His mother was Lady Isabel Courtenay, daughter of the Earl of Radcliffe (one possible reason he hates his first name). His father, Thomas Emerson, was a good-hearted but easygoing man who failed to satisfy his cold-hearted, ambitious wife. Their marriage had become loveless by the time Radcliffe was born, and after his father died, his mother did her best to "shape" Radcliffe into her ideal of a man, which he vehemently resisted. A small inheritance from a distant relative enabled him to escape his mother's control, and the aristocratic marriage she had arranged for him, and pursue his studies as an Egyptologist. His mother disowned him.