REPORTS OF MEETINGS FOR 1909 41 



Four children were born of the marriage, the eldest, James, 

 being the unfortunate and last Earl of Derwentwater. Born in 

 London in 1689, and educated in Paris where he lived at the 

 Court of the banished King James, he evinced a warm attach- 

 ment to the exiled family, and on succeeding to the family 

 estates threw in his lot with the cause of the Pretender, at 

 that time being cordially espoused by many of the Scottish 

 nobility. Taking up his residence at Dilston a few years later, 

 he was induced to raise tlie standard of revolt at Greenrigg 

 in Redesdale, in October 1715 ; but the rebellion proving 

 abortive, he paid the penalty of his rashness by being made 

 prisoner and confined in the Tower of London, where in spite 

 of the supplications of relatives and friends, he was beheaded 

 on 24th February 1716. On the death of his son, John, on 

 31st December 1731, the Government seized upon the estates, 

 and conferred them on the Greenwich Hospital Commissioners, 

 whose management for a time is stated to have been so lax 

 that the untenanted Castle afforded shelter to many vagrants, 

 and numberless articles of furniture found their way into the 

 liands of unscrupulous neighbours. 



By means of a mock funeral, it is alleged, the body of the 

 Earl was abstracted and borne Northward, to be secretly interred 

 according to his own request in the private Chapel at Dilston, 



where other members of his family had been laid. 

 Dilston This Chapel is a small oblong building with a 



Chapel. tower at the West end, which is reached by 



a spiral staircase. The entrance door is in the 

 South wall, and the roof, originally covered with lead, is now 

 slated in consequence of alleged depredations by thieves. It 

 measures internally 32 feet in length, 15 feet in breadth, and 

 18 feet in height, and is lighted by three windows in the 

 North wall, one in the South, and a much larger one in 

 the East. The furnishings are very plain, consisting of a 

 desk, a few pews, and a long seat ranging along the whole 

 of the South wall. The date of its erection is uncertain ; 

 but it has been assigned to an early period in the RadclifFes' 

 occupancy of the estates, possibly 1620. The first recorded 

 interment is that of Sir Edward, who died in 1663. Both 

 he and his lady were buried there, presumably in the soil, 

 



