Robert Radcliffe of Hunstanton
Sir Robert Radcliffe or Radclyffe (died 1497) was an English landowner.
He was a son of Sir Thomas Radcliffe, and not, as is sometimes stated, a member of the Attleborough branch of the family. His estates were at Hunstanton in Norfolk. He was Steward of the Lincolnshire estates of the Duke of York.[1]
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Radcliffe married Joan Stanhope in 1472. She was a daughter of Sir Richard Stanhope and Maud Cromwell, a sister of Ralph Cromwell, 3rd Baron Cromwell. Joan Stanhope's first husband was Sir Humphrey Bourchier, son of Henry Bourchier, 1st Earl of Essex, who was killed at the battle of Barnet in 1471.[2] Joan was an heir of Ralph Cromwell and was known as "Lady Cromwell".[3] Robert Radcliffe became lord of the manor of Tattershall.[4]
Joan Stanhope, Lady Cromwell died on 10 March 1489–90 and was buried at Holy Trinity, Tattershall, near Ralph Cromwell's home at Tattershall Castle,[5] where there is a commemorative brass image formerly including the Radcliffe coat of arms.[6] Radcliffe subsequently married Katherine Drury, a daughter of Roger Drury of Hawstead in Suffolk. Her first husband was Henry Le Strange (died after 1483) of Hunstanton.[7]
Katherine Radcliffe's children included Ann Radcliffe and Elizabeth Radcliffe. In his will, written in 1496, Robert Radcliffe bequeathed Ann four gold rings, one engraved with an image of the five wounds of Christ, with a bed of gold or gold beads. Elizabeth was given an enamelled gold jewel or beads decorated with Catherine wheels. Ann would keep an embroidered purse containing holy relics and let Elizabeth have it when needed. He gave a vestment embroidered with Joan Stanhope's arms to the church at Tattershall and also paid for the painting and gilding of an image of the Virgin Mary in the collegiate church.[8] Radcliffe left his own gown of crimson velvet (but not its fur collar) to Hunstanton Church, to make a cope with a cloth of gold orphrey embroidered with his and "Dame Kateryne's" heraldry. The tomb and brass, "latten", he mentions in his will for Hunstanton may never have been erected.[9]
Radcliffe's bequest of vestments at Hunstanton was emulated by John Le Strange (died 1517), a stepson, his wife Katherine's younger son by her first husband.[10] Le Strange made a bequest of vestments to St Andrew's at Little Massingham to be made "after the rate of Sir Robert Ratclyffe's cope".[11]
Elizabeth Radcliffe married Sir Roger Woodhouse or Wodehouse (died 1560).[12] Their son Thomas Wodehouse married Madge Shelton. He was present at the battle of Pinkie in September 1547, some sources suggest he was killed there.[13]
References
- ^ Rosemary Horrox, Richard III: A Study of Service (Cambridge, 1989), p. 84.
- ^ Colin Richmond, The Paston Family in the Fifteenth Century: Endings (Manchester, 2000), p. 20 fn. 6.
- ^ Nicholas Harris Nicolas, Testamenta Vetusta: Illustrations from Wills, vol. 1 (London, 1826), p. 434: TNA PROB 11/11/383.
- ^ George Nathaniel Curzon & Henry Avray Tipping, Tattershall Castle, Lincolnshire: A Historical & Descriptive Survey (London, 1929), pp. 101-2.
- ^ James Wright, 'Tattershall Castle and the Newly-built Personality of Ralph Lord Cromwell', The Antiquaries Journal, 101 (September 2021), pp. 301-332 doi:10.1017/S0003581520000505
- ^ A topographical account of Tattershall (Horncastle, 1813), pp. 12-3.
- ^ Colin Richmond, The Paston Family in the Fifteenth Century: Endings (Manchester, 2000), p. 20 fn. 6.
- ^ Nicholas Harris Nicolas, Testamenta Vetusta: Illustrations from Wills, vol. 1 (London, 1826), p. 434 includes "bed of gold": Maurice Keen, English Society in the Later Middle Ages (Allen Lane, 1990), p. 278: See TNA PROB 11/11/383
- ^ J. F. Williams, 'Some Norfolk churches and their old-time benefactors', Norfolk Archaeology, 27:3 (1941), p. 341: See TNA PROB 11/11/383. doi:10.5284/1077808
- ^ Charles Parkin, An essay towards a topographical history of the county of Norfolk, vol. 10 (London, 1809), p. 318.
- ^ Ronald Fisher McLeod, Massingham Parva Past and Present (London, 1882), pp. 99-100
- ^ G. Dashwood, Visitation of Norfolk in the Year 1563, vol. 1 (Norwich, 1878), p. 104.
- ^ Barbara Harris, 'A rhetoric of requests: genre and linguistic scripts in Elizabethan women's suitors' letters', James Daybell, Women and Politics in Early Modern England, 1450–1700 (Routledge, 2000): G. Dashwood, Visitation of Norfolk in the Year 1563, vol. 1 (Norwich, 1878), p. 104.