Name Charles Radclyffe | ||
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Died December 8, 1746, London Borough of Tower Hamlets, London, United Kingdom | ||
Charles Radclyffe (3 September 1693 – 8 December 1746) titular 5th Earl of Derwentwater, who claimed the title Fifth Earl of Derwentwater. He was the youngest son of Edward Radclyffe, 2nd Earl of Derwentwater and Lady Mary Tudor.
Contents
Charles was born in Little Parndon, Essex. The Radclyffe family were ardent followers of the House of Stuart, James Radclyffe, 3rd Earl of Derwentwater (1689–1716), being raised at the court of the Stuarts in France as companion to James Francis Edward Stuart, the Old Pretender. James and his brother Charles joined the Jacobite Rising of 1715 and after being captured at Preston both were tried in London on charges of treason and condemned to death. James was beheaded on Tower Hill, London on 24 February 1716, declaring on the scaffold his devotion to the Roman Catholic religion and to King James III, but Charles escaped from prison through a clever ruse and rejoined the Stuarts in France. In 1731, James Radclyffe's son, John (the fourth Earl) died and the title passed to his uncle (Charles).
He travelled to Rome and was an active participant in the Court of the Jacobite claimant James Francis Edward Stuart. While a captain in Dillon's regiment Charles was re-captured by the forces of George II of Great Britain in November, 1745 while sailing to join Charles Edward Stuart, the young Pretender, in Scotland, during the Jacobite rising of 1745 known as the Forty Five. Charles Radclyffe thus became one of the few Englishmen to take part in both the Fifteen and the Forty Five. Condemned to death under his former sentence by Lord Chancellor Philip Yorke, 1st Earl of Hardwicke, he was beheaded on 8 December 1746, aged 53.
Priory of Sion
Charles Radclyffe was allegedly Grand Master of the Priory of Sion, succeeding Sir Isaac Newton in that role. Lawrence Gardner asserts that he was linked to the bloodline of the Grail through his mother, Lady Mary Tudor, the illegitimate daughter of King Charles II of England. The Radclyffes were, however, also descended from Ivo de Tailbois, an illegitimate son of the Count of Anjou, and therefore descended from the Merovingian bloodline directly. Charles Radclyffe along with the Chevalier Andrew Michael Ramsay was responsible of the introduction of Scottish Rite Freemasonry to continental Europe.
Family
Charles married, on 24 June 1724, to Charlotte Maria Livingston (1694–1755). She was the daughter of the 2nd Earl of Newburgh and was the widow of Thomas Clifford, son of the 2nd Baron Clifford of Chudleigh. Charles and Charlotte were the parents of six children;
Charles Radclyffe also had two step-daughters through his marriage to the Countess of Newburgh:
Lady Anne Clifford, the daughter of Hon. Thomas Clifford and Charlotte Maria Livingston, Countess of Newburgh. She married, firstly, Lt.-Gen. John Joseph Mahony, Comte Mahony, son of Lt.-Gen. Daniel O'Mahony, Comte de Castile, on 22 December 1739. She then married Don Carlo Severino on 13 April 1773. She died on 1 April 1793 on the Island of Ischia.
Lady Frances Clifford was the daughter of Hon. Thomas Clifford and Charlotte Maria Livingston, Countess of Newburgh. She married William Middleton of Yorkshire on 20 September 1738. She died in 1771.
Charles Radclyffe in the letter of farewell to his wife the night before his execution refers to "Fanny, that other mother of my dear children." This is generally taken to refer to Lady Frances Clifford who may have assisted in bringing up Radclyffe's own children.
He is listed as having several illegitimate children. He allegedly had an illegitimate daughter, Jane or "Jenny", as she was commonly known, by a mistress, Margaret Snowden, with whom he went through a form of marriage which was not legally binding. Jenny's story has been popularized in the novel "Devil Water" by Anya Seton. Charles Radcliffe returned to England during his exile on several occasions notably in 1725/1726 and in 1732 where he used various aliases such as Mr Thompson and Mr Johns. The will of his nephew John, the titular fourth Earl leaves a legacy to "my kinsman Mr Thompson" possibly referring to Charles Radclyffe under his alias and allowing him to collect the legacy. Charles Radclyffe was also possibly the father of Joseph Radcliffe (born 1726), the husband of feminist writer Mrs Mary Ann Radcliffe as indicated by hints in her Memoirs.