* * * * *
LADY PERCY, WIFE OF HOTSPUR (DAUGHTER OF EDMUND MORTIMER, EARL OF MARCH),
AND JANE SEYMOUR'S ROYAL DESCENT.
(Vol. vii., p. 42. Vol. viii., pp. 104. 184)
The mischief that arises from apparently the most trifling inaccuracy
in a statement of fact is scarcely to be estimated. A mistake is
repeated, multiplied, and perpetuated often to an extent that no after
rectification can thoroughly efface. Blunders even become sacred by
antiquity; and the attempt to correct any misstatement, if it does not
entirely fail through the subsequent destruction of evidence that would
have contained the refutation, is frequently received with a coldness
and suspicion, and can seldom, with every aid from undoubted sources,
be brought to prevail against the more familiar and preconceived
impression. An illustration of this may be seen in the reference made
by your correspondent C. V. to the authority of Dugdale, as overriding
the result of later investigations relative to the issue respectively
of the fifth and seventh Lords Clifford of Westmoreland. The loose and
ill-advised assertion of Miss Strickland, intended as it clearly was to
insinuate a mean origin in Jane Seymour, and to lessen her pretension
to an exalted birth, has fortunately received a most complete and
signal disproof; but a question is now raised, which, if it can be
supported, will suit Miss Strickland's view quite as well as her own
inconclusive statement. I cannot but think that what she wished to say
is, as hinted in the suggestion of C. V., that the claim contended for
cannot be supported through the alleged marriage of a Wentworth with
the descendant of Elizabeth Percy, because Elizabeth, Lady Percy's only
daughter, Lady Elizabeth de Percy, who married John, Lord Clifford, is
by _some_ ancient heralds stated to have left no daughter. This would
have been an intelligible assertion, and not entirely inconsistent with
what may be gathered from peerages, and other works compiled solely upon
the authority of Dugdale; and it is indeed the very point of difficulty
contemplated by your learned correspondent C.V., who if I do not mistake
the signature, is himself an authority entitled to much respect.
Dugdale, Collins, and Nicolas make the intermarriage of Wentworth to have
taken place with a daughter of Roger, fifth Lord Clifford; and Dugdale
and Collins are silent as to any female issue of John, the seventh Lord.
Edmondson (_Baronagium Genealogicum_, vol. iv. p. 364.) adopts the same
conclusion; but no higher authority is cited by any one of the above
writers, upon which to found this statement. On the other hand, both
Collins and Edmondson, in the Wentworth pedigree, show the marriage
of Sir Philip Wentworth, of Nettlested, to have taken place with a
daughter of John, seventh Lord Clifford. Edmondson describes the daughter
as _Elizabeth_; but Collins more accurately calls her _Mary_. Banks
(_Baronage_, vol. ii. p. 90.) gives both statements with an asterisk,
implying a doubt as to which of the two is to be accepted.
The Pembroke MS. contains a summary of the lives of the Veteriponts,
Cliffords, and the Earls of Cumberland, compiled from original documents
and family records for the celebrated Lady Anne Countess Dowager of
Pembroke, daughter and sole heir of George Clifford, Earl of Cumberland,
who died in 1605. This valuable collection gives the most minute
particulars and anecdotes connected with the ancient family of the Lords
Clifford and their descendants, and being a few years anterior in date
to the publication of Dugdale's _Baronage_, the information contained
there is entitled to the greatest possible weight as an original and
independent authority.
In this MS. (a copy of which is in the British Museum, Harl. 6177.)
the descendants of Roger, fifth Lord Clifford, are named, but there is
no mention of any daughter who formed an alliance with a Wentworth.
Afterwards come the issue of the marriage of John, seventh Lord Clifford,
with Elizabeth Percy, the only daughter of Henry Lord Percy, surnamed
Hotspur, son to Henry Earl of Northumberland.
"This Elizabeth Percy was one of the greatest women of her
time, both for her birth and her marriages, &c. Their eldest
son, Thomas de Clifford, succeeded his father both in his lands
and honours, &c. {252} Henry, their second son, died without
issue, but is mentioned in the articles of his brother's
marriage. Mary Clifford, married to Sir Philip Wentworth, Kt.,
of whom descended the Lords Wentworth that are now living, and
the Earl of Straffod, and the Earl of Cleveland."
To which of the above statements must we give credit? If Dugdale be
right, there will appear a startling discrepance in the ages of the two
persons who are presumed to have formed the alliance in question; whereas
if the filiation given in the Pembroke MS. is relied upon, their ages
will be quite consistent, and all the other circumstances perfectly in
accordance.
Roger, fifth Lord Clifford, was born and baptized at Brougham on the
20th of July, 7 Edw. III., 1333; his eldest son Thomas, sixth lord, was
born circa 1363, being twenty-six years old at his father's death, which
happened on 13th July, 1389, in the fifty-sixth year of his age. Thomas
Lord Clifford died on 4th of October, 1392, leaving his son and heir John
(seventh Lord Clifford) an infant of about three years old. This lord
married the Lady Elizabeth de Percy circa 1413, and his eldest son was
born on 20th of August, 1414: he died on 13th March, 1422.
The wife of Sir Philip Wentworth, were she a daughter of Roger, fifth
Lord Clifford, must have been born between 1363 and 1389; if a daughter
of John, seventh Lord Clifford, she must have been born between 1414 and
1422.
In my former note, it was shown that the father and mother of Sir Philip
Wentworth were married before June, 1423; that Sir Philip was born circa
1424, and married in 1447; and that his eldest son, Henry Wentworth,
being thirty years of age at his grandmother's death in 1478, must have
been born circa 1448. It is therefore clear, that if his wife, Mary de
Clifford, were a daughter of the fifth Lord Clifford, she could not have
been less than thirty-five years older than her husband, and sixty years
old when her eldest son was born. On the other supposition, she may have
been about the same age with her husband, or perhaps two or three years
only his senior.
Can there then be any longer a doubt that this is a mistake of Dugdale?
The other eminent genealogists, cited by your correspondent, have adopted
the statement without farther investigation and upon no better authority,
and the error has thus become familiarised by constant repetition. Had
the misrepresentation been set right in the first instance, your readers
would have been spared the infliction of this lengthy confutation, Miss
Strickland herself protected from the humiliation of a defeat, "in daring
to dispute a pedigree with King Henry VIII.;" and some of the numerous
living descendants of the Protector Somerset been saved from much concern
at finding a pedigree demolished, through which they had been wont to
cherish the harmless vanity of being allied to the honour of a royal
lineage.