Timeline
January 30, 1590: Born at Skipton Castle, Yorkshire, to George Clifford, 3rd Earl of Cumberland, and Margaret Russell. She is baptised 3 weeks later in Holy Trinity, Skipton next door to the Castle, and brought up in the London district of Clerkenwell.
1591: Following the deaths of her two older brothers, Anne becomes the sole surviving child and legal heir to the Clifford estates under a 14th-century entail.
1603: Attends the court of the new King James I, as a teenager, and becomes a Lady-in-Waiting to Queen Anne of Denmark.
October 30, 1605: Her father dies in the week of the Gunpowder Plot. He bypasses Anne in his will, leaving the family estates to his brother, Francis Clifford. Anne begins her lifelong legal battle to recover her inheritance.
October 1607: Anne and her mother, Margaret Russell travel to Skipton Castle, to assert Anne’s legal right to the property. They arrive on 12th October but are refused entry to the castle by her Uncle Francis.
February 25, 1609: Marries her first husband, Richard Sackville, 3rd Earl of Dorset. The marriage is often strained by his attempts to force her to drop her legal claims, attracted by the lump sum which would form part of the settlement. Their main home was Knole House in Kent, but her diaries show that Anne was often left alone there while Sackville was in London. They had five children, though their three sons died in infancy. Two daughters survived into adulthood: Lady Margaret Sackvlle (1614-1676) and Lady Isabella Sackville (1622-1661).
April 2, 1616: Has a "grievous and heavy parting" from her mother at Brougham; her mother dies a month later. Anne later erects the Countess Pillar (1656) to mark this spot.
1617: King James I personally attempts to mediate the inheritance dispute, pressuring Anne to accept a cash settlement. She famously refuses, standing alone against the King and her husband. This settlement was known as ‘The Award of King James’, an offer of £20,000 compensation to her husband, the Earl of Dorset.
1624: Richard Sackville dies. Anne becomes a widow for the first time. She lives with her mother at Chenies House in Buckinghamshire, the family home of her mother, for six years.
1630: Marries her second husband, Philip Herbert, 4th Earl of Pembroke. Their main home was Wilton House in Wiltshire. They also owned a medieval palace on the banks of the Thames, known as Baynard’s Castle. It was destroyed by the Fire of London (1666).
1641–1643: Her uncle Francis dies (January 1641), followed by his son Henry (1643). With the male line exhausted, the Clifford estates finally revert to Anne.
1646: The Great Picture is painted. The famous triptych was commissioned to celebrate her family history and her eventual legal victory. It can still be seen at Abbot Hall in Kendal.
1649: Following the death of her second husband and the end of the English Civil War, Anne travels north, once it is safe to do so, to take possession of her lands for the first time.
1650–1660s: Embarks on a massive restoration project, repairing five "ruinous" castles: Skipton, Appleby, Brough, Brougham, and Pendragon. She also restores churches and builds alms houses.
1653–1676: Exercises her hereditary right as High Sheriff of Westmorland, a rare position for a woman at the time.
March 22, 1676: Dies at Brougham Castle at age 86, in the same room where her father was born and her mother had died, and five months before her only surviving daughter Margaret.