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THE CLIFFORDS. 281
There is little now to add. Of this son, Henry,
of the Earls of Cumberland, I have spoken
memoir, and need add nothing more. Loyal
the fifth and last
at the commencement of this
to the Crown like all his
race, he sank to his rest two years after the death of his brother-in-law
Strafford, and six years before the death of the King ; and with him
expired, not only the title of Earl of Cumberland, but the " House of
" Clifford," for his great estates were divided between his daughter, Lady
Elizabeth, who had married the Earl of Burlington, and her cousin the
daughter of the sailor Earl, Lady Anne, who had married, first, Richard
Sackville Earl of Dorset, and secondly, Philip Herbert Earl of Pembroke.
Through the former, the estate of Bolton " Abbey," as it is called, and the
estates in Craven, have passed by marriage into the Cavendish family, and
are owned by the Duke of Devonshire. Through the latter, Skipton Castle
and the estates in Cumberland passed to her eldest daughter Margaret,
who married John Tufton second Earl of Thanet, and is now owned by
Sir Richard Tufton, created 1851 Lord Hothfield.
The ancient barony of "de Clifford" (being to heirs general) has passed
through several families, and the title is now borne by
a scion of the
House of Russell. Lord Clifford, of Chudleigh, still represents a collateral
branch descended from Sir Lewis Clifford, son of Roger, fifth Lord Clifford
in the days of Edward III. The direct male line, however, which had
lasted from father to son for more than six hundred years, terminated
with the death of Henry
the fifth Earl.
But the castle of Skipton still stands : an object
of interest to the
antiquary and the lover of the picturesque and over its embattled gateway
is still emblazoned in large stone letters the ancient motto of : the
family, in Norman French: "DESORMAIS." It is a motto for the present
as well as for the past, as full of life and significance for us now, as for
each member of the family of Clifford during those 600 years ; for tersely
and yet significantly it
expresses a sentiment which is never out of date,
never out of fashion.
For what is it ? " From henceforth !
"
Surely this is a clear purpose
as to the future, and a firm determination to act thereon at the present,
whatever the past may have been. It is something more than the old
Latin
" "
adage, Nil desperandum something higher than the old English
;
proverb, "Better luck next time." It expresses for the whole life that
which St. Paul expresses for the religious phase of life, when he says
:
"Forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those
" things which are before, I press to the mark for the high calling of
" God in Christ Jesus." It is the man, undaunted by the past, undismayed
by the future, bracing himself to fresh efforts, irrespective of any failures
or discouragement, realizing that the opportunities of life are still before