SOURCE: Sackville-West, Victoria. “Introductory Note: A brief account of the life of Lady Anne Clifford Countess of Dorset, Pembroke, & Montgomery, 1590-1676.” In The Diary of the Lady Anne Clifford, pp. ix-lvi. New York: George H. Doran Company, 1923.

In the following essay, Sackville-West presents background details about Clifford and her family and then attempts to reconstruct the diarist's character from the records she left.

I

Lady Anne Clifford was born at the sturdy little Norman castle of Skipton in Craven in the year 1590, the only daughter of George Clifford, third Earl of Cumberland, and his wife Margaret Russell. Lord Cumberland, at the date of his daughter's birth, was absent at sea upon one of the many voyages he undertook “for the service of Queen Elizabeth, for the good of England, and of his own person,” and in this phrase of Lady Anne's lies the summing-up of the adventurous and...