e of William the Conqueror, and the first Lord
Clifford was the father of the lady called Fair Rosamond, who lived in
the reign of King Henry the Second, and was so beautiful that it is said
in some histories of England that the queen was jealous of her, and
obliged her to take poison; but this story is now supposed to be untrue,
as there is reason to believe that Fair Rosamond became a nun and died
in a convent. The De Cliffords held the Barony of Clifford in
Herefordshire, and the extensive manor of Skipton in Yorkshire, when the
grandson of Rosamond's father married a rich heiress, who brought him
the Barony of Westmoreland, to which Brougham Castle belonged, and after
that other lords of the race acquired estates by their marriages, so
that the wealth and grandeur of the family had been continually
increasing. The wife of the present Lord Clifford, the beautiful and
accomplished Lady Margaret, was the only child, consequently the heiress
of Henry Bromflete Lord de Vesci, who was also possessed of large
estates, one of which was Londesborough in Yorkshire, so that Henry, the
hero of this tale, was born heir to great riches and honours, and in his
childhood was surrounded with all the magnificence of a royal prince,
for his father lived in kingly state, and his mother had her maids of
honour, her squires and pages, just like a queen. It was not long after
young Henry's birth that Lord Clifford removed his family from Skipton
to Brougham Castle, where two more children were born, a boy who was
named Richard, and a girl named Elizabeth. These children had their
separate nurses and attendants, as was befitting their high station, and
Henry's chief nurse, whose name was Maud, was as fond of him as if he
had been her own child, for he was a very sweet-tempered, affectionate
boy, and he loved her better than any one else in the world, except his
parents and his little brother and sister.

Lord Clifford was now very seldom at home, being deeply engaged in the
wars, but he came sometimes and stayed for a few days or weeks, as it
might be, and on these occasions Henry, as soon as he was old enough,
used to dine in the Castle hall, where not less than a hundred knights
and gentlemen, besides a great number of pages and domestics of all
kinds, sat down to dinner all together every day, for such was the
custom of those times in great families. The dinner hour was about
noon, or even earlier, when everybody belonging to the es