Beyond Patronage: Anne Clifford and her Gentlemen

Professor Jessica Malay

Jessica Malay, Professor Emeritus of English Renaissance Literature at the University of Huddersfield, has written widely on Tudor and Stuart women and culture. She is the editor of Anne Clifford's Great Books of Record (2015) and Anne Clifford's Autobiographical Writing, 1590–1676 (2018). Her edition of George Sedgewick’s Memoirs and Anne Clifford’s Estate letters will appear in 2025. She is currently writing a biography of Anne Clifford.

About the event

The Lady Anne Clifford had a close personal as well as professional relationship with gentlemen who served and worked with her in a variety of capacities. These men were fiercely loyal to her and she returned this loyalty. Their letters and memoirs reveal a strong, even ferocious attachment to Clifford that went beyond what one would expect from a client/patron relationship. Her relationship to the antiquarians Roger Dodsworth and Charles Fairfax was one of collegiality as well as patronage as they collaborated on their antiquarian interests.

Her affection for George Sedgewick and Christopher Marsh is illustrated by their letters and memoirs. Clifford also had a close relationship with clergymen who served as her household chaplains, and later held high positions in the Church. Her generosity and support of these men, as with her other gentlemen enabled them to survive the vicissitudes 1640s and 50s and thrive in later more settled times. The deep affection embedded in these relationships provided a mutuality of emotional and practical support that enriched, sustained and at times protected not only their economic condition, but their emotional lives.

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