Marriage, children and succession dispute
In 1577, George married Lady Margaret Russell (1560–1616), a daughter of his guardian Francis Russell, 2nd Earl of Bedford and Margaret St John. Earl Russell had acquired his valuable wardship, as well as the right to marry George off to whomsoever he chose. By his wife Margaret, George had the following children:
Francis Clifford (1584 – 8 December 1589)
Robert Clifford (21 September 1585 – 24 May 1591)
Lady Anne Clifford, suo jure 14th Baroness de Clifford (30 January 1590 – 22 March 1676), his daughter and sole heiress, and wife of Richard Sackville, 3rd Earl of Dorset.
Clifford's two sons, Robert and Francis, had both died young, before the age of 6, thus his only surviving child and daughter Anne became his sole heiress. She inherited the title Baron de Clifford suo jure, having been created by writ in 1299 to be able to descend in the female line. She also inherited £15,000. The vast majority of his estate, however, Clifford bequeathed to his brother Francis Clifford, 4th Earl of Cumberland, who also inherited the earldom, which by the letters patent of its creation was precluded from passing to a female, as was usual. After lengthy litigation, Clifford's daughter Anne won much of the land, including Brougham and Appleby castles.
The Great Picture is a large triptych group portrait, measuring 8 ft 5" high and 16 ft 2" wide, commissioned in 1646 by Lady Anne Clifford, attributed to Jan van Belcamp (1610–1653). It formerly hung in Appleby Castle and is now displayed at the Abbot Hall Art Gallery in Kendal, Cumbria. It depicts Lady Anne as a girl, on the left, and as a mature woman, on the right. The central panel shows her parents and her small brothers. The painting is replete with significant elements, referring to her life and to her succession to her paternal inheritance, gained after a lengthy legal dispute, only settled in 1617. The House of Lords postponed the hearing of the matter of the barony, which remained dormant until 1678, when Nicholas Tufton, 3rd Earl of Thanet, was allowed to claim the peerage and become the fifteenth Baron de Clifford.
The 3rd and 4th Earls of Cumberland are frequently erroneously associated with the progenitors of the Clifford name in early New England; neither man emigrated to the new world, nor did other known members of the Cumberland Branch of Cliffords.
