Richard Ratcliffe

Sir Richard Ratcliffe, KG (died 22 August 1485) was a close confidant of Richard III of England.

Ratcliffe came from a gentry family in the Lake District, and became a companion of Richard when the latter was still Duke of Gloucester (1461–83). He was one of Richard's trustees in the lordship of Richmond, and was named steward of Barnard Castle. Richard, while Duke of Gloucester, knighted Ratcliffe during the Scottish campaigns, at the same time creating him a knight banneret.

During the seizure of power by Richard III, Ratcliffe was chosen to return to the north and organize an army to help the Protector, as Richard III was then titled. Some sources name Ratcliffe as the person who gave the order to execute Anthony Woodville, 2nd Earl Rivers (beheaded Jun 1483).

When Richard became king he gave Ratcliffe a number of offices, including the currently attainted hereditary High Sheriff of Westmorland, and made him a Knight of the Garter. He also received a large grant of lands, including much that had belonged to the Courtenay Earls of Devon. After the rebellion of 1483 he was given a very large number of forfeited estates. As a result, he had an income larger than most barons.

In July 1484, William Collingbourne, a Tudor agent, tacked up a lampooning poem to St. Paul's Cathedral, which mentions Ratcliffe among the three aides to King Richard, whose emblem was a white boar:

The Catte, the Ratte and Lovell our dogge rulyth all Englande under a hogge.

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