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Sir George Radcliffe

1911 Encyclopedia Britannica

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SIR GEORGE RADCLIFFE (1593-1657), English politician, son of Nicholas Radcliffe (d. 1599) of Overthorpe, Yorkshire, was educated at Oldham and at University College, Oxford. He attained some measure of success as a barrister, and about 1626 became the confidential adviser of Sir Thomas Wentworth, afterwards earl of Strafford, who was related to his wife, Anne Trappes (d. 1659). Like his master he was imprisoned in 1627 for declining to contribute to a forced loan, but he shared the good, as well as the ill, fortunes of Wentworth, acting as his adviser when he was president of the council of the north. When Wentworth was made lord deputy of Ireland, Radcliffe, in January 1633, preceded him to that country, and having been made a member of the Irish privy council he was trusted by the deputy in the fullest possible way, his advice being of the greatest service. In 1640, Radcliffe, like Strafford, was arrested and was impeached, but the charges against him were not pressed, and in 1643 he was with Charles I. at Oxford. He died at Flushing in May 1657. Radcliffe wrote An essay towards the life of my Lord Strafford, from which the material for the various lives of the statesman has been largely taken.

See Sir T. D. Whitaker, Life and Correspondence of Sir G. Radcliffe (1810).