet may be said to be bound for
" no other port but the port of honour, though touching at the port of
" profit in passage thereto." * He seems to have been a man of consider-
he was passionately fond of mathematics, and
able intellectual capacity, for
the patron and friend of Spenser. Queen Elizabeth shewed him many
marks of favour, and made him a Knight of the Garter in 1592. On one
occasion, when her Majesty dropped her jewelled glove, Clifford picked it
up and presented it on bended knee, but the Queen graciously desired
him to keep it, and he had it covered with diamonds, and wore it in
future, on great occasions, in his hat. He was one of the peers who sat
in judgment on Mary Queen of Scots, and died worn out by hardships,
anxieties, and wounds, aged forty-seven.
Of his brother Francis, who succeeded him as the fourth Earl, there is
little to be said. He was an easy, improvident, but otherwise comparatively
blameless man, who had the rare good fortune to die at eighty, in the
same room in which he was born. His daughter married Mr. Wentworth,
afterwards Earl of Strafford. He says of him, in his letter to his son,
" Mr. Wentworth is an earnest, and seemeth to be a very affecc'onate
" suiter to y'r sister. He hath beene here altogether for these three weekes
" past, and remaines here still. Yo'r sister is
lykewyse therewith well
" pleased and contented. His father and I are agreed of all the con-
" ditions. We sh'all onley want and wish yo'r compaine at the marriage,
"which is, I thinke, not lyke to be long deferred. God blesse them."
But he lived to see dark days overtake the young couple, for when
he died, in January, 1640, Lord Strafford had become the object of popular
hatred, in spite of the vigilance, activity, and prudence of his eight years'
government as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. The universal discontent which
prevailed in England all pointed towards him, and before the close of the
year he was impeached, viz., November nth, and beheaded in
the March
following. The following items from Earl Francis' son's steward's book,
are significant of great anguish and sorrow, which must have been gathering
round the old Earl's last
days.
"To the doorkeepers at the Parliament House on the ijth day of
"my Lord of Strafford's trial, 10 v.
"For wateridge to the town when his Lordship went to take leave
" of my Lord of Strafford, the daye afore he was executed.
"Mem. The 12 Mali that his Lordship came from Parlyment the
" Earle of Strafford suffered."
* History of Crai'en, Whitaker.