ROBERT RADCLIFFE, fifth Earl of Sussex (1569?-1629), was known as Viscount Fitzwalter from 1583 until he succeeded his
father [Henry Radcliffe] as fifth earl on 4 Dec. 1593. In August next year he was sent as
ambassador-extraordinary to Scotland to assist at the baptism of James's
eldest son, Henry, and to 'treat respecting the catholic earls, the
Earl of Bothwell, and other matters.'1
In 1596 he served with the army sent against Cadiz as colonel of a regiment of foot, took a prominent part with
Vere in the capture of the town, and was knighted there by the
Earl of Essex on 27 June 1596. On 28 Nov. 1597 he appealed to Lord Burghley
for military employment on the continent. 'He had much rather,' he said, 'make a good end in her majesty's service abroad than
to live in a miserable poverty at home.'2 He acted as earl marshal of England during the parliaments which sat in
the autumns of 1597 and 1601, and was colonel-general of foot in the army of London in August 1599, raised in anticipation of
a Spanish invasion.3 He was one of the peers commissioned to try the Earl of Essex in 1601,
and was made lord lieutenant of Essex on 26 Aug. 1603. He was also governor of Harwich and Landguard Fort.
On 20 July 1603 he petitioned the queen to relieve him of some of the
pecuniary embarrassments due to the debts to the crown contracted by the third and fourth earls.4 In July 1622 he
sold to the Marquis of Buckingham his ancestral estate of Newhall for £22,000, and resigned to him the lord-lieutenancy
of Essex. He was reappointed joint lord lieutenant in 1625. Sussex was frequently at court. He carried the purple ermined robe
at the creation of Prince Charles as Prince of Wales, 4 Nov. 1616, and bore the orb at the
coronation of Charles I on 2 Feb. 1626-6. He died at his house in Clerkenwell on 22 Sept. 1629,
and was buried with his father and uncle in the church of Boreham.
Sussex was a patron of men of letters. In 1592 Robert Greene dedicated
to him as Lord Fitzwalter 'Euphues Shadow,' by Thomas Lodge. Chapman prefixed to his translation of Homer's 'Iliad,' 1598, a sonnet
to him, 'with duty always remembered to his honoured countess.' A sonnet was also addressed to the earl by Henry Lok, in his
'Sundry Christian Passions,' 1597, and Emanuel Ford dedicated to him in 1598 his popular romance 'Parismus'.
Sussex was twice married. His first wife, Bridget, daughter of Sir Charles Morison of Cassiobury, Hertfordshire, was, according
to Manningham, 'a very goodly and comely personage, of an excellent presence, and a rare wit.'5 In her honour
Robert Greene gave his 'Philomela' the subtitle of 'The Lady Fitzwa[l]ter's
Nightingale,' 1592, 4to. To her was also dedicated a popular music-book, 'The New Booke of Tabliture,' 1596. Manningham reports
in his 'Diary,' 12 Oct. 1602, that the earl treated her with great cruelty, owing to the demoralising influence of his intimate
friend Edward Whitelocke, brother of Sir James, a man of notoriously abandoned life, who died when staying with Sussex at Newhall
in 1608, and was buried in the earl's family tomb at Boreham. Before 1602 she, with her children, separated from Sussex, who
thenceforth allowed her £l,700 a year.6 She died in December 1623. She bore Sussex four children, who all
predeceased him: Henry, who married, in February 1613-14, Jane, daughter of Sir Michael Stanhope; Thomas; Elizabeth, who married
Sir John Ramsay, earl of Holderness; and Honora. Sussex's second wife was Frances, widow of Francis Shute, daughter of Hercules
Meautas, of West Ham. She died on 18 Nov. 1627.7
Sussex was succeeded by his cousin Edward (1552?-1641), son of Sir Humphrey Radcliffe of Elnestow, Bedfordshire, second son of
Robert Radcliffe, first earl of Sussex. He was member of parliament for Petersfield in 1586-7,
for Portsmouth 1592-3, and for Bedfordshire 1598-9, 1601, and 1604-1612. The title expired at his death without issue in 1641.
The subsidiary barony of Fitzwalter was claimed in 1640 by Sir Henry Mildmay of Moulsham, Essex, whose mother Frances was daughter
of Henry, second earl of Sussex. The barony was granted in 1670 to Sir Henry's grandson Benjamin,
but it fell into abeyance in 1756.8
1. Cal. State Papers, Scotland, 1509-1603, ii. 657, 659, 661.
2. Ellis, Original Letters, 3rd ser. iv. 149.
3. Chamberlain, Letters, p. 68.
4. Calendar of State Papers, Domestic. Addenda, 1580-1626, pp. 426-7.
5. Manningham, Diary, pp. 60-61.
6. ibid.
7. Morant, Essex, ii. 568.
8. Collins, Peerage, ed. Brydges, ix. 449.
Source:
Dunlop, Robert. "Robert Radcliffe, fifth Earl of Sussex."
The Dictionary of National Biography. Vol XVI. Leslie Stephen, Ed.
New York: The Macmillan Co., 1909. 587-588.
Other Local Resources:
Web Links:
to Luminarium Encyclopedia
Site ©1996-2023 Anniina Jokinen. All rights reserved.
This page was created on August 18, 2009. Last updated February 27, 2023.