" He died by a
chance arrow the night before the Battle of Towton, so fatal to the
cause of Lancaster, and Lady Clifford and the children took refuge in
her father's castle at Brough. For greater safety Henry, the heir, was
placed under the care of a shepherd whose wife had nursed the boy's
mother when a child. In this way the future baron grew up as an
entirely uneducated shepherd lad, spending his days on the fells in the
primitive fashion of the peasants of the fifteenth century. When he was
about twelve years old Lady Clifford, hearing rumours that the
whereabouts of her children had become known, sent the shepherd and his
wife with the boy into an extremely inaccessible part of Cumberland. He
remained there until his thirty-second year, when the Battle of
Bosworth placed Henry VII on the throne. Then the shepherd lord was
brought to Londesborough, and when the family estates had been
restored, he went back to Skipton Castle. The strangeness of his new
life being irksome to him, Lord Clifford spent most of his time in
Barden Forest at one of the keeper's lodges, which he adapted for his
own use.
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