Margaret
RADCLIFFE
Christened: 26 Jan 1573, Manchester Church, Lancashire, England
Died: 10 Nov 1599, Richmond Palace
Buried: Church of St. Margaret, Westminster
Father:
John RADCLIFFE of
Ordsall (Sir)
Mother: Anne ASSHAWE
The dau. of Sir John Radcliffe
of Ordsall Hall, by his wife Anne Asshawe, Margaret was twin to
Alexander Radcliffe, and their natural relationship was reinforced by a strong
bond of mutual affection. As children they were inseparable companions, and when
Alexander came to Court he brought his sister with him. The arrival of the two
young people so wondrously alike in their striking physical beauty created
something of a mild sensation at the Palace of Whitehall, famous as it was for
the excellence of its gallants and the radiance of its ladies. Margaret was
immediately claimed by the Queen Elizabeth to adorn the privy chamber as a Maid of Honour.
The girl's ready wit and shrewd judgment allied to her exquisite grace commanded
her strongly to her royal mistress, an aging woman nearing her sixtieth year and
seeing perhaps in the accomplished and vivacious maid a reincarnation of the
splendour of her own lost youth. Margaret was elevated above all other ladies of
the Court as the Queen's prime favourite, and all who would sue for
Gloriana's
favours sought the aid of merry Margaret as their intermediary. Her brother kept
her well supplied with money and her dresses were the envy of her friends, as
one of the courtiers bears witness:
'Yesterday did Mistress Ratcliffe weare a whyte satten gown, all
embroidered, rich cutt upon cloth of silver that cost one hundred and eighty
pounds' (Sidney Papers)
Her bosom friend was Anne Russell, granddaughter
of the Francis, Earl of Bedford, and later married to
Lord Herbert,
son of the fourth Earl of Worcester. The two girls joyed in an intimate
companionship, laughing and dancing their way through the gay world of intrigue
and romance in which their lives were set. They were both fine horsewomen and
spent some part of every day riding out for exercise on their own horses,
Margaret on 'Bay Compton' and Anne on 'Bay Dormer'.
Margaret had many suitors, but of them all she preferred the heir
of Lord Cobham. Henry Brooke, however, was a nobleman of fickle mind, alternating his
favours between Margaret Radcliffe and Frances Howard, the
attractive widow of Henry, twelfth Earl of Kildare, and playing off both
by a passionate flirtation with Elizabeth Russell, sister of Anne.
When Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, and
Walter Raleigh quarreled and the courtiers began to
take sides, Margaret was strongly for
Essex and used her influence with the
Queen on his behalf. His enemies might temporarily triumph, she declared, but
sooner or later 'the pack will break'. When
Essex was recalled to favour and
given command of the expedition against Tyrone,
Alexander Radcliffe was
one of his gallant company. Margaret bade good-bye to her beloved brother,
little realising then the finality of the parting, and hoped to find solace with
Cobham. His fickle lordship at that time was preferring Lady Kildare,
whom he eventually married. Five months went by, and one day in late Aug a
courier came riding to Court bearing news from Ireland. The English army had
suffered a severe defeat and Sir Alexander Radcliffe was amongst the
slain. The Queen would not suffer anyone but herself to bear the news to
Margaret. The girl's grief was terrible to behold. Nothing would comfort her,
and when her sobbing had subsided she lay on her bed in a state of complete
exhaustion. The royal physicians whom the Queen summoned to attend her reported
that her malady was of the heart, not of the body, and their medicines would be
unavailing. When the Court moved to Nonsuch, Margaret returned to Ordsall,
bereft of her smile and lively charm, her sad heart breaking with great sorrow,
to be alone with her grief in the home of her fathers, where the undimmed
happiness of a childhood with her brother had been spent. Here she languished
amidst scenes fraught with tender memories. News of her condition was sent
regularly to the Queen, whose anxiety for her dearly loved friend insisted on
Margaret being brought to Richmond Palace that she might tend her in person. It
was a ghost who obeyed the Queen's
command, and the courtiers were shocked to see the change which had come upon
the former merry maid. Even the ministrations
Elizabeth and of dear Anne Russell could not rouse Margaret to an
interest in life, and on the morning of 10 Nov 1599 she died. Her tragic
passing was the sole topic of conversation for days. In one of Phillip Gaudy's
Letters he writes:
'There
is newes besides of the tragycall death of Mistress Ratcliffe the Mayde of
honor, who ever synce the death of Sir Alexander her brother hathe pined in such
strange manner, as volunterily she later hathe gone about to starve herself, and
by the two days together hathe receivved no sustinence, which meeting with
extreame griefe hathe made an end of her Mayden modest days at Richmond uppon
Saterdays last, her Majestie being present, who commanded her body to be opened
and found it all well and sound, saving certyne strings striped all over her
harte'
The Court went into mourning and by the
Queen's command
Margaret was buried with all the ceremonies of a great lady's obsequies in the
Church of St. Margaret at Westminster. A magnificent monument was erected over
her grave at the Queen's expense, and
Ben Jonson wrote the inscription for it.
When, and for what reason, this monument was removed it has been
impossible to discover, but no trace of it now remains in the church. The record
of Jonson's tribute has, however, been preserved:
Marble
weep, for thou dost cover
A dead beauty underneath thee,
Rich as nature could bequeath thee:
Grant, then, no rude hand remove her.
All the gazers on the skies
Read not in fair heaven's story
Expresser truth or truer glory,
Than they might in her bright eyes.
Rare as wonder was her wit;
And like nectar ever flowing:
Till time, strong by her bestowing,
Conquered have both life and it.
Life whose grief was out of fashion
In these times. Few have so rued
Fate in a brother. To conclude,
For wit, feature, and true passion
Earth, thou hast not such another.
The marble, alas, has vanished, but these lines of the
Poet Laureate indicate the tender regard in which the Maid of Sorrows, sweet,
gentle-hearted Margaret, flower of the flock, was held by the fashionable world
of the Great Queen's Court.
For more information, see:
Ordsall Hall, a Tudor Manor House
