Upon the death of the martyr-earl’s son, in 1791, and presumably without issue, the life estate of Charles Radcliffe commenced, but it vested in the crown by reason of the attainder.  Not so, however, the estate in tail of the eldest son, James Bartholomew.  This boy was born at Vincennes, on the 23d of August, 1725; but by a statute passed in the reign of Queen Anne, he had all the rights of a subject born in the United Kingdom; and, among others, of course, had the right to succeed to any property to which he might be legally entitled.  But the government perceived the fix in which they were placed, and immediately, on the death of the son of the earl, and when James Bartholomew was an infant of the age of five years, they hurried an Act through Parliament which declared that nothing contained in the dictatory law of Queen Anne gave the privilege of a natural born subject to any child, born or to be born abroad, whose father at the time of his or her birth either stood attainted of high treason, or was in the actual service of a foreign state in enmity to the crown of Great Britain.  This excluded the boy, and the government began to grant leases of the estates which would otherwise have fallen to him.

And now we begin to plunge into mystery.  It is asserted that the reported death of John Radcliffe, son of the last earl, was merely a scheme on the part of his friends to protect him against his Hanoverian enemies who sought his life.  Some say that he died at the age of nineteen, at the house of his maternal grandfather, Sir John Webb, in Great Marlborough Street, on the 31st of December, 1731.  Others maintain that he was thrown from his horse, and killed, during his residence in France.  But the most recent statement is that his interment was a sham, and was part of a well-devised plan for facilitating his escape from France to Germany during the prevalence of rumoured attempts to restore the Stuarts, and that, after marrying the Countess of Waldsteine-Waters, he lived, bearing her name, to the age of eighty-six.

By this reputed marriage it is said that he had a son, who was called John James Anthony Radcliffe, and who, in his turn, espoused a descendant of John Sobieski of Poland.  To them a daughter was born, and was named Amelia.  Her first appearance at the home of her supposed ancestors was very peculiar; and the report of her proceedings, which appeared in the Hexham Courant, of the 29th of September, 1868, was immediately transferred into the London daily papers, and was quoted from them by almost the entire provincial press.  The following is the account of the local journal, which excited considerable amusement, but roused very little faith when it was first made public:—­