Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 47.djvu/129

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on the following day. He was severely wounded by a bullet in the knee, which could not be extracted, and caused him much pain for the rest of his life. He was given a brevet lieutenant-colonelcy, dating from the day of the battle. He was placed on half-pay on 20 April 1820, and was appointed brigade-major to the inspector-general of cavalry. He died in London on 24 Feb. 1827. ‘He was a dexterous swordsman, an accomplished officer, and an able tactician … a warm and sincere friend, a conscientious Christian, and a brave man,’ writes General de Ainslie, the historian of the royals. He married Mary, eldest daughter of H. Crockett, esq., who died a week before him. His only son, the Rev. Charles Radclyffe, died in 1862, leaving a son, Charles Edward Radclyffe, of Little Park, Hampshire.

[Gent. Mag. 1815 ii. 81, 1827 i. 365; Historical Records of the First or Royal Dragoons; Wellington Despatches, Selections, p. 601, and Supplementary Series, x. 569; Burke's Landed Gentry, 1894, ii. 1676.]

E. M. L.

RADCLIFFE, EGREMONT (d. 1578), rebel, was son of Henry Radcliffe, second earl of Sussex [see under Radcliffe, Robert, first Earl], by his second wife, Anne, daughter of Sir Philip Calthorpe. When quite a young man he took part in the rebellion of 1569, and was so active that special instructions were given for his capture on its suppression. He managed, however, to escape over the border, and was for some time, with other rebels, the guest of the Scotts of Buccleugh at Branksom. A ship was provided to convey the party to Flanders, but news of the efforts the English government were making to intercept them having reached them, they seem to have sailed by way of Orkney. Once at Antwerp, Radcliffe received a pension of eight hundred ducats from the king of Spain. In the early part of 1572 he went on a mission to Madrid, where he was thrown into prison for debt at the end of 1573; in 1574, having returned to the Low Countries, he went to France, and quitted ‘the king of Spain's entertainment.’ He wrote a good many letters to Burghley and others about his pardon, and in February 1574–5 Dr. Wilson, writing to Burghley, spoke of him as ‘marvellously repentant;’ he offered to serve in Ireland, and later in the same year he sent a letter to Wilson ‘full of submission, with great moan of his necessity.’ To be nearer the gates of mercy he had moved in 1575 to Calais. He came in November 1575 to London; but when he showed himself at court he was sent to the Tower. There he remained for some years. About April 1577 he made petition to be allowed to take exercise in the little garden facing his prison, and to have a servant. He was confined in the Beauchamp Tower, where his name, with the date 1576 and the motto ‘pour parvenir’ may be seen cut in the wall of one of the cells.

On 10 May 1578 he was secretly released from prison, and exiled. He went to Flanders, incurred suspicion of being mixed up in a plot to poison Don John of Austria, presumably as the agent of the English government, and was consequently in the same year (1578) beheaded in the market-place of Namur (cf. Estate of the English Fugitives). De Mendoza, the Spanish ambassador in England, describes him as ‘a rash and daring young man, ready for anything.’ He was author of ‘Politique Discourses translated out of French,’ London, 1578, 4to, dedicated to Sir Francis Walsingham; this he undertook while in the Beauchamp Tower.

[Cals. of State Papers, Dom. 1547–80, p. 545; 1566–79, Add., For. 1569–75, Spanish, 1568–79, specially note to p. 672; Froude's Hist. ix. 529; Sharp's Mem. of the Rebellion of 1569, pp. 71, &c.; Hatfield MSS. ii. 100; Sadler Papers, ii. 217, &c.; Gent. Mag. 1857, i. 199; Burke's Extinct and Dormant Peerage.]

W. A. J. A.

RADCLIFFE, Sir GEORGE (1593–1657), politician, baptised 21 April 1593, was the son of Nicholas Radcliffe (d. 1599) of Overthorpe in the parish of Thornhill, Yorkshire, by Margaret, daughter of Robert Marsh of Darton, Yorkshire, and widow of John Baylie of Honley in the same county. He was sent in 1607 to Mr. Hunt's school at Oldham, matriculated at University College, Oxford, on 3 Nov. 1609, and took the degree of B.A. on 24 May 1612. On 5 Feb. 1612 he was admitted to Gray's Inn, six years later he was called to the bar, and in 1632 he became a bencher of that society (Foster, Gray's Inn Register, p. 129; Alumni Oxonienses, 1st ser. iii. 1227).

Radcliffe soon obtained a respectable practice, and his fortunes were further advanced by marriage and by the friendship of Sir Thomas Wentworth, who was a kinsman of his second wife, Anne, daughter of Sir Francis Trappes. From about 1627 Radcliffe had the management of Wentworth's affairs (ib. p. 137; Strafford Letters, ii. 433). In 1627 he, like Wentworth, refused to contribute to the forced loan, was for some months confined in the Marshalsea by the council (Rushworth, i. 428), and stood out until the general release of all the prisoners took place in January 1628 (ib. i. 473). He sat in the