Richard Topcliffe
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Richard Topcliffe (1532–1604) was a landowner and Member of Parliament during the reign of Elizabeth I of England, and became notorious as a priest-hunter and torturer.
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[edit] Early life
Topcliffe was the eldest son of Robert Topcliffe of Somerby, Lincolnshire, and his wife, Margaret, daughter of Thomas, third Baron Burgh of Gainsborough. He was orphaned at age 12, and later entered Gray's Inn to train as a lawyer. Until his early forties, he appears to have contented himself in administering his estates in Yorkshire and elsewhere.
[edit] Career
Topcliffe entered the service of the Queen's secretary, William Cecil in the 1570s, and worked for Sir Francis Walsingham and the Privy Council. However, he regarded his authority as deriving directly from the Queen.
Topcliffe harboured a particular detestation for papistry, and was involved in the interrogation and torture of many Catholics and Jesuit priests, at a time when Catholics were generally suspected of actively and violently trying to overthrow the Protestant government of England.
Topcliffe gained a reputation as an effective torturer and a deranged psychopath. [1] He claimed that his own instruments and methods were better than the official ones, and was authorized to create a torture chamber in his private house in London. He also involved himself directly in the execution of sentences of death upon catholic traitors, which involved hanging, drawing and quartering.
Topfliffe's victims included Ben Jonson and the Jesuits Robert Southwell [2], John Gerard, and Henry Garnet. Gerard described him as, "old and hoary and a veteran in evil". It has been surmised that, during interrogations, Topcliffe "may have indulged in bizarre sexual fantasies" about the Queen. He raped one of his prisoners, Anne Bellamy, and when she became pregnant by him she was forced to marry his servant in 1592 to cover up the scandal.[1]
[edit] Fitzherbert affair
Topcliffe was involved in a legal wrangle with his assistant Thomas Fitzherbert. Fitzherbert had betrayed his own father and uncle by accusing them of treason, agreeing to split their forfeited estates with Topcliffe if they were condemned. There was a dispute over whether a victim had died of natural causes or as a result of being tortured by Topcliffe, and Fitzherbert refused to pay. Topcliffe won the case and gained the estates, but a few years later the estates were returned to the Fitzherbert family by Queen Elizabeth I, and Topcliffe was presented with estates in Derbyshire instead.
[edit] Death
Topcliffe died in his bed at the age of 72, or so.
- ^ Hutchinson, Robert, Elizabeth's Spymaster: Francis Walsingham and the Secret War that Saved England (2006) pp.76-78 ISBN-13 9-78029-7846130
