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Of these, the Earl of Shaftesbury, as Lord High Steward, was 
perhaps the most conscientious and distinguished. 
It was the dread of the return of Roman Catholicism which 
caused the nation to suffer the Government of the day to visit with 
such severity the offences of men, who, however mistaken, were 
loyal to their creed, political and religious, and who staked their 
property and their lives in the defence of their principles. 
Many good men and true, who were not Roman Catholics, 
espoused the cause of the exiled Stuarts. The Lord Kenmure, in 
his speech on the scaffold, said: “I die a Protestant of the Church 
of England. I take God to witness, before whom I have soon to 
appear, that I never had any design to favour or introduce Popery.” 
The Earl of Derwentwater, and his brother Charles, not only 
suffered in their own persons, but, by the vindictive action of 
Parliament, the treason of the fathers was visited upon their 
innocent offspring. History does not present a parallel case. 
The Derwentwater Estates included thirteen manors, or large 
separate estates, in Northumberland and Durham, independent of 
their more ancient possessions in Cumberland. The whole yielded 
a larger yearly income than the Electorate of Hanover. The 
estates were all settled by the Earl in 1712 upon himself for life, 
and entailed upon his first and other sons, with remainder to 
Charles Radcliffe for life, on whose first and other sons the estates 
were in like manner entailed. The Earl having only a life estate 
in his property, could forfeit no greater interest. His only son, 
although he lost his title of nobility by the attainder of his father, 
was, by solemn adjudication of law at Westminster, admitted tenant in 
tail in possession of all the settled estates ; and the fortune of the 
Earl’s daughter was raised and paid out of them. The Earl’s son 
(John Radcliffe), was in possession of the estates during sixteen 
years ; and if he had lived to attain the age of twenty-one years, he 
might have dealt effectually with them, so that they could not, at 
any future time, have been affected by the attainder of his father, 
or his. uncle, Charles Radcliffe. Upon his death, without issue, in 
1731, the life estate of Charles Radcliffe commenced, but it vested 
in the Crown by reason of the attainder, Not so, however, the 
