Humphrey Radcliffe Explained

Humphrey Radcliffe
Office1:	Member of Parliament for Bedfordshire and Maldon
Term1:	1558
Alongside:	Roger Appleton
Father:	Robert Radcliffe
Mother:	Elizabeth Stafford
Relatives:	Henry Stafford (grandfather)
Spouse:	Isabel (or Elizabeth) Harvey
Children:	6, including Thomas, Edward and Mary

Humphrey Radcliffe (died 30 August 1566) was an English landowner and Member of Parliament.

Biography

He was a son of Robert Radcliffe, 1st Earl of Sussex and Elizabeth, a daughter of Henry Stafford, 2nd Duke of Buckingham.

Radcliffe was a Member of Parliament for Bedfordshire and for Maldon in 1558 jointly with Roger Appleton.^[1]

Radcliffe, as Lieutenant of the Gentlemen Pensioners, is said to have spoken in favour of the Protestant writer Edward Underhill shortly before the wedding of Mary I of England and Philip II of Spain, and so Underhill was allowed to serve at the feast at Wolvesey Castle.^[2]

Radcliffe obtained the manor of Elstow in Bedfordshire, a former convent, from his wife's family, it had been granted to her father at the dissolution of the monasteries. He died on 30 August 1566.^[3] There is a monument at Elstow, set over the altar.^[4]

Marriage and children

Humphrey Radcliffe married Isabel or Elizabeth Harvey (died 1594), daughter and heir of Edmund Harvey of Elstow. There is a somewhat fictionalised 19th-century account of their meeting at a tournament.^[5] Their children included:

• Thomas Radcliffe (died 1586)
• Edward Radcliffe (died 1643), who became Earl of Sussex in 1629.
• Mary Radcliffe (died 1617), a lady of the Privy Chamber of Elizabeth I and keeper of her jewels. Humphrey Radcliffe "presented" her to Elizabeth on 1 January 1561 as if she were a New Year's Day gift.^[6]
• Elizabeth Radcliffe, who married Henry Owen of Wotton, Surrey, a descendent of Owen Tudor.^[7]
• Martha Radcliffe, who married William Gostwick of Willington.
• Frances Radcliffe, who married Henry Cheke (died 1586), Secretary to the Council of the North.

Notes and References

1. https://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1558-1603/member/radcliffe-sir-humphrey-1509-66 'RADCLIFFE, Sir Humphrey (c.1509-66), of Elstow', The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1558-1603, ed. P.W. Hasler, 1981
2. [Stephen Hyde Cassan]
3. https://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1558-1603/member/radcliffe-sir-humphrey-1509-66 'RADCLIFFE, Sir Humphrey (c.1509-66), of Elstow', The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1558-1603, ed. P.W. Hasler, 1981
4. Spencer Robert Wigram & M. J. Buckley, Chronicles of the Abbey of Elstow (Oxford, 1885), pp. 178-180.
5. [Edward Walford]
6. Patricia Fumerton, Cultural Aesthetics: Renaissance Literature and the Practice of Social Ornament (Chicago, 1991), p. 43: Tracy Borman, Elizabeth's Women: The Hidden Story of the Virgin Queen (Jonathan Cape, 2009), p. 277.
7. Edward Wedlake Brayley, John Britton, Edward William Brayley, Topographical History of Surrey, vol. 5 (London, 1850), p. 20.