Richard Topcliffe

Richard Topcliffe (born November 14, 1531 ; † November or December 1604 ) was an English landowner, MP and member of the Gray's Inn Bar Association , who was known as the interrogator of Elizabeth I and as a persecutor of members of the Catholic Church and as "the most cruel torturer of the Queen ”. His victims included the Jesuits Robert Southwell , John Gerard and Henry Garnet , but also the poet Ben Jonson .

life and work

Topcliffe was the eldest son of the wealthy landowner Robert Topcliffe from the hamlet of Somerby in Lincolnshire and his wife Margaret, a daughter of the third Baron Burgh of Gainsborough . The parents died when he was twelve years old and his uncle Sir Anthony Neville became his guardian. He gave him in 1548 in the boarding school of Gray's Inn in the Borough of Holborn near London , where he began to study law. After graduation and admission to the bar, he entered the service of then Princess Elisabeth in 1557 , but was mainly occupied with the administration of his own lands until the 1570s.

He married Jane, daughter of Sir Edward Willoughby of Wollaton of Nottinghamshire . With her he had six children, his firstborn and main heir Charles, three other sons named John, who all died in early childhood, and two daughters Susannah and Margaret.

Topcliffe was elected Member of Parliament from 1572, where he represented Beverley and later Old Sarum ; however, he was mainly employed by Lord Burghley as an internal security officer. Soon as Lord Burghleys Chief Inquisitor and her Majesty's servant (servant of Her Majesty the Queen) he had the reputation of a relentless and resourceful interrogator and torturer in the Elizabethan struggle against Catholicism , especially against Jesuits and Catholic priests. He also had a torture chamber set up in his own house in Westminister.

In gratitude for his services he received lands in Derbyshire from Elisabeth , where he retired and died in 1604 at the age of 73.

literature

• Philip Caraman: The other face. Catholic life under Elizabeth I. Longmans 1960.
• J. Allen Morris: Richard Topcliffe, a most Humbell Pursuivant of Her Majesty. The Citadel - The Military College of South Carolina, 1964
• William Richardson: Topcliffe, Richard (1531-1604) in: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 2004 doi : 10.1093 / ref: odnb / 27550
• Thompson Cooper: Topcliffe, Richard in: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885–1900, Volume 57, available online (Wikisource)
• Philip Caraman: The Other Face. Catholic Life under Elizabeth I. Historical Journal, Vol. 192, No. 3 (Jun., 1961), pp. 695-697

Web links

• The History of Parliament: Topcliffe, Richard of Somerby, Lincs. and Westminster