testify that the pope had no power of dispensation where the relationship was so close. Their opposition, to which Richard yielded, was perhaps a little too ardent to be wholly disinterested, and they were generally thought to have entertained a fear that if Elizabeth became queen she would some day take revenge upon them for the death of her uncle Rivers and her half-brother, Richard Grey. Shortly after this (22 April), as head of a commission to treat with Scotland, Radcliffe received a safe-conduct from King James, but may have been prevented from going by the news of Richmond's contemplated invasion (Fœdera, xii. 266). At any rate, he fought at Bosworth Field on 21 Aug., and was there slain, some said while attempting to escape (Croyl. Cont. p. 574). He was attainted in Henry VII's first parliament, but the attainder was removed on the petition of his son Richard in 1495 (Rot. Parl. vi. 276, 492).
Radcliffe is said by Davies (p. 148) to have married Agnes Scrope, daughter of John, lord Scrope (d. 1498) of Bolton in Wensleydale, and widow of Christopher Boynton of Sedbury in the parish of Gilling, near Richmond (Whitaker, Richmondshire, i. 77). The only child given to him in Nicolson and Burn's pedigree is the son mentioned above, who appears to have died without male issue. But a correspondent of ‘Notes and Queries’ (1st ser. x. 164) asserts, without quoting his authority, that ‘Radcliffe's daughter Joan married Henry Grubb of North Mimms, Hertfordshire, and was heiress to her brother, Sir John (?) Radcliffe.’
[Rotuli Parliamentorum; Rymer's Fœdera, orig. ed.; Cont. of the Croyland Chronicle, ed. Fulman, Oxford, 1684; Fabyan's Chronicle, ed. Ellis; Rous's Historia Regum Angliæ, ed. Hearne, 1745; Polydore Vergil, ed. for Camden Soc.; More's Richard III, ed. Lumby; Davies's Extracts from the Municipal Records of York; Whitaker's Richmondshire and Whalley, 3rd ed.; Surtees's Hist. of Durham; Notes and Queries, 1st ser. x. 475; Gairdner's Richard III; Ramsay's Lancaster and York.]
RADCLIFFE or RATCLIFFE, ROBERT, first Earl of Sussex (1483–1542), born in 1483, was only son by his first wife of John Radcliffe or Ratcliffe, baron Fitzwalter [q. v.] Restored in blood as Baron Fitzwalter by letters patent of 25 Jan. 1506, he was made a knight of the Bath on 23 June 1509, and acted as lord sewer at the coronation of Henry VIII the following day. From this time he was a prominent courtier. He was appointed joint commissioner of array for Essex and joint captain of the forces raised there on 28 Jan. 1512–13, and in the English expedition of 1513 he commanded two ships, the Make Glory and the Ellen of Hastings. In 1515 he took part in the ceremony at the reception of Wolsey's cardinal's hat. The same year the king restored him some of his lands that had been withheld. On 28 May 1517 he was made joint commissioner to inquire into demolitions and enclosures in Essex.
Fitzwalter was at the Field of the Cloth of Gold in 1520, and admiral of the squadron and chief captain of the vanguard in the expedition of 1522. On 23 April 1524 he was made K.G. On 18 July 1525 he was raised to the dignity of Viscount Fitzwalter. On 5 Feb. 1525–6 he was made a privy councillor, and, taking the king's view of the divorce question, he was created Earl of Sussex on 8 Dec. 1529. Other honours followed. On 7 May 1531 he became lieutenant of the order of the Garter; on 31 May 1532 he was appointed chamberlain of the exchequer; on 5 June 1532 he appears as one of the witnesses when Sir Thomas More resigned the great seal.
Sussex was long in very confidential relations with Henry. It must have been with the king's knowledge that he proposed at the council on 6 June 1536 that the Duke of Richmond should be placed before Mary in the succession to the throne. After the pilgrimage of grace, he was in 1537 sent on a special commission to quiet the men of Lancashire. In 1540 he was made great chamberlain of England and one of the commissioners to inquire into the state of Calais, an inquiry which resulted in the disgrace of Lord Lisle [see Plantagenet, Arthur]. He received many grants of land after the suppression of the monasteries, and died on 26 Nov. 1542.
Radcliffe married: first, about 1505, Lady Elizabeth, daughter of Henry Stafford, duke of Buckingham, by whom he had Henry, second earl, who is noticed below, and Sir Humphrey Radcliffe of Elnestow. His second wife was Lady Margaret Stanley, daughter of the second Earl of Derby. On 11 May 1532 Gardiner wrote urging Benet to press on the dispensation rendered necessary by the consanguinity between Sussex and Lady Margaret. By her he had a son, Sir John Radcliffe of Cleeve or Clyve in Somerset, who died without issue on 9 Nov. 1568, and a daughter Anne, whose dowry when she married Thomas, lord Wharton, was raised by selling Radcliffe Tower and other Lancashire estates. Radcliffe's second wife died on 3 Feb. 1583–4. His third wife was Mary, daughter of Sir John Arundel of Lanherne, Cornwall.
