INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY

The motto of the “Tower” Radcliffes, the main branch of the family is “Virtus Propter Se”, the translation from the Latin “Valour as its own reward” is indicative of the family Radcliffe and its distinguished, and interesting history. It is a history of nobility and knights, of intrigue and adventure and of valor and loyalty. 

The original purpose for the research leading to this history was to document my Ratliff ancestors, to trace them back and to find out from where my “Great Smoky Mountain” grandfather’s forbearers came.  Initial interest in this search was spurred by an “historical fiction” novel by Anya Seton, “Devil Water”, published in the 1960’s, and based on the life of a real person, Charles Radcliffe, a martyr to the Jacobean cause, beheaded in England at the Tower of London in 1746. According to the story in the book Charles had a daughter Jenny who came to America in the company of her friend Evelyn Byrd daughter of William Byrd.  Jenny was supposedly the progenitor of the Ratliffs in America. In the book Jenny married a Robert Wilson and the resulting family took the name Ratliff. Taking this assumption I began, as did others, construction of genealogical records to document this, but I encountered some problems.  In trying to resolve them I had some correspondence with Anya Seton who insisted that her telling of the story was correct, but things began to fall apart. Dates didn’t make sense, the location of a supposed Ratliff Virginia plantation proved impossible as it turned out to be that of Thomas Jefferson’s father. I visited the Byrd Plantation Records and a diary supposedly at the plantation of William Byrd proved non existent. And my grandfather insisted that we came not from England but from The Isle of Man, although he was not exactly sure when, or even where The Isle of Man was.  After several letters between Anya Seton and me she stopped correspondence pleading illness.  I never heard from her again.  I was never able to find proof of the existence of “Jenny”, Charles’ alleged daughter or a Robert Wilson to who whom she was supposedly married, other than in the mind of Anya Seton. I could find no connection with the Byrds.  
I lost interest in the chase but others continued building elaborate charts and records to “prove” the fantasy with “made up” genealogical records, even to the extent of publishing a book.  But without doubt the Anya Seton story as to how the Radcliffs/Ratliffs came to America is total fiction.  
In the meantime, dabbling in early English history, I continued to encounter the Radcliffe family in England.  Fascinating stories and taunting questions began to emerge, still I was unable to “make the connections” but I continued, off and on.   After retirement more than 10 years ago I picked up the quest again, and with more time available I began to assemble information and to sort out conjecture and fiction from reality.  Documentation piled up, but a trip with my two sons to England to visit old Radcliffe sites in 2013 was the incentive to keep looking.  And then the trail began to unfold and the task became larger.  In the end it evolved into a much more extensive and wide ranging history than originally anticipated.  As each new door was opened the story kept leading back.  Each revelation hinted at a new exciting look further back and posed new questions, questions that begged to be answered.  And as each question was answered the path led even further back.  The work was sometimes frustrating as inconsistencies, false leads, and incorrect information littered the path. And yet, to follow the path back, sorting through mounds of information and separating the wheat from the chaff was a slow and laborious but rewarding process.  It has yielded results that show a fascinating ancestry, an ancestry that places this family in the center of English history. And it has led much further back than I could ever have imagined. This history, I believe, is the first and only Radcliffe history to establish the true origins of the family that became Radcliffe.  In doing so it disproves the Ivo de Tallebois / Norman / Viking theory that is commonly believed to be and is recorded as Radcliffe origin.  Although Ivo plays a part the actual origin the true male line is Angle.   
How far back?  Now the origins of the Radcliffe family, following the primary male line, have been traced back in time through recorded history fourteen hundred years from the present to its Angle and Saxon roots in about the year 240, more than 700 years before the Radcliffe family name emerged, before family names existed.  What was now clear was that in spite of murky records, our Angle and Saxon ancestors came to the island that was to become known as England from what is now Denmark and Germany after the departure of the Romans from England in about the year 410.  Our Norman/Viking ancestors came in 1066 with “William the Conqueror” while our Scottish Ancestors were originally Celtic peoples that had arrived from the continent of Europe during the years 500 to 50 BC, establishing themselves as the Picts.  These are via female lines.
As reliable history approaching the year 700 is sparse and not necessarily within the scope of what is portrayed here this time will be the beginning of our tale.  From this fog of time emerges the Anglo Saxon Lord of Bamburgh Castle, Leodwald King of Bernica. (Bernica being an early name for what is now known as Northumberland plus a part of southern Scotland.)  For the next 10 generations the descendents of Leodwald ruled the region, first as Kings of Bernica and then as Earls (High Reeves) of Bamburgh under the Saxon Kings of England.  In the 10th generation down from Leodwald the Earl of Bamburgh was Uchtred “The Bold” born in the year 1071 and from him springs the line that, five generations later became the family Redclyffe.  
This history documents the family from the earliest reliable records in the seven hundreds through the peak of its prominence in England, to its decline from prominence in the sixteen and seventeen hundreds.  From the time of the William “The Conqueror” during the Norman Conquest in 1066 into the 1700s the Radcliffes were one of the wealthiest, most powerful and influential families in England.  Radcliffe nobles, lords and knights held important positions in the kingdom.  They were prominent in royal courts, as leaders on the battlefields of England and abroad, in diplomatic assignments and as local officials.  
This history tells the story of the Radcliffes and of the ancestry that preceded it.  It tells of Castles and great Halls, of Lords and Ladies of the Manor and of Knights, Earls and Barons.  The ancestry includes, Princesses, and Kings, and it is also the story of priests, and monks and even Saints.  It will describe the place on battlefields, in royal courts and in historical events that Radcliffes shared. It will describe the decline of the family in England and the reasons for that decline.
The trunk of the Radcliffe tree is the Radcliffes of Radcliffe Tower, or the “Tower Radcliffes”.  From this trunk sprang three additional major family branches; the Radcliffes or Ordsall, the Derwentwater Radcliffes and the Attleborough Fitzwalter-Radcliffes.  In addition there were more than a dozen other minor branches and sub branches.  The family reached it peak of prominence in the fourteen and fifteen hundreds, but things were to change. In a relatively short period of time beginning in the late sixteen hundreds the Radcliffes all but disappeared from prominence in England.  
Why did the Radcliffe families in England fall into relative obscurity?  There were three reasons:  First was that the character of combat began to change in the 1600s from reliance of the Kings on bodies of fighting men supplied by Nobles, Lords and their knights from manors and castles throughout England, to that of a standing army of professional solders. This supplanted the need for men at arms from the great families of England to fight the nation’s battles.  Also contributing was the changing political nature.  As kings were toppled and new regencies installed those on the losing side found themselves on the outside of royal favor.  A third reason was the refusal of the Radcliffe family to abandon Catholicism and accept the Church of England after King Henry VIII split England from the Catholic Church in Rome.
Although the remnants of the Radcliffe family survived and continue to be a part of England’s makeup, it is no longer holds the place of prominence that it once did. 
 But then the story continues with the establishment of the family in America in the sixteen hundreds through five immigrations that started five family lines.  Actually, these were not the first of the Radcliffes to appear in the new world but were the first to survive.  Earlier, one of the original Williamsburg colonists in the fifteen hundreds was a Captain John Radcliffe who commanded the ship Discovery and then became one of the early governors of the original Virginia settlement. However he was not truly a Radcliffe. He was a Sicklemore who took the name of his adoptive father.  Captain John was captured by Indians and skinned alive over a several hour period by Indian women in retaliation for a trade gone wrong.  These were the women of the Powatan Tribe, the tribe of Pocahontas. There was also a Nicholas Radcliffe as a part of the original Virginia Colony who came in servitude and whose origin is unknown.  He apparently died during the “starving time”; this ending the first attempts at settlement of the family in America.  
So where did the American Ratcliffs/Ratliffs come from?  Five immigrations into the American Colony in the sixteen hundreds were responsible for the majority of the family known as Ratliff, Ratcliffe, Ratcliff and Rackliffe in America.  They were, in the order that they arrived;  the Delmarva Ratcliffs of Accomack County Virginia, the Saint Mary/Charles County Maryland Ratliffs, the eastern Virginia Fairfax Ratcliffes, the Quaker Ratcliffes of Talbot County Maryland and the Quaker Ratcliffes of Bucks County Pennsylvania.
While each of these five initial American Radcliffe lines have as their ultimate origin the “Tower Radcliffes” they come to America through three different paths.  The first immigration in about 1640 was via Henry Radcliffe, a Monk and son of Sir Richard of the Tower. He was progenitor of the Radcliffes of The Isle of Man from which came Charles Ratcliffe who established the American Delmarva Radcliffes. An arm of the Delmarva Ratliffs became the “Big Sandy” Ratliffs of Western Virginia and Eastern Kentucky, my line.
The next two immigrations originate from the Ordsall Radcliffes.  The Ordsalls are an early Radcliffe branch of the Tower Radcliffes that began in about 1300. The Saint Mary/Charles County Maryland Radcliffes originate with the immigrant Emanuel Ratcliffe, grandson of Sir Alexander Radcliffe of Ordsall and son of Molyneux Ratcliffe.  Emanuel arrived in America in about 1660 and established the Ratliffs of central Tennessee. What became the Fairfax Radcliffes came from John Radcliffe the first son of Emanuel who was born in England before his immigration to America. He arrived in Charles County in about 1670 and his great grandson John established the Fairfax Ratcliffes.  
Descending from the last of the Tower Radcliffes was the line known as the Radcliffes of Rossendale, Whally Parish, Lancashire. The immigrants, brothers Richard and James, as Quakers, came at two different times to escape religious persecution in about 1680 to establish the American Quaker Ratcliffs and the Ratliffs to be found in the western US. 
While stories and history of the ancestors of the Radcliffes in America, the Tower Radcliffes and the Ordsall Radcliffes, are fascinating they are not the complete Radcliffe story. Two other major branches of the family also have their stories to tell; the Derwentwater Radcliffes of Northumberland and the Addleborough Fitzwalter-Radcliffes, Earls of Sussex. These stories add color and depth and complete the definition of who we are. 
The Radcliffe story from its Anglo Saxon roots to its arrival in America spans more than one thousand years.  And the story then continues into the present.