View of the Tower in the time of George I.
In 1710 he had succeeded Walpole as Minister for War, but he prided himself more upon his literary gifts than upon those of his birth and rank, or upon his political eminence. He wrote poetry, sad stuff, and plays which were worse than his poems, for in these he out-Wycherlyed Wycherley. The plays of the days of the Restoration not excepted, there is nothing more indecent in theatrical literature than Granville’s “The Old Gallant.”
The famous rising in Scotland in 1715 in favour of the son of James II., the Chevalier de St George, or, as his adherents called him, James the Third, brought many of the leaders of that ill-starred rebellion to the Tower, and some to the block. Of the latter the young Earl of Derwentwater was the most conspicuous. James Radcliffe, Lord Derwentwater, was the only Englishman of high birth who took up arms for the Jacobite cause in this rebellion of 1715. He appears to have been a youth of high merit, and was only twenty-six when he was persuaded to throw life and fortune on the side of the Chevalier. One who knew him writes “that he was a man formed by nature to be generally beloved.” His connection with the Stuarts was possibly brought about by the fact that his mother, Mary Tudor, was a natural daughter of Charles II., and also that he was a Catholic by birth. He was a very wealthy landowner, with vast estates, which, after his execution, were given to Greenwich Hospital. They brought him in, including the mines, between thirty and forty thousand pounds a year, a great fortune in those days. His home, from which he derived his title, was situated in the most beautiful of the English lakes, the lovely Lake of Derwentwater in Cumberland, and was called Lord’s Island.
Derwentwater had been taken prisoner at Preston, with six Scotch noblemen, William Maxwell, Earl of Nithsdale, Robert Dalziel, Earl of Carnwath, George Seton, Lord Wintoun, William Gordon, Lord Kenmure, William Murray, Earl of Nairn, and William Widdrington, Lord Widdrington. They were brought up to London with their arms tied behind them, their horses led by soldiers, and preceded by drums and music, in a kind of trumpery triumph, and imprisoned in the Tower. Much interest was made on their behalf in both Houses of Parliament; in the Commons, Richard Steele pleaded for them, and in the Lords, a motion for reading the petition presented to both Houses, praying the King to show mercy to the prisoners, had only been carried against the Ministry by a majority of nine. An address was presented to George the First, praying him to “reprieve such of the condemned lords as deserved mercy.” To this petition George, or rather, his Prime Minister, Robert Walpole, answered that the King would act as he thought most consistent for the dignity of the Crown and the safety of the people, thus virtually rejecting the address. Many of those who had places in the Government and had voted against the Ministry were dismissed from their offices.
Window in the Cradle Tower
The trial of the Jacobite lords commenced on the 9th of February, and lasted ten days. Wintoun, the only one of the prisoners who pleaded “not guilty,” was the only one pardoned; the others were condemned to death, Lord Cowper, the Lord High Steward, pronouncing sentence on the 29th of February as follows:—“And now, my Lords, nothing remains but that I pronounce upon you, and sorry I am that it falls to my lot to do it, that terrible sentence of the law, which must be the same that is usually given against the meanest offenders in the like kind. The most ignominious and painful parts of it are usually remitted by the grace of the Crown, to persons of your quality; but the law in this case being deaf to all distinction of persons, requires that I should pronounce, and accordingly it is adjudged by this Court, ‘That you, James, Earl of Derwentwater, William, Lord Widdrington, William, Earl of Nithsdale, Robert, Earl of Carnwath, William, Viscount Kenmure, and William, Lord Nairne, and every of you, return to the prison of the Tower, from whence you came, and thence you must be drawn to the place of execution; when you come there, you must be hang’d by the neck, but not till you be dead; for you must be cut down alive; then your bowels must be taken out, and burnt before your face; then your heads must be severed from your bodies, and your bodies divided each into four quarters; and these must be at the King’s disposal. And God Almighty be merciful to your souls!’”
Widdrington and Carnwath were released by the Act of Grace in 1717, and Lord Nairne was subsequently pardoned, the four remaining noblemen being left to die.
At ten o’clock in the morning of the 24th of February, Derwentwater and Kenmure were brought out of the Tower in a coach and were driven to a house known as the Transport Office, on Tower Hill, facing the scaffold, which was draped in black cloth; there they remained whilst the final preparations for their execution were being carried out.