ROBERT RADCLIFFE or RATCLIFFE,1 first Earl of Sussex (1483-1542), born in 1483, was only son by his first wife
of John Radcliffe or Ratcliffe, Baron Fitzwalter. 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 1518 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 81 May 1532 he was appointed chamberlain of the exchequer; on 6 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. 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..., 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
8 Feb. 1583-4. His third wife was Mary, daughter of Sir John Arundel of Lanherne, Cornwall.
1. Or Radclyffe, Ratcliffe, Radcliff, Radclyff, Ratcliff, &c.
Source:
Archbold, W. A. J. "Robert Radcliffe, first Earl of Sussex."
The Dictionary of National Biography. Vol XVI. Sidney Lee, Ed.
New York: The Macmillan Co., 1909. 578.
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