General Notes

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From the DNB article on Rosamund de Clifford:  Rosamond is commonlyreported to have had two sons by Henry II, viz. Geoffrey, archbishop ofYork, and William Longsword, earl of Salisbury. This statement does notseem to reach further back than the end of the sixteenth or beginning ofthe seventeenth century. Apparently it is unknown to any Englishchronicler or historian before the publication of Speed's History ofGreat Britain in 1611. It has since been accepted by both Carte andEyton. That Geoffrey and William cannot both have been sons of FairRosamond is plain from the fact that the former was born in 1151-2 (Gir.Cambr. iv. 384), whereas Rosamond is spoken of as a girl (puellam) morethan twenty years later (Gir. Cambr. De Instit. Princ. p. 91). We alsoknow from Walter Map that Geoffrey's mother was called Ykenai or Hikenai(De Nug. Curial. pp. 228, 235); and it is worth notice that, according toDr. Stubbs, William Longsword laid claim to the inheritance of a SirRoger de Akeny, a name which bears a close resemblance to Walter Map'sYkenai (Gir. Cambr., ed. Dimock, vii. p. xxxvii). There is moreover nopositive evidence in favour of William Longsword's being the son ofRosamond. In 1607, when Margaret, wife of George Clifford, third earl ofCumberland [q.v.], claimed the Clifford estates for her daughter Anne,and instituted proceedings against her brother-in-law Francis, anotherclaimant, the Clifford genealogy was investigated, and the theory thatWilliam Longsword was the son of Rosamond Clifford was adopted. It istrue that William Longsword first appears in history in 1196, when a sonof Henry by Rosamond would come of age. The manor of Appleby inLincolnshire was granted to one William Longsword (who proves to be thebrother, and not the son, of Henry II) before 1200; the manor of Applebyin Westmoreland belonged to the Cliffords of the fourteenth century. Aconfusion between these two properties may well have led the suitors of1607 to associate Longsword with the Clifford genealogy, and to supportthe former's suggested parentage.