ABSTRACT
The perceived significance of tenure can be seen in the diary, in the actions of both Anne Clifford and her uncle Francis, particularly on the death of her mother, when the actual physical possession of the estates and loyalty of the tenants is contested between them. The Composition or Agreement to which Clifford refers in the diary is the result of the arbitration conducted by the four Chief Justices after the adjournment of the proceedings in the Court of Common Pleas, and at the behest of Richard Sackville, Francis Clifford and his son Henry Clifford. The Portland manuscript of the diary survives among the Portland Papers currently in the collection of the Marquess of Bath. Clifford left one of the most extensive autobiographical records of the seventeenth century, one of the few early seventeenth century diaries written by a woman,
