The estate of the Derwentwater family seems to have originally extended along the shores of the lake for nearly two miles, and for a mile eastward of the shore. On one side of it lies the present road from Keswick to Ambleside, on the other its boundary approached Lodore, whilst the crest of Walla Crag, divided it from the common. There, surrounded by a combination of grandeur and beauty which is almost unrivalled in this country, the Knightly ancestors of James Radcliffe, the third and last Earl of Derwentwater, whose virtues and whose fate have encircled his name with traditional veneration, had their paternal seat. This chivalrous and amiable young nobleman was closely allied by blood to the Prince Edward, afterwards called "the Pretender," in whose cause he fell a sacrifice; his mother, the Lady Mary Tudor, a natural daughter of King Charles II. and Mrs. Davis, being first cousin to the Prince. He was nearly the same age as the Prince, being one year younger: and in his early childhood was taken to France to be educated, when James the Second and his consort were living in exile at St. Germain's, surrounded, however, by the noble English, Scottish, and Irish emigrant royalists, who followed the fortunes of their dethroned monarch. The sympathies of his parents having also led them thither, the youthful heir of Derwentwater was brought up with the little Prince, at St. Germain's, sharing his infantine pleasures and pastimes, and occasionally joining his studies under his governess the Countess of Powis. A friendship thus formed in youth, nurtured by consanguinity, strengthened by ripening age, and cemented by the extraordinary good qualities of the young nobleman, and his power to win affection and esteem, culminated in that attachment and devotion to the cause of his Prince and friend, which terminated only with his life. The Earl appears to have visited Dilston, his ancestral home in Northumberland, for the first time in 1710, when he was in his twenty-first year; and in the spring of the same year he spent some time on the Isle of Derwent, where the ancient mansion of the Radcliffes was then standing. During a considerable portion of the two next succeeding years, his chief residence appears to have been at Dilston, where he lived in the constant exercise of hospitality, and in the practice of active benevolence towards not only the peasantry on his wide estates, but all who needed his assistance, whether known to him or not, and whether Papist or Protestant. He seems to have taken great delight in rural pursuits, and in the pleasures of the chase, and in the charms of nature by which he was surrounded.