Charles Radclyffe

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Charles Radclyffe (3 September 1693 – 8 December 1746) or Charles Radcliffe, titular 5th Earl of Derwentwater who claimed the title Fifth Earl of Derwentwater, an early Scottish Rite Freemason and, allegedly, a Grand Master of the Rosicrucian Priory of Sion (1727-1746).

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 and rejoined the Stuarts in France. In 1725, Charles Radclyffe was serving in Paris as personal secretary to Prince Charles Edward Stuart of Scotland, and founded the first Scottish Rite Masonic Lodge.

In 1731, James Radclyffe's son, John (the fourth Earl) died and the title passed to his uncle (Charles).

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. Condemned to death under his former sentence by Lord Chancellor Philip Yorke, 1st Earl of Hardwicke, he was beheaded on 8 December 1746.

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