Lady Anne Clifford, Countess of Pembroke, Dorset, and Montgomery: A Bibliographical Essay

Abstract

Lady Anne Clifford, born 1590, died 1676, was the daughter and only surviving child of George Clifford, 3rd Earl of Cumberland, and in her life she was married first to Richard Sackville, 3rd Earl of Dorset, and later to Philip Herbert, 4th Earl of Pembroke (Spence 1). She is famous in English Early Modern history because upon the death of her father in 1605, his will left his estate to his brother Francis, though Anne was to receive a handsome annuity. But Edward II had decreed in 1311 that the entail of that estate must go to the eldest child of the Clifford line, male or female, Anne was the rightful heir (Dowd & Eckerle 66). She was vindicated after thirty-eight years of struggle, when Francis died in 1641 and his son Henry died two years later without male issue, making Anne the sole heiress to the estate (Sackville-West xlii).