Anne Clifford's Great Books of Record

Book excerpt: Anne Clifford, in her Great Books of Records, places herself within the dynamic 600 year history of the Clifford family. This book is unique, including a wide variety of records that provide an unbroken view into life on the Clifford estates in England, (as well as the borders of Wales,Ireland, and Scotland) for centuries, as well as the family's involvement at the centre of political life. Here we glimpse the lives of simple widows, traders, farmers, and labourers juxtaposed with the adventures of soldiers, lords and ladies, princes and princesses. We see how rebellions,crusades, and foreign wars impacted both the great and the humble. And we witness changes in the practices of justice and custom. In this book Anne Clifford asserts the centrality of women to the success of the Clifford and other noble families, including the monarchy.Anne Clifford writes herself into this history, asserting her own rights to govern the lands of her father after her decades long inheritance dispute. Anne Clifford's composition of the Great Books draws upon medieval traditions and early modern scholarship and builds upon these through theinclusion of biographies of all the Clifford lords and ladies, along with an extended biography of her mother Margaret Russell and her own autobiographical, "The Life of Mee". Those interested in the lives of medieval and early modern women, changes in culture, the effect of the political uponindividuals, and the inspiring life of Anne Clifford will find this a rich and rewarding book.