Humphrey Radcliffe
{{short description|English landowner and politician}}
{{Infobox officeholder
| name = Humphrey Radcliffe
| image =
| alt =
| caption =
| office1 = Member of Parliament for Bedfordshire and Maldon
| term1 = 1558
| alongside = Roger Appleton
| birth_date =
| birth_place =
| death_date = {{death date|1566|08|30|df=yes}}
| death_place =
| education =
| 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
File:Elstow Abbey, interior 03.jpg]]
He was a son of Robert Radcliffe, 1st Earl of Sussex and Elizabeth, a daughter of Henry Stafford, 2nd Duke of Buckingham.{{citation needed|date=January 2024}}
Radcliffe was a Member of Parliament for Bedfordshire and for Maldon in 1558 jointly with Roger Appleton.[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]
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.Stephen Hyde Cassan, The Lives of the Bishops of Winchester, vol. 1 (London, 1827), p. 505.
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.[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] There is a monument at Elstow, set over the altar.Spencer Robert Wigram & M. J. Buckley, Chronicles of the Abbey of Elstow (Oxford, 1885), pp. 178-180.
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.Edward Walford, Chapters from Family Chests, vol. 1 (London, 1887), pp. 258-267. 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.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.
- Elizabeth Radcliffe, who married Henry Owen of Wotton, Surrey, a descendent of Owen Tudor.Edward Wedlake Brayley, John Britton, Edward William Brayley, Topographical History of Surrey, vol. 5 (London, 1850), p. 20.
- Martha Radcliffe, who married William Gostwick of Willington.
- Frances Radcliffe, who married Henry Cheke (died 1586), Secretary to the Council of the North.