Ordsall Hall Museum - Sir Alexander Radclyffe KB

Alexander Radclyffe, only son and heir of his father, was born at Ordsall on 27th April 1608, and baptized at Manchester Church the 4th of May following. At an early age Alexander was received into the household of his kinsman, the Earl of Sussex, who introduced him to the Court. Under the will of the second Earl the FitzWalter estates were settled on the Radclyffes of Ordsall, and the fifth Earl conceived the idea of uniting the two branches of the family my marrying his own natural daughter, Jane, to his young kinsman. The marriage was celebrated on 7th June 1623 at St. James' Church, Clerkenwell, Alexander Radclyffe being then fifteen years of age, and his bride a year or two his junior. Alexander carried the purple robe at the coronation of King Charles the First in 1625, on which occasion he was made a Knight of the Most Honourable Order of the Bath, a notable distinction for one so young. In the Parliament of 1628 Sir Alexander succeeded his father as the representative of Lancashire, and, although actively employed about the Court, he spent much of his time at Ordsall, taking a considerable interest in the affairs of the locality. Owing to recusancy fines and divers other causes, the estate was sadly impoverished. He obtained from Humphrey Chetham, the merchant banker of Manchester, a loan of two thousand pounds, secured on a moiety of the Ordsall demesne. In a memorandum addressed from his residence at Clayton Hall to Sir Cecil Trafford, Chetham says:

'Whereas Sir Alex. Radclyffe lately passed unto mee some part of the Demayne of Ordsall for and in consideration of the some of 2000 Pounds: if therefore he shall think it more for his easement that hee will and doe pay unto mee part of the said some this yeare, for and towards the redemsion of the saide Lande, over and beside the Rent due unto mee by one Demayne or Lease to yourselfe and Mr Prestwiche, I will accept thereof, and I will likewise mitigate or abate of my Rent as much as shall be proportionabe or equall to the Stone you pay and the Tyme you pay it. Provided always and upon Condicione that this my promise shall not frustrate, make voyde, not be any Prejudice unto my Bargen or Contract formerly made in and ipoon the said premises with Sir Alexander, yourself or any other. In witness whereof I have hereunto putt my hand and seal tis 8th June 1634.'

In the skirmish at Ribble Bridge in 1648 one of Sir Alexander's sons, a boy of fifteen was wounded and taken prisoner, dying later in London. Broken in health, the Lord of Ordsall was eventually released from the Tower, and went to his house at Attleburgh, which inheritance had come to him on the death of the sixth Earl of Sussex in 1641. Here, his youngest son, Robert, was born in November 1650. Worn out with anxiety and privation, knowing his days were numbered, he returned to the home of his fathers at Ordsall in the spring of 1654, and on the 14th April following his spirit fled to join the King in whose cause his body had been so freely and gladly broken. He was buried with his ancestors in the Church at Manchester in his forty-sixth year. Lady Jane, his widow, survived him more that twenty years and was married to a second husband in a Dr. Lewes. She proved the will of her son, John, in 1669, and is mentioned in the will of the widow of her son, Humphrey, in 1673

Sir Alexander and Lady Jane had a numerous family of six sons and five daughters:

• John, the eldest son and heir
• Alexander, the second son, was born at Ordsall in 1633, On the outbreak of the Great Rebellion, although himself only a boy, he enlisted in the Royalist forces, and conducted himself with such gallantry that he was made a Captain. He fought at Worcester in 1651, and after he defeat of the royal army at that battle he fled with other refugees to Holland. He was at Mardyke in 1652. At the Restoration he returned to England and settled in London, acquiring an estate at Hampstead. He died at his house in High Holborn on the 24th July 1682, and was buried three days later in the Church of St. Andrew, Holborn. His only son was Alexander Radclyffe, the poet. The latter was admitted a student of Gray's Inn in November 1669, but deserting the law for the Army he eventually attained the rank of Captain. An associate of the Earl of Rochester, he rivalled his master in the art of verse-making, and published numerous works between 1673 and 1696, satirising, in a ribald spirit of the day, the moral pretensions of the Puritans. He had a reputation for gross wit second only to Rochester himself, and, though the literature of those times now shames our national taste in its impudent mockery and profligate utterance, it was but the expression of popular reaction against the odious fanaticism of hypocritical pretence which during the Protectorate had held the normal reactions and simple pleasures of the populace in unnatural restraint. Little though we find to praise in the versifying of Alexander Radclyffe in the light of modern taste, it does represent the art of an age when wit counted more than morality, and when whoever would use his pen to profit must needs write to suit the popular taste. The complete edition of 'The Works of Captain Alexander Radclyffe' was published in London in two volumes in 1696
• Sussex, the third son, also fought as a boy in the Kings forces. He was wounded and taken prisoner at the Battle of Ribble Bridge in 1648. He died the following year at his father's house in Holborn, and was buried in the Church of Saint Andrew on 30th September
• Humphrey, the fourth son, spent his youth at Ordsall. Some time after 1651 he married Margaret, daughter of William Radly of the Hall upon the Hill in Saddleworth. Margaret was the ultimate heir to her father's properties after the death of her brother Stephen. Upon his marriage Humphrey made his residence at Oldfield, an estate lying between Ordsall and the town of Salford. He died there on January 1663, leaving a daughter and heir, Margaret Radclyffe, who died unmarried two years later. The widow survived until 1673, and was buried at the side of her husband in the Church at Manchester on 11th March of that year Charles, the fifth son, was living in 1651 at Beldwin's Garden, next to the Vintorne in High Holborn, where his wife, Mary, died in July of that year. She was buried in St. Andrew's Church. He later removed to a house in Rose Alley, where he died in 1653, and was buried in St. Andrew's Church on 31st December
• Robert, the youngest son
• Mary, baptized at Attleburgh, 22nd February 1630
• Frances, married into the Wentworth family some time prior to 1673. She is mentioned in the will of her sister-in-law, Margaret, wife of Humphrey Radclyffe, and in a bond dated 15th July 1658, whereby she had a load of five pounds from Humphrey Chetham with promise to repay same in London
• Jane, Anne & Margaret were all living in 1651, but nothing of their subsequent history is recorded

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