JOHN, the 9th baron (c. earned the name of the "butcher," in the Wars of the Roses, in which he fought for Henry VI. ; after the battle of Wakefield in 146o he murdered Edmund, earl of Rutland, son of Richard duke of York. Shake speare refers to this incident in King Henry VI., and also represents Clifford as taking part in the murder of York, though it is practically certain that York was slain in the battle. Clifford was killed at Ferrybridge on March 28, 1461, and was afterwards attainted. His young son Henry, the loth baron (c. 1454-1523), lived disguised as a shepherd for some years, hence he is some times called the "shepherd lord." On the accession of Henry VII. the attainder was reversed and he received his father's estate. He fought at Flodden in 1513, and died on April 23, He is the subject of two of Wordsworth's poems, "The White Doe of Rylstone" and the "Song at the Feast of Brougham Castle." Henry, the I 1 th baron, was created earl of Cumberland in 1525, and from this time until the extinction of the title in 1643 the main line of Cliffords was associated with this earldom (q.v.).
On the death of George, 3rd earl of Cumberland, in 16o5, the barony of Clifford, separated from the earldom, was claimed by his daughter Anne, countess of Dorset, Pembroke and Mont gomery; and in 1628 a new barony of Clifford was created in favour of Henry, afterwards 5th and last earl of Cumberland. After Anne's death in 1676 the claim to the older barony passed to her daughter Margaret (d. 1676), wife of John Tufton, 2nd earl of Thanet, and her descendants, whose title was definitely recognized in 1691. After the Tuftons the barony was held with intervening abeyances by the Southwells and the Russells, and to this latter family the present Lord De Clifford belongs.
When the last earl of Cumberland died in 1643 the newer barony of Clifford passed to his daughter Elizabeth, wife of Richard Boyle, 2nd earl of Cork, and from the Boyles it passed to the Cavendishes, falling into abeyance on the death of William Cavendish, 6th duke of Devonshire, in 1858.
The barony of Clifford of Lanesborough was held by the Boyles from 1644 to 1753, and the Devonshire branch of the family still holds the barony of Clifford of Chudleigh, created in 1672.
See G. E. C.(okayne), Complete Peerage, vol. iii. new ed. (1913) ; and T. D. Whitaker, History of Craven, 3rd ed. (1878).