Anne Clifford, born in 1590, was the only daughter of George, Earl of Cumberland, and of his good wife, Margaret Russel. She and her two noble sisters, Elizabeth, Countess of Bath, and Anne, Countess of Warwick, were distinguished for family affection, and all other womanly virtues. The Countess of Warwick was Elizabeth’s favourite Lady-in-Waiting. Anne was much with this aunt in her youth, was a favourite of Queen Elizabeth, and was destined for her court. Her father refused to allow her, like other noble ladies of her time, to learn ancient and modern languages, so she made the most of the opportunities to be found in her own. “Her instructor in her younger years was the learned Mr. Daniel, the Historiographer and Poet. She was much interested in searching out old documents about her ancestors and very jealous of preserving her rights.” (_See_ in Nicholson and Burn’s “History of Cumberland and Westmoreland, the Autobiography of Mr. Sedgwick, who was her Secretary.”) She was well prepared by her beloved mother and respected tutor for the exigencies of her future life. The Queen died in 1602-3, and her father in 1605. A woman being considered of age at 14, she chose her mother as her guardian, who initiated the proceedings against her brother-in-law, the new Earl of Cumberland, which lasted until his death. The Earldom of Cumberland had been entailed in Heirs Male, but the secondary Titles, the Baronies of Clifford, Westmoreland, and Vescy, with all the Lands and Castles in Westmoreland belonging to them, were entailed in the Heir General. Her uncle, however, took possession, and favoured by the King, the power of wealth, and Sex Bias among those in power, he was able to hold them against her, in spite of her private and public petitions. His son, Henry, was summoned to Parliament by the title of Lord Clifford, a right which should have been hers, as she bitterly complained. Meanwhile, in 1609, she married Richard, Earl of Dorset. “On 25th July, 1610, my cousin, Henry, married Lady Francis Cecil, daughter to Robert, Earl Salisbury, which marriage was purposely made that by that power and greatness of his the lands of mine inheritance might be worsted and kept by strong hand from me” (Harl. MS., 6177, Anne Clifford’s Diary). 16th July, 1615, “the great trial for my lands in Craven.” Her husband agreed with the Earl of Cumberland to leave it to the King’s arbitration, which she would never agree to, standing upon her rights. In 1617 she was brought before King James in Whitehall to give her consent to the arbitration, “which I utterly refused, and was thereby afterwards brought to many and great troubles.” Her uncle offered £20,000 as a compromise for the Westmoreland estates, which she would not hear of, but which her prodigal husband urged her to accept. Indeed, he attempted to strain his marital rights, and backed by the King, signed the agreement with her uncle, which she refused to