The Radclyffes were Catholics from Northumberland, with long-standing links to the exiled Stuarts; sentenced to death in 1716, he escaped and spent the next 30 years in Europe.

Witnesses at the trial claimed Charles was in command, but despite efforts to save him, James was executed at Tower Hill in February 1716 and his title died with him.

[7] In November 1745, during the Jacobite Rising, Charles and his son James boarded a French ship taking arms and supplies from Dunkirk to the Scottish port of Montrose.

[8] Charles had been commissioned into Dillon's Regiment, part of the Franco-Irish Brigade, a common technique used in hopes of being treated as a prisoner of war if captured, rather than a rebel.

Francis Towneley, colonel of the Manchester Regiment, also employed this defence but the authorities carefully scrutinised such claims and rejected the vast majority.

Lord Chancellor Hardwicke used the 1716 warrant to execute Charles in December 1746; although technically not a peer, he was beheaded, rather than being hanged, drawn and quartered, the normal fate for those found guilty of treason.

[10] He unsuccessfully petitioned for the return of the Derwentwater estates, which reverted to the government after the death of John Radclyffe in 1731 and the income assigned to the Greenwich Hospital.