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]

Robert Ratcliffe married Joan, Lady Cromwell, commemorated by a brass at Tattershall

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] By her first husband, Katherine had three sons, Sir Roger le Strange, knight, eldest son,[8] who married Amy,[9] daughter of Sir Henry Heydon,[10] knight,[11] and had John le Strange who died young; Robert le Strange, second son, who married Margaret, daughter and coheiress of Thomas le Strange of Walton in Warwick, Esq., and had Sir Thomas le Strange and his two sisters; and John le Strange of Massingham in Norfolk, a judge, third son, who married Ann, daughter and coheiress of Thomas le Strange of Walton in Warwickshire.[8]

Katherine's children by Robert Radcliffe 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.[12] 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.[13]

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.[14] 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".[15]

Elizabeth Radcliffe married Sir Roger Woodhouse or Wodehouse (died 1560).[16] Their son Thomas Woodhouse married Madge Shelton. He was present at the battle of Pinkie in September 1547, some sources suggest he was killed there.[17] With his wife Madge, he had the son Roger Woodhouse of Kimberley in Norfolk,[18] and Elizabeth Woodhouse (d. 1608), the Mrs. Jones who was Mother of the Maids in 1588–1591. In 1588, she married Thomas Jones and by November of that year she was Mother of the Maids. On October 17, 1591, she was sent to the Tower after Katherine Leigh, one of the maids of honor in her charge, gave birth to a child at court. Katherine Leigh and Sir Francis Darcy, father of the child, were also sent to the Tower. Elizabeth died in 1608. In her will she describes herself as ‘of London’, making bequests to Lord Hunsdon and Lady Scrope.[19][20][21]

The daughter of Elizabeth Radcliffe and Sir Roger Woodhouse was Anne Woodhouse,[22] who married firstly Christopher Coningsby,[23] of Wallington,[24] Esq.,[25] who was slain in the first of Edward VI at the battle of Muscleborough in Scotland.[25] He was the son of William Coningsby[26] and his wife Beatrix Thursby, the daughter of Thomas Thursby (d.1510) and the sister of Thomas Thursby (d.1543). After her first husband's death, Anne remarried to Sir Thomas Ragland.[27] Christopher Coningsby had by Anne Woodhouse three daughters and coheiresses, Elizabeth, who married Francis Gawdy, Esq., Anne, who married Alexander Balam of Elme in Cambridgeshire, and Amy, who married Thomas Clarke of Avington in Northamptonshire.[25]

In her will, made December 1562 and proven 18 February 1563, Anne left a ring with an emerald to her husband but otherwise stipulated ‘that Sir Thomas Ragland shall not by any ways or means take any benefit or advantage of this will’.[27] She apparently did not trust him to manage the inheritance left to her daughters.[28]

In 1519, when Sir Thomas Le Strange's wife Anne Vaux, the aunt of Katherine Parr, gave birth to her third or fourth child at Hunstanton, her own mother was dead and her mother-in-law had remarried and moved away, leaving it to two of her husband’s aunts, Elizabeth Radcliffe, Lady Woodhouse and Anne Banyard, to attend her for the three weeks leading up to the birth.[29]