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 establishment assembled in the hall, where they took their places at the board according to their rank. At the upper end was a table raised above the rest on a daïs, for the lord of the castle and his family, with any guests of distinction that might happen to be present, and below this was a long oak table extending from it lengthways down the centre of the hall, in the middle of which stood an enormous salt-cellar, as a sort of boundary between such as were of gentle birth, and those of lower degree; the former sitting above, the latter below the salt. The style of living in those days would appear very uncivilised to us in this more refined age, for the dishes were set on the board without any cloth, and the people ate off wooden or pewter plates, and used their fingers instead of forks, while many of the nobles would have their favourite hounds beside them, and feed them from the table; for, as the floor was always thickly strewed with rushes, they did not mind throwing down pieces of meat to their dogs. However there was always great plenty, and such a banquet was thought very grand then; and the young Henry de Clifford, as being the eldest son, was treated with great homage by all his father’s dependents. Often, too, chiefly for his amusement, mummers, jugglers, and tumblers were allowed to exhibit their performances in the hall, for he took great delight in such entertainments, and no indulgence, however costly, was thought too great for De Clifford’s heir, whose pleasure was studied by every member of the numerous household. It was well for him that his wise and 

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