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After that he travelled on the continent, and then set out to visit his Cumberland estates for the first time early in 1710. He spent the next two years at Dilston Hall, Northumberland, the mansion built by his grandfather on the site of the ancestral home from 1521; the estates were sequestrated after the Civil War due to the recusancy of his grandfather the first Earl.
He joined the Rising of 1715; he was suspected by the government of having Jacobite sympathies, and on the eve of the Rising the secretary of state, Stanhope, signed a warrant for Derwentwater´s arrest. Derwentwater heard that Thomas Forster had raised the Jacobite standard, and he joined him at Greenrigg, on 6 October 1715, at the head of a company of gentlemen and armed servants from Dilston Hall. His following, at most 70, was under the immediate command of his brother, Charles Radclyffe. Their plan was to march through Lancashire to Staffordshire, where they looked for support, and the expedition was left mainly in the hands of Colonel Henry Oxburgh, who had served under the Duke of Marlborough in Flanders.
When the rebels occupied Preston, Derwentwater encouraged the men to throw up trenches. The Jacobite army was defeated at the Battle of Preston. Derwentwater agreed to Forster´s decision to surrender to the inferior government force of General Wills. He was escorted with the other prisoners to London by General Henry Lumley, and lodged in the Devereux tower of the Tower of London, along with Earls Nithsdale and Carnwath, and Lords Widdrington, Kenmure, and Nairne. He was examined before the privy council on 10 January 1716, and impeached with the other lords on 19 January. Derwentwater pleaded guilty, urging in extenuation his inexperience, and his advice to those who were about him to throw themselves upon the royal clemency. He was attainted, and condemned to death.
Efforts were made to obtain his pardon. Petitions were brought before both Houses of Parliament, and an address was carried from the upper house to the throne on 22 February, praying that his majesty George I of Great Britain would reprieve ´such of the condemned lords as might appear to him deserving of clemency.´ Widdrington, Carnwath, and Nairn were reprieved. The countess, accompanied by her sister, their maternal aunt, the Duchess of Richmond, the Duchess of Cleveland, and other ladies, was introduced by the Duke of Richmond into the king´s bedchamber, where the countess, in French, asked for his majesty´s mercy. The king, however, prompted by Robert Walpole (who declared that he had been offered £60,000 to save Derwentwater, but that he was determined to make an example), turned down his request.
Derwentwater was beheaded on Tower Hill on 24 February 1716. On the scaffold he expressed regret at having pleaded guilty, and declared his devotion to his Roman Catholic religion and to James III. Lord Kenmure suffered at the same time. The Earl of Nithsdale escaped from the Tower the day before. Charles Radclyffe escaped to France but was captured in 1745 on his return to support the 1745 uprising and was executed in 1746. Nairne was still in the Tower of London in 1717, so was able to benefit from the Indemnity Act 1717 and was released.
He married Anna Maria Webb (d. 19 August 1723, Brussels) on 10 July 1712. She was eldest daughter of Sir John Webb, 3rd baronet, of Odstock, Wiltshire, Their only son John (1713–1731) succeeded. They also had a daughter, Lady Mary Radclyffe (1714–31 January 1760), who married Robert James Petre, 8th Baron Petre.
Reference: The Jacobite No 138, Spring 2012
