This isn't a direct answer to your question Lesley but it is about the Radcliffes and Rushen Abbey. My understanding is that the last Abbot was Henry Jackson and not a Radcliffe however I believe there are a number of links with the Radcliffes to the Abbey and hence the Moores who ended up owning the abbey for an extended period.

Bear with me - it's convoluted. I've been hunting this link for some time and the best I can come up with is as follows (you may need to draw yourself a diagram to follow this..LOL):

Henry Radcliffe, son of Richard Radclyffe and Cecilia de Ashton of Radclyffe Tower, was Abbot of Rushen Abbey possibly around 1470.

His grandfather James Radclyffe had a brother Thomas (b.1383) who was also an Abbot of Rushen Abbey possibly around 1430.

James and Thomas’s father was William Radclyffe who married Susana de Legh. William’s brother Thomas Radclyffe married Elena de Tyldesley and their second son was Sir Nicholas Radclyffe.

Sir Nicholas Radclyffe married Elizabeth of Derwentwater (daughter of Sir John de Derwentwater) and this was the beginning of the Radclyffes of Derwentwater. Nicholas and Elizabeth’s eldest son Thomas married Margaret Parr, great aunt of Katherine Parr 6th wife of Henry VIII).

Thomas Radclyffe and Margaret Parr had 12 children and whilst I can account for most of these there are two daughters, Ann (b.1466) and Elizabeth (b.1468?) who disappear into thin air. I also can’t account for Thomas’s eldest son John’s daughter Ann (b.1471).

Why are these three women important in the history of Rushen Abbey?

In Manx Families by A.W.Moore in the section on the Moore’s of the Abbey it states,

“It is said that a Colonel Sir Thomas Moore, who married a Miss Radcliffe of Derwentwater, received the grant of the Abbey of Rushen on its confiscation in 1540”

From this Colonel Sir Thomas Moore it seems that part of the abbey has passed to his son/nephew/grandson(?) James More as mentioned by Frances:

“Brown Willis, in his History of Monasteries, says that, in 1553, there remained in charge the following pensions, viz., to Henry Jackson the Abbot, £10; James More, John Allowe, and Richard Nowell, £2 13s. 4d. each.”

And then on to John Moore as Manx Families continues:

“The first record, however, of the family having held this property was in 1607, when John Moore was owner of 'the Abbey and parcels of ground and the Mill.”

I’ve been trying to work out for a long time the exact path of control of the abbey from Radcliffe family hands (as Stanley representatives) to the Moores but it’s a little like banging your head against a brick wall.

To think I gave up cryptic crosswords for this…