Margaret Clifford, Countess of Cumberland

Margaret Clifford (née Russell), Countess of Cumberland (7 July 1560 – 24 May 1616) was an English noblewoman and maid of honor to Elizabeth I.

Her sister, Anne Russell, Countess of Warwick, was married to Ambrose Dudley, brother of Robert Dudley, the Earl of Leicester, and Anne too was a great literary patron and a close friend to Queen Elizabeth I, attending her on her death bed.

Afterwards they rode with Anne Vavasour (later Lady Warburton) through Coventry to see Princess Elizabeth at Coombe Abbey.

[1] At this time her husband was not maintaining her, and she wrote to Sir Robert Cecil asking for his intervention so that she could buy suitable clothes to "furnish her self" to attend the new queen.

[6] The tomb of the Countess is at St Lawrence's Church, Appleby along with that of her daughter, Lady Anne Clifford.