Gervase Clifton, 1st Baron Clifton (c. 1570 – 14 October 1618) was an English nobleman.[1]
Origins
Clifton was a son of Sir John Clifton (d. 1593) of Barrington Court, Somerset, by his wife Anne Stanley, daughter of Thomas Stanley, 2nd Baron Monteagle (1507–1560). Sir John Clifton's father was a London merchant, Sir William Clifton (d. 1564), who had purchased the manor of Barrington from Henry Grey, 1st Duke of Suffolk.[2]
In 1605, he sold his paternal estate of Barrington Court and moved his seat to Leighton Bromswold, County Huntingdon. In 1608, he was raised to the Peerage by writ of summonsBaron Clifton, of Leighton Bromswold, County Huntingdon. This ancient form of creation by writ enabled the title to descend via female lines.[citation needed]
On 30 December 1617, Lord Clifton was imprisoned in the Tower of London for threatening Sir Francis Bacon when the latter ordered a survey of Clifton's land. He was then prosecuted by the Star Chamber on 17 March 1618 and moved to Fleet Prison, where he stabbed himself to death the following October. His only son had died in 1602 as a result of wounds received from a bear, which had broken free during a bear-baiting show at Nottingham, and so Clifton's title passed to his daughter, Katherine.[citation needed]
