Clifford, Anne, Countess of Dorset (1590 -1676)

Anne Clifford, Baroness de Clifford, was the only surviving child and heiress of George Clifford, 3rd Earl of Cumberland and 13th Baron de Clifford, and Margaret Russell, third daughter of Frances Russell, 2nd Earl of Bedford. The poet Samuel Daniel was her tutor. She succeeded her father in the Barony of Clifford in 1605, and married, 25 February 1609, Richard Sackville, afterwards 3rd Earl of Dorset, who died in 1624, and secondly, in 1630, Philip Herbert, 4th Earl of Pembroke and Montgomery, who died in 1650. After the death of Henry Clifford, 5th and last Earl of Cumberland, on 11 December 1643, without male issue, the estates of the Cliffords in the north all came to her under her father's will. She had a passion for bricks and mortar, restoring or rebuilding her castles of Appleby, Skipton, Brougham, Brough, Pendragon and Bardon Tower, together with the Churches of Appleby, Skipton and Bongate, and numerous chapels and almshouses. She was in the habit of residing in each of her castles in turn, where she dispensed hospitality freely, though she was frugal in her own habits, and helped among others many of the outed clergy. Well educated and studious, John Donne commented on her conversational ability. She left a manuscript autobiography.