Edward Radclyffe, 6th Earl of Sussex

Who was Edward Radclyffe, 6th Earl of Sussex?

Edward Radclyffe, 6th Earl of Sussex was an English politician who sat in the House of Commons between 1586 and 1611 and later succeeded to a peerage.

Radclyffe was the son of Sir Humphrey Radclyffe and his wife Isabel Harvey and grandson of the 1st Earl and Elizabeth Stafford. In 1586 he was elected Member of Parliament for Petersfield. He was elected MP for Bedfordshire in 1588 and for Portsmouth in 1593. He was elected MP for Bedfordshire again in 1597, 1601 and 1604. He was appointed Sheriff of Bedfordshire in 1598.

Radclyffe was knighted around 1594 and inherited the earldom from his cousin Robert Radclyffe, 5th Earl of Sussex in 1629.

Radclyffe had married three times:firstly Elizabeth Petre, the daughter of Sir William Petre of Ingatestone, Essex and widow of John Gostwick of Willington,secondly Jane, daughter of Francis Hynde of Madingley, Cambridgeshire and widowof John Catesby of Newnham in Goldington, and thirdly Eleanor, the daughter of Sir Richard Wortley of Wortley, Yorkshire and the widow of Sir Henry Lee, Bt., of Quarrendon, Buckinghamshire; she outlived him by many years and made two further marriages. He died impoverished, intestate and childless.