Born around 1561, he was the only surviving son of Thomas Dacre, 4th Baron Dacre (c. 1527 – 1566), by his marriage to Elizabeth Leyburne (1536–1567), the eldest daughter of Sir James Leyburne of Westmorland.
[1] He had a brother, Francis, who died in infancy, and three sisters – Anne (21 March 1557 – 19 April 1630), Mary (4 July 1563 – 7 April 1578), and Elizabeth (born 12 December 1564) He succeeded his father as Baron Dacre and Baron Greystoke on 1 July 1566, at the age of five.
[2] Soon after this, his widowed mother married Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk, but she died in childbirth on 4 September 1567, thus Dacre and his three sisters were left as members of the household of their widowed step-father, Norfolk.
[3] After he died on 17 May 1569, his two baronies, although claimed by his uncle Leonard, were found to have fallen into abeyance, leaving Dacre's three sisters as co-heiresses.
By the age of fourteen, each of the three had been married to one of their stepbrothers, the sons of the Duke of Norfolk.