Thomas Radclyffe

Background

He was born about 1525. He was the eldest son of Henry Radclyffe, 2nd Earl of Sussex, and his first wife Elizabeth Howard. His maternal grandparents were Thomas Howard, 2nd Duke of Norfolk, and his second wife, Agnes Tilney.

Career

After his father's succession to the earldom in 1542 he was styled Viscount Fitzwalter. After serving in the army abroad, he was employed in 1551 in negotiating a marriage between Edward VI and a daughter of Henry II, king of France. His prominence in the kingdom was shown by his inclusion among the signatories to the letters patent of the 16th of June 1553 settling the crown on Lady Jane Grey; but he nevertheless won favour with Queen Mary, who employed him in arranging her marriage with Philip of Spain, and who raised him to the peerage as Baron Fitzwalter in August 1553.

Returning to England from a mission to the emperor Charles V in April 1556, Fitzwalter was appointed lord deputy of Ireland. The prevailing anarchy in Ireland, a country which, nominally subject to the English Crown, was torn by feuds among its practically independent native chieftains, rendered the task of the lord deputy one of no ordinary difficulty; a difficulty that was increased by the ignorance of English statesmen concerning Ireland and Irish conditions, and by their incapacity to devise or to carry into execution any consistent and thoroughgoing policy for bringing the half-conquered island under an orderly system of administration. The measures enjoined upon Fitzwalter by the government in London comprised the reversal of the partial attempts that had been made during the short reign of Edward VI to promote Protestantism in Ireland, and the "plantation" by English settlers of that part of the country then known as Offaly and Leix. But before Fitzwalter could give his attention to such matters he found it necessary to make an expedition into Ulster, which was being kept in a constant state of disturbance by the Highland Scots from Kintyre and the Islands who were making settlements along the Antrim coast in the district known as the Glynnes (glens), and by the efforts of Shane O'Neill to convert into effective sovereignty the chieftainship of his clan which he had recently wrested from his father, Conn, 1st earl of Tyrone. Having defeated O'Neill and his allies the MacDonnells, the lord deputy, who by the death of his father in February 1557 became earl of Sussex, returned to Dublin, where he summoned a parliament in June of that year. Statutes were passed declaring the legitimacy of Queen Mary, reviving the laws for the suppression of heresy, forbidding the immigration of Scots, and vesting in the Crown the territory comprised in what are now the King's County and Queen's County, which were then so named after Philip and Mary respectively. Having carried this legislation, Sussex endeavoured to give forcible effect to it, first by taking the field against Donough O'Conor, whom he failed to capture, and afterwards against Shane O'Neill, whose lands in Tyrone he ravaged, restoring to their nominal rights the earl of Tyrone and his reputed son Matthew O'Neill, baron of Dungannon. In June of the following year Sussex turned his attention to the west, where the head of the O'Briens had ousted his nephew Conor O'Brien, earl of Thomond, from his possessions, and refused to pay allegiance to the Crown; he forced Limerick to open its gates to him, restored Thomond, and proclaimed The O'Brien a traitor. In the autumn of 1558 the continued inroads of the Scottish islanders in the Antrim glens called for drastic treatment by the lord deputy. Sussex laid waste Kintyre and some of the southern Hebridean isles, and landing at Carrickfergus he fired and plundered the settlements of the Scots on the Antrim coast before returning to Dublin for Christmas.

Achievements

• Sussex was the first representative of the English Crown who enforced authority to any considerable extent beyond the limits of the Pale; the policy of planting English settlers in Offaly and Leix was carried out by him in 1562 with a certain measure of success; and although he fell far short of establishing English rule throughout any large part of Ireland, he made its influence felt in remote parts of the island, such as Thomond and the Glynnes of Antrim, where the independence of the native septs had hitherto been subjected not even to nominal interference.

Connections

He married twice: first to Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas Wriothesley, 1st Earl of Southampton; and secondly to Frances, daughter of Sir William Sidney of Penshurst. His second wife was the foundress of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, which she endowed by her will, and whose name commemorates the father and the husband of the countess. The earl left no children, and at his death his titles passed to his brother Henry.

Father:

Henry Radclyffe, 2nd Earl of Sussex

He was a son of Robert Radclyffe, 1st Earl of Sussex and his wife Elizabeth Stafford, Countess of Sussex.

Spouse:

Frances Sidney, Countess of Sussex

She was a Lady of the Bedchamber to Queen Elizabeth I and the founder of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge.

Grandfather:

Thomas Howard, 2nd Duke of Norfolk

Thomas Howard, 2nd Duke of Norfolk, styled Earl of Surrey from 1483 to 1485 and again from 1489 to 1514, was an English nobleman and politician.

aunt:

Elizabeth Boleyn, Countess of Wiltshire

She was an English noblewoman, noted for being the mother of Anne Boleyn and as such the maternal grandmother of Elizabeth I of England.