Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Radcliffe, George
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 parliament of 1628, as his letters prove, but his name does not appear in the printed list of members (Whitaker, Life of Radcliffe, p. 161). In December 1628 Wentworth became president of the council of the north, and through his influence Radcliffe obtained the post of king's attorney in that court (ib. p. 173; Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1629–31, p. 236).
When Wentworth was made lord deputy of Ireland, he resolved to have Radcliffe with him, and the latter landed in Ireland in January 1633, six months before Wentworth's own arrival. Wentworth's first despatch to secretary Coke concluded with the request that Radcliffe should be made a member of the council (Strafford Letters, i. 97–100), and the king at once granted the request (ib. pp. 115, 134). The lord deputy placed his whole confidence in Radcliffe and Sir Christopher Wandesford. Writing to the lord treasurer on 31 Jan. 1634, he said, speaking of his financial schemes, ‘There is not a minister on this side, that knows anything I write or intend, excepting the Master of the Rolls and Sir George Radcliffe, for whose assistance in this government, and comfort to myself amidst this generation, I am not able sufficiently to pour forth my humble acknowledgments to his Majesty. Sure I were the most solitary man without them that ever served a king in such a place’ (ib. i. 194). He praised in a similar strain their great services in the parliament of 1634 (ib. i. 352). In all legal matters Radcliffe was Wentworth's chief adviser, and in the management of the farm of the customs and other financial measures he was his right-hand man (ib. ii. 21; Rushworth, Trial of Strafford, pp. 249, 410; Lloyd, Memoirs of Excellent Personages, p. 149). It was owing to Radcliffe's advice that Wentworth decided, when opposed by the Earl of Ormonde, to make Ormonde his friend rather than to crush him (Carte, Life of Ormonde, i. 131, ed. 1851). In 1639 Radcliffe joined with Sir Christopher Wandesford in promising to the king an annual contribution of 500l. towards the expenses of the war with the Scots (Strafford Letters, ii. 279). In 1640 the meeting of the Long parliament involved Radcliffe in the ruin of his patron. He was regarded as Strafford's accomplice, and was committed to the gatehouse on the charge of high treason (9 Dec. 1640; Commons' Journals, ii. 40, 48). Articles of impeachment against him were read in the commons on 29 Dec., and presented by Pym to the lords on the following day. Pym represented Radcliffe as an inferior orb governed by a greater planet. ‘In the crimes committed by the Earl there appears to be more haughtiness and fierceness … but in those of Sir George Radcliffe there seems to be more baseness and servility, having resigned and subjected himself to be acted by the corrupt will of another.’ Strafford, having less knowledge of the law and stronger passions, was easily led into illegality. ‘Sir George Radcliffe, in his natural temper and disposition more moderate, and by his education and profession better acquainted with the grounds and directions of law, was carried into his offences by an immediate concurrence of will, by a more corrupt suppression and inthralling of his own reason and judgment’ (ib. ii. 58; Lords' Journals, iv. 120). On 4 March 1641 Captain Audley Mervin, on behalf of the Irish House of Commons, presented articles of impeachment against Radcliffe and three other members of Strafford's council, to the Irish House of Lords (Nalson, Collection of Affairs of State, &c., ii. 566). The articles of impeachment, both English and Irish, were of a very general nature, and as Radcliffe was not brought to trial, no evidence was brought to prove them. In the course of the proceedings against Strafford, however, Radcliffe was shown to have threatened members for their votes in parliament, and to have been the chief agent in the prosecution of Sir Piers Crosby. Crosby and Lord Baltinglass both presented petitions against him (Lords' Journals, iv. 258, 275; Rushworth, Trial of Strafford, pp. 110–12). According to Clarendon, the object of the managers of the trial in impeaching Radcliffe was to prevent him being a witness on behalf of Strafford (Rebellion, iii. 93). Strafford was denied the assistance of Radcliffe in drawing up his answer to the remonstrance of the Irish parliament, but, according to Carte, the king forwarded the remonstrance to Radcliffe, and the answer was written by him and merely approved by Strafford (Life of Ormonde, i. 238; Lords' Journals, iv. 125, 127). A formal demand by Strafford that Radcliffe should be summoned to explain the reasons for the calling in of the Dublin charters was likewise refused (Rushworth, Trial of Strafford, p. 163). Yet, in spite of all difficulties, he contrived to communicate with Strafford by letter, and to advise him as to his defence. Even after the earl's condemnation the two friends were not allowed to meet. On 9 May Radcliffe wrote a touching farewell to Strafford. ‘I shall account no loss,’ he concluded, ‘if I do now shortly attend your blessed soul into the state of rest and happiness. But whatsoever small remainder of time God shall vouchsafe to me in this world, my purpose is to employ it chiefly in the service of your children’ (Strafford Letters, ii. 417; Whitaker, pp. 222–6). Radcliffe kept his word, and was the faithful counsellor of Strafford's son (ib. p. 235). Many years later he addressed to him ‘An Essay towards the Life of my Lord Strafford,’ which is the basis of all later biographies of that statesman, and supplies the most vivid picture of his private life (Strafford Letters, ii. 429–36).
In June 1642 Radcliffe was still a prisoner, but the proceedings against him had been tacitly dropped (Whitaker, p. 239). In 1643 he joined the king at Oxford, and was created a doctor of law by the university on 31 Oct. of that year (Wood, Fasti, ii. 63). Carte prints a series of letters from Radcliffe to Ormonde, written between October 1643 and June 1644, which show that he was a strong supporter of Ormonde's policy, and was sometimes consulted on Irish questions (Life of Ormonde, v. 516, 536, 539, vi. 13, 38, 56, 84, 120, 146, 166). Charles granted Radcliffe a pardon for the treasons with which he was charged, but the parliament in the Uxbridge and Newcastle propositions named him in the list of those to be altogether excluded (Black, Oxford Docquets, pp. 217, 246).
At one time the king contemplated sending the Duke of York to Ireland under the charge of Radcliffe. The design was abandoned, but Radcliffe remained in attendance upon the duke, and on the surrender of Oxford received orders from Fairfax to continue with the duke till the pleasure of the parliament should be known. The queen ordered Radcliffe to carry the duke either into Ireland or France, but he declined to remove James from England without an order from the king, and delivered him over to the Earl of Northumberland (Clarke, Life of James II, i. 28; Clarendon, Life, i. 244, ed. 1857). In April 1647 Radcliffe was in exile at Caen (Cal. Clarendon Papers, i. 373). In June 1648 he sailed from Dieppe with Cottington and Hyde to join the fleet under the Prince of Wales. On the way they were captured by an Ostend corsair, who robbed Radcliffe and his kinsman Wandesford of 500l. in money and jewels (Clarendon, Life, i. 214).
In 1649, before Charles II left France, he recommended Radcliffe to the Duke of York, and promised him ‘some place about his brother when his family should be settled.’ In October 1650 the duke left Paris and went first to Brussels, and then to the Hague. This was done against the wish of the queen, and was generally attributed to the advice of Radcliffe. Charles, displeased with the attempt of the duke to set up for himself, ordered him back to Paris, and desired him to be governed by the queen in all matters of importance (Clarke, Life of James II, i. 48; Nicholas Papers, i. 195–212). In his dejection at his disgrace, Radcliffe proposed to retire altogether from the court, and settle in some obscure Norman village. He even thought of endeavouring to compound for his estate with the government of the Commonwealth. But the Commonwealth, by an act passed 16 July 1651, had ordered the sale of all Radcliffe's estates, and was not disposed to permit him to make terms. His wife, who was in England, found the greatest difficulty in obtaining the fifths which had been allowed her (Whitaker, p. 256; Scoble, Collection of Acts, ii. 156; Cal. of Compounders, p. 1767). Later, Radcliffe succeeded to some extent in regaining the favour of Charles II, and played an important part in preventing the attempted perversion of the Duke of Gloucester in 1654 (Nicholas Papers, ii. 109, 131, 151, 162). He received the king's thanks through Secretary Nicholas (ib. ii. 186). With Hyde, Radcliffe was never on very good terms, but expressed great devotion to Secretary Nicholas and the Marquis of Ormonde (ib. ii. 235; Thurloe, v. 22). After Charles went to Cologne, Radcliffe, who stayed behind in Paris, became once more one of the chief advisers of the Duke of York, and that apparently with the king's sanction. He found it a thankless business. In August 1656 he wrote to his wife, saying, ‘I am as weary as a dog of mine office, for I labour in vain, do no good, but get scorns or ill-will. If it were not for the honour I bear to my old master, and to comply with his desire, I would cast up all and wash my hands; but I must not fail his expectation’ (Nicholas Papers, ii. 185, 200; Thurloe, v. 293). Poverty made his position still more unpleasant. ‘I am now labouring,’ he wrote in March 1656, ‘to get credit for a suit of clothes, which is more than I have made these five years, and now my old frippery grows thin’ (ib. iv. 581). In September 1656 the Duke of York left France, and Radcliffe joined the rest of the royalist exiles in the Low Countries (ib. v. 402). He died at Flushing in 1657. ‘Sir George Radcliffe,’ says a news-letter, ‘was buried at Flushing upon Monday last (25 May); all the cavaliers was at his burial, except the chancellor and two more that was at Bruges. They are generally sorry for him; for they say he was the best counsellor their master had’ (ib. vi. 325–326; Whitaker, p. 288). Clarendon, who blames severely Radcliffe's conduct in 1650, characterises him nevertheless as ‘a man very capable of business; and if the prosperity of his former fortune had not raised in him some fumes of vanity and self-conceitedness, very fit to be advised with, being of a nature constant and sincere’ (Life, i. 244).
Radcliffe married, 21 Feb. 1621–2, Anne, eldest daughter of Sir Francis Trappes of Harrogate and Nidd, Yorkshire. She died on 13 May 1659, in her fifty-eighth year, and was buried in Westminster Abbey (Chester, Westminster Registers, p. 151; Whitaker, p. 288). He left a son Thomas, who died at Dublin in 1679, leaving no issue (ib. p. 295).
[A short life of Radcliffe is given in David Lloyd's Memoirs of Excellent Personages, 1668, p. 148; his correspondence was edited in 1810 by Dr. T. D. Whitaker, who adds a fuller memoir; Letters of Radcliffe are printed in Carte's Life of Ormonde, in the same author's Collection of Original Letters, 1739, in the Nicholas Papers, edited by Mr. G. F. Warner (Camden Soc. 1886, 1892), and in the Thurloe Papers; other authorities mentioned in the article.]