Covered earlier clothing left for Spanish gentleman (7)
I believe the answer is:
hidalgo
'spanish gentleman' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'covered earlier clothing left' is the wordplay.
'covered' becomes 'hid'.
'earlier' becomes 'ago' (I've seen this before).
'clothing' means one lot of letters goes inside another (some letters cover up or clothe others).
'left' becomes 'L' (common abbreviation).
'ago' going around 'l' is 'algo'.
'hid'+'algo'='HIDALGO'
'for' is the link.
(Other definitions for hidalgo that I've seen before include "Spanish fellow" , "Spanish gentleman" , "Spanish aristocrat" , "Grandee" , "Spanish nobleman" .)