The Earl of Derwentwater | |
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Born | 26 June 1689 |
Died | 24 February 1716 (aged 26) |
James Radclyffe, 3rd Earl of Derwentwater (26 June 1689 – 24 February 1716) was an English peer who participated in the Jacobite rising of 1715 and was executed for treason.
Radclyffe was the son of Edward Radclyffe, 2nd Earl of Derwentwater and Lady Mary Tudor, the natural daughter of Charles II by Moll Davis. He was brought up at the exiled court of St Germain as a companion to the young prince, James Francis Edward Stuart (the 'Old Pretender' after his father James II died), and remained there at the wish of Queen Mary of Modena, until his father's death in 1705. He succeeded to the family titles and estates in Northumberland on the death of his father in 1705. [1]
After that, he travelled on the continent, sailed from Holland for London in November 1709, and then set out to visit his Cumberland estates for the first time early in 1710. He spent the next two years at Dilston Hall, Northumberland, the mansion built by his grandfather on the site of the ancestral home from 1521; the estates were sequestrated after the Civil War due to the recusancy of his grandfather the first Earl. He regained those and began the construction of a grand mansion to replace the old Hall, a task that was never completed. [1]
He joined the conspiracy of 1715; he was suspected by the government, and on the eve of the insurrection the secretary of state, Lord Stanhope, signed a warrant for his arrest. A messenger was sent to Durham to secure him, but Radclyffe went into hiding. He heard that Thomas Forster had raised the standard of the Pretender, and Radclyffe joined him at Greenrigg near Edinburgh on 6 October 1715, at the head of a company of gentlemen and armed servants from Dilston Hall. His following, at most 70, was under the immediate command of his brother, Charles Radclyffe. Their plan was to march through Lancashire to Staffordshire, where they looked for support, and the expedition was left mainly in the hands of Colonel Henry Oxburgh, who had served under the Duke of Marlborough in Flanders. [1]
When the rebels occupied Preston, Derwentwater encouraged the men to throw up trenches. The Jacobite army was defeated at the Battle of Preston. Radclyffe acquiesced in Forster's decision to capitulate to the inferior force of General Charles Wills. He was escorted with the other prisoners to London by General Henry Lumley, and lodged in the Devereux tower of the Tower of London, along with the Earls of Nithsdale and of Carnwath, and Lords Widdrington, Kenmure, and Nairne. He was examined before the Privy Council on 10 January 1716, and impeached with the other lords on 19 January. Derwentwater pleaded guilty, urging in extenuation his inexperience, and his advice to those who were about him to throw themselves upon the royal clemency. He was attainted and condemned to death. [1]
Efforts were made to procure his pardon. Petitions were brought before both Houses of Parliament, and an address was carried from the upper house to the throne on 22 February, praying that His Majesty George I of Great Britain would reprieve 'such of the condemned lords as might appear to him deserving of clemency.' Widdrington, Carnwath, and Nairn were reprieved. The countess, accompanied by her sister, their maternal aunt, Anne Brudenell, Duchess of Richmond, the Duchess of Cleveland, and other ladies, was introduced by the Duke of Richmond into the king's bedchamber, where the countess, in French, asked for his majesty's mercy. The king, however, prompted by Robert Walpole (who declared that he had been offered £60,000 to save Derwentwater, but that he was determined to make an example), was obdurate. [1]
Derwentwater was beheaded on Tower Hill on 24 February 1716. On the scaffold, he expressed regret at having pleaded guilty, and declared his devotion to his Roman Catholic religion and to James III. Lord Kenmure suffered at the same time. The Earl of Nithsdale escaped from the Tower the day before. [1] Charles Radclyffe escaped to France but was captured in 1745 on his return to support the 1745 uprising and was executed in 1746. Nairne was still in the Tower of London in 1717, so was able to benefit from the Indemnity Act 1717 and was released. [2]
On the day of his execution, the Northern Lights were said to be unusually bright, and became known as Lord Derwentwater's Lights. [3] His heart was taken to a convent in Paris where the prioress Anne Throckmorton witnessed it being enclosed within the chapel's walls. [4]
Derwentwater was stripped of his honours and titles (but his successors continued to use the titles), and his estates were confiscated. In 1748 Dilston Castle and the rest of the Derwentwater estates were granted by Act of Parliament (22 Geo. 2. c. 56) to the Greenwich Hospital. [5]
Radclyffe married Anna Maria Webb (d. 19 August 1723) on 10 July 1712. She was the eldest daughter of Sir John Webb, 3rd baronet, of Odstock, Wiltshire, by Barbara, daughter and coheiress of John Belasyse, 1st Baron Belasyse. [1]
Their only son John Radclyffe, titular 4th Earl of Derwentwater (1713–1731) succeeded. John is generally accepted to have died at the age of 19 after a cutting for the stone. In the mid-19th century, a woman claiming to be his great-granddaughter and referring to herself as the Countess of Derwentwater made claim upon the Derwentwater estates, but was eventually discredited. She claimed that John had not died in 1731 but had fled to Germany to avoid an attempt on his life by the Hanoverian government.
They also had a daughter, Lady Mary Radclyffe (1714–31 January 1760), who married Robert James Petre, 8th Baron Petre; [6] they had three daughters and one son Robert Petre, 9th Baron Petre.
Lady Derwentwater and her children fled to Brussels in 1721, and she died there of smallpox in 1723. [7]
Radclyffe's death is recounted in two English traditional ballads:
Radclyffe figures prominently in the historical novels Dorothy Forster by Walter Besant and Devil Water by Anya Seton.
In October 2022, a bedsheet embroidered with human hair, by Radclyffe's wife, in his memory, was displayed at the Museum of London, which acquired it in 1934. The museum stated that the hair "could have come from her own head or that of the earl, or she could have intertwined a combination of the two". [10]
The title Earl of Newburgh was created in the Peerage of Scotland in 1660 for James Livingston, 1st Viscount of Newburgh, along with the subsidiary titles Viscount of Kynnaird and Lord Levingston.
Charles Radclyffe, titular 5th Earl of Derwentwater, was one of the few English participants in the Risings of 1715 and 1745.
The Battle of Preston was the final action of the Jacobite rising of 1715, an attempt to put James Francis Edward Stuart on the British throne in place of George I. After two days of street-fighting, the Jacobite commander Thomas Forster surrendered to government troops under General Charles Wills. It was arguably the last battle fought on English soil.
Earl of Derwentwater was a title in the Peerage of England. It was created in 1688 for Sir Francis Radclyffe, 3rd Baronet. He was made Baron Tyndale, of Tyndale in the County of Northumberland, and Viscount Radclyffe and Langley at the same time, also in the Peerage of England. He was succeeded by his son, the second Earl, who married Lady Mary Tudor, daughter of Charles II by his mistress Moll Davis.
William Maxwell, 5th Earl of Nithsdale, was a Roman Catholic member of the Scottish nobility who took part in the Jacobite rising of 1715. He was attainted with his titles forfeited. However, Lord Nithsdale made a celebrated escape from the Tower of London by changing clothes with his wife's maid the day before he was due to be executed. The lordship of Herries of Terregles was later restored to his descendants and remains extant.
William Gordon, 6th Viscount of Kenmure and Lord Lochinvar was a Scottish Jacobite.
Winifred Maxwell, Dowager Countess of Nithsdale, was a British aristocrat, best known for arranging the daring escape of her husband, William Maxwell, 5th Earl of Nithsdale, from the Tower of London in 1716.
George Seton, 5th Earl of Winton was a Scottish nobleman who took part in the Jacobite rising of 1715 supporting "The Old Pretender" James Stuart. Captured by the English, Seton was tried and sentenced to death, but escaped and lived the rest of his life in exile.
Thomas Forster, of Adderstone Hall, Northumberland, was an English landowner and Tory politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1708 to 1716. He served as a general of the Jacobite army in the 1715 Uprising and subsequently fled to France.
Events from the year 1716 in Great Britain.
Edward Radclyffe, 2nd Earl of Derwentwater was an English peer, styled Viscount Radclyffe from 1688 to 1695.
The Jacobite rising of 1715 was the attempt by James Edward Stuart to regain the thrones of England, Ireland and Scotland for the exiled Stuarts.
Dilston Castle is an unglazed 15th-century uninhabited tower house at Dilston in the parish of Corbridge, Northumberland, England. Both are scheduled monuments and Grade I listed buildings giving them recognition for historic and architectural value as well protection from demolition.
William Murray, 2nd Lord Nairne was a Scottish peer and Jacobite who fought in the Rising of 1715, after which he was attainted and condemned to death for treason, but in 1717 he was indemnified and released.
The Indemnity Act 1717 (3 Geo. 1. c. 19, also referred to as the Act of Grace and Free Pardon, is an act of the Parliament of Great Britain.
Amelia Matilda Mary Tudor Radclyffe soi-disant Countess of Derwentwater, was a 19th-century claimant to the estates of the Earls of Derwentwater. She claimed to be the granddaughter of John Radclyffe, only son of the third Earl, and in 1860 commenced to agitate for her rights, initially contacting Lord Petre as the representative of descendants of the family using the name of Lady Matilda Radclyffe.
Events from the year 1716 in Scotland.
James Bartholomew Radclyffe, 4th Earl of Newburgh and titular 6th Earl of Derwentwater was a British nobleman, Earl of Newburgh in the Peerage of Scotland and titular Earl of Derwentwater in the Peerage of England.
Charlotte Maria Radclyffe, 3rd Countess of Newburgh or Charlotte, Countess of Derwentwater was a Scottish Jacobite sympathiser. A suo jure Countess, she was forced into a marriage that gave her earldom to her new husband.
Anna Maria Barbara Petre, Lady Petre born Anna Maria Barbara Radcliffe (1716–1760) was a Roman Catholic noblewoman. She was of Royal descent and she kept her husband's memory alive after he was executed as a Jacobite.