r.2. Eleanor, geb. c. 1592, Yorks, oorl. 20/01/1667, London, Middlesex,
Engeland, begr. 31/01/1667, St Andrew Churchyard, Kimbolton, Huntingdonshire, Engeland x 1611 met Sir Henry LEE, geb. 1571, Derby, Derbyshire, England , begr. 08/04/1631, Spelsbury, Oxfordshire, Engeland, 1st Baronet of Quarendon, Buckinghamshire, Engeland, s.v. Sir Robert Lee en Lucia Pigot xx 22/05/1634, Holborn, Middlesex met Edward RATCLIFFE, geb. voor 10/11/1559, Todmorden, Lancashire, Engeland, oorl. 07/1643, Gorhambury, St. Michaels’s, St Albans, Hertfordshire, Engeland, 6th Earl of Sussex, s.v. Humphrey Radcliffe Knight of Elstow, Bedfordshire en Isabel Harvey xxx 30/03/1646 met Robert RICH, geb. 05/1587, oorl. 19/04/1658, Warwick House, 2nd Earl of Warwick, s.v. Robert Rich en Penelope Devereux xxxx 15/07/1659 met Edward MONTAGU,
geb. 1602, oorl. 07/05/1671, 2nd Earl of Manchester, s.v. Henry Montagu Baron Montagu of Kimbolton, earl of Manchester en Catherine Spencer.
Eleanor = Lady Diana's Second Cousin 13 x removed, Female (Jamie Allen's Family Tree & Ancient Genealogical Allegations Version 55)
Eleanor was die dogter van Richard Wortley en Elizabeth Boughton.
(Foster, Joseph: Pedigrees of the County Families of Yorkshire, Vol. 2, West Riding. London. 1874)
(Burke, John esq & Burke, John Bernard , esq: A Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Extinct and Dormant Baronetcies of England, Ireland, and Scotland. 2nd ed. London MDCCCXLIV)
(Middleseser Pedigrees as collected by Richard Mundy in Harleian Ms. No. 1551 edited by Sir George John Armytage, Bart., F.S.A. chairman of the council of the Harleian society)
1. Henry
Lee, Knt. of Quarrendon, eldest son of Sir Robert, was created a Baronet by
King James I 22nd May, 1611. He married
Eleanor, daughter of Sir Richard Wortley, Knt. of Wortley, CO. York, died a.d.
1631, and was buried at Spelsbury, co. Oxon. In the year 1613 (10th James I) Sir Henry Lee served the office of High
Sheriff of the county of Oxford, on account of his tenure of the manor and
mansion of Ditchley, Dytchlea, or Ditchlee, besides his property at Charlbury
in the same county. He was Sheriff of
Bucks in the year 1621. A note by Antony a Wood runs thus: — Spelsbury, 1675. On the north side of the
chancel close to the wall is a faire table monument erected of black and white
marble, with the statues of a man and his wife lying at full length, and divers
children kneeling at the head and feet, to the memorie of Sir Henry Lee who
married Eleanor Wortley. His widow
Eleanor Wortley (dau of Sir Richard Wortley of Wortley) married a
Parliamentarian in 1633, after inveighing against her son's marriage to a St.
John. Her remarriage removed much of the
Lee family income during her lifetime. (https://archive.org/stream/heraldgenealogis03nich_0/heraldgenealogis03nich_0_djvu.txt)
(https://www.flickr.com/photos/52219527@N00/11438036303/in/photostream/)
(The visitations of
Bedfordshire annis domini 1566. 1582 and 1634 made by William Harvey, esq.,
Robert Cooke, Esq. and George Owen, Esq as depty for Sir Richard St. George, Kt
together with additional pedigrees, chiefly from Harleian MS 1531 and an
appendix, containing a list of pedigrees entered at the visitation of 1669 also
list of Bedfordshire knights and gentry taken from Lansdowne MS edited by
Frederic kaugustus Blaydes, London. 1884)
2. Edward
Radclyffe, 6th Earl of Sussex (c. 1559 – August 1643) was an English politician
who sat in the House of Commons between 1586 and 1611 and later succeeded to a
peerage.
Radclyffe
was the son of Sir Humphrey Radclyffe and his wife Isabel Harvey and grandson
of the 1st Earl and Elizabeth Stafford. In 1586 he was elected Member of
Parliament for Petersfield. He was elected MP for Bedfordshire in 1588 and for
Portsmouth in 1593. He was elected MP for Bedfordshire again in 1597, 1601 and
1604. He was appointed Sheriff of Bedfordshire in 1598.
Radclyffe
was knighted around 1594 and inherited the earldom from his cousin Robert
Radclyffe, 5th Earl of Sussex in 1629.
Radclyffe
had married three times: first, Elizabeth Petre, the daughter of Sir William
Petre of Ingatestone, Essex and widow of John Gostwick of Willington; secondly
(1594) Jane, daughter of Francis Hynde of Madingley, Cambridgeshire and widow
of John Catesby of Newnham in Goldington; and thirdly (1634) Eleanor, the
daughter of Sir Richard Wortley of Wortley, Yorkshire and the widow of Sir
Henry Lee, Bt., of Quarrendon, Buckinghamshire. She succeeded to the title of Countess of Sussex
on 22 March 1634. Eleanor outlived him by many
years and made two further marriages. He died impoverished, intestate and
childless. The earldom became extinct. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Radclyffe,_6th_Earl_of_Sussex)
Family and
Education
Offices Held
Biography
Constituency Dates
PETERSFIELD 1586; BEDFORDSHIRE 1589; PORTSMOUTH 1593; BEDFORDSHIRE 1597; BEDFORDSHIRE 1601; BEDFORDSHIRE 1604
Family and
Education
b. 1550/9, 2nd s. of Sir Humphrey Radcliffe† of
Elstow (d.1566) and Isabel,
da. and h. of Edmund Harvey of Elstow. m.
(1) 1581/3, Elizabeth, da. of Sir William Petre† of Ingatestone, Essex, wid. of
John Gostwick of Willington, Beds., s.p.; (2) 30 May 1594, Jane (bur. 1 Dec. 1633),
da. of (Sir) Francis Hynde† of Madingley, Cambs., wid. of William West of
Marsworth, Bucks. and John Catesby of Newnham, Goldington, Beds., s.p.; (3) 22 May 1634, Eleanor (d. 20 Jan. 1667),
da. of Sir Richard Wortley of Wortley, Yorks., wid. of Sir Henry Lee, 1st bt.
of Quarendon, Bucks., s.p. suc.
bro. Thomas† by 1586, mother 1594, cos. as 6th earl of Sussex 1629; kntd. by 30 May 1594. d.
c.July 1643.sig. Edw[ard]
Radclyffe.
Offices Held
J.p. Beds. 1584-1632;
freeman, Portsmouth, Hants 1593; sheriff, Beds. 1598-9; dep. lt. Beds. 1602; commr. depopulations, Beds. 1607, aid 1609, charitable uses 1611, sewers, Gt. Fens. 1618, preservation
of game, Cambs. 1622.
Biography
Radcliffe began life as
the younger son of a younger son of the 1st earl of Sussex, and only inherited
the earldom because of his own longevity and the failure of the senior branch
of the family. In 1553 his mother’s family assigned a Crown grant of the site
(and 573 acres of the demesnes) of the dissolved nunnery of Elstow, just
outside Bedford, to his father, Sir Humphrey, together with the rectories of
Elstow, Willshampstead and Kempston. This estate, and his Court connections,
apparently gave Sir Humphrey sufficient status to represent Bedfordshire five
times during the 1550s. Sir Humphrey’s death in
1566 deprived the family of much of their local influence, but Radcliffe’s
brother-in-law Henry Cheke was returned for Bedford in 1571 and 1572, and his
elder brother Thomas† was unsuccessfully nominated for one of the county seats
in 1584 by his cousin the 4th earl of Sussex (Sir Henry Radcliffe†). Radcliffe himself, who succeeded his
brother in 1586, presumably used Sussex as his
parliamentary patron until the earl’s death in December 1593, but his own local
standing apparently served to secure his return for Bedfordshire at the next
three elections. He left little trace on the Commons’ proceedings during
1604-10. On 28 Mar. 1604 he was one of the delegation sent to deliver the
House’s address about the Buckinghamshire election dispute to the king. He was
later appointed to help prepare the agenda for conferences with the Lords about
religion (19 Apr. 1604; 10 Apr. 1606), and was named to committees for bills
about religion (4 June 1604; 7 Apr. 1606), purveyance (26 Feb. 1610) and some
private estates. He left no trace at all on the records of the 1606-7 session. In addition to the
Elstow estate, Radcliffe inherited on his mother’s death in 1594 a life
interest in nearby Houghton Grange, a Crown lease of further property in Elstow
and (possibly) an extent of lands worth £100 a year in Riseley, Bedfordshire.
He was probably the grantee of a 50-year lease of the manor of Denny,
Cambridgeshire in 1595, and in 1609 he and his relative Robert, 5th earl of
Sussex briefly obtained a patent for concealed lands. However, his means must have been
comparatively slender for a man with pretensions to county status. His early marriages, to widows with
substantial jointure interests in Bedfordshire, were clearly intended to
address this deficiency: the first had a life interest in the manors of
Willington and Cople, a few miles to the east of his own estate; and the second
brought him a lease of the manor of Newnham, just outside Bedford, and
ex-chantry lands in Ashwell, Hertfordshire. Radcliffe probably
lived beyond his modest means, either at Court, where his sister Mary served as
chief lady of the Privy Chamber to Queen Elizabeth, or in the country, as he was gradually
forced to sell most of his estates. In 1601 he alienated his interests in
Kempston for an annuity of £48, and in 1612, possibly at the behest of lord
treasurer Salisbury (Sir Robert Cecil†), he was granted protection from his
creditors for a year. Over
the next five years he disposed of his main estates with the consent of his
nephew and heir general, Sir Thomas Cheke, and by 1617 he was living near his
wife’s family at Barton, Cambridgeshire. Most men would have been keen to
preserve their patrimony, but Radcliffe, with few close relatives and no hope
of children, had little incentive. The sales apparently stabilized his
finances, as he was able to lend £500 to Charles, Lord Lambart* in 1622, and in
the following year he bought a lease of an extent on the manor of Hinxton,
Cambridgeshire. Radcliffe was the
reversionary heir to most of his family’s extensive estates in Essex and
Norfolk, an inheritance which must have seemed a remote prospect until 1619-20,
when the sons of Robert, 5th earl of Sussex died in quick succession. Sussex, like his cousin, was heavily
indebted, and, with Radcliffe’s consent as heir presumptive, he disposed of
most of his estates during the 1620s. When Radcliffe succeeded as 6th earl in
1629, he inherited little more than a life interest in the manors of Burnham
and Woodham Walter, Essex, worth perhaps £1,100 a year. Radcliffe’s second wife
died in 1633, whereupon he quickly married another widow. By 1640 the couple
were living at Gorhambury, Hertfordshire, which they presumably leased from Sir
Thomas Meautys*, whose cousin Frances had been the mistress and ultimately the
second wife of Robert, 5th earl of Sussex. The countess was an outspoken
supporter of Parliament during the summer of 1642, although the disorder which
followed the outbreak of war made her more cautious. Radcliffe’s views on the conflict are
not recorded, and, as he claimed to be nearly 90 in 1640, he may well have been
too old to care about the war. He died, probably intestate, at Gorhambury in
July 1643. His widow
subsequently married Robert, 2nd earl of Warwick (Sir Robert Rich) and Edward,
2nd earl of Manchester (Edward Montagu)
(http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1604-1629/member/radcliffe-sir-edward-15509-1643)
Family and
Education
2nd s. of Sir Humphrey Radcliffe of
Elstow by Isabel or Elizabeth, da. and h. of Edmund Harvey of Elstow; bro. of Thomas. m. (1)
1582 or 1583, Elizabeth, da. of Sir William Petre of
Ingatestone, Essex, wid. of John Gostwick of Willington, s.p.;
(2) 30 May 1594, Jane, da. of Francis Hynde of
Madingley, Cambs., wid. of John Catesby of Newnham in Goldington, s.p.;
(3) 22 May 1634, Eleanor, da. of Sir Richard Wortley of Wortley, Yorks., wid.
of Sir Henry Lee, Bt., of Quarrendon, Bucks., s.p. suc. bro. 1586. Kntd. bef. 30 May 1594; suc. cos. as 6th Earl of Sussex 1629.
Offices Held
J.p. Beds. from 1584, sheriff 1598-9; freeman, Portsmouth 8 Aug.
1593.
Biography
Radcliffe’s father was
a younger son of the 1st Earl of Sussex, and it was this connexion which
accounts for his returns at Petersfield and Portsmouth, as Sir Henry Radcliffe,
the 4th Earl, was lord lieutenant of Hampshire and so could bring pressure to
bear on the Weston family who were the patrons at Petersfield, and at
Portsmouth he was warden, captain and high steward. Edward Radcliffe was
obviously of county status in Bedfordshire, where his so frequent elections are
nevertheless a little surprising. His name has not been
found in the journals of the Commons. As knight of the shire in 1597 and 1601
he could have attended committees dealing with enclosures (5 Nov. 1597), the
poor law (5, 22 Nov.), armour and weapons (8 Nov.), penals laws (8 Nov.),
monopolies (10 Nov.), the subsidy (15 Nov.), draining the fens (3 Dec.) and
maltsters (12 Jan. 1598); as well as the main business committee (3 Nov. 1601)
and other committees on monopolies (10 Nov. 1597 and 23 Nov. 1601). Radcliffe was at the Tilbury camp during the Armada crisis, writing
to the Earl of Sussex that during the Queen’s visit she had given me many thanks for my forwardness in this service, telling me I
showed from what house I descended, with many gracious words ... Assuring me
that before it were long, she would make me better able to serve her, which
words being spoken before many did well please me, however the performance
follow. This may have been a reference to the Earl’s request that
Radcliffe should succeed him as captain of Portsmouth castle, about which he
wrote to the Earl of Leicester on 24 Aug. 1588. Radcliffe’s later life was
passed on the edge of bankruptcy. The Bedfordshire estates were disposed of
piecemeal, Elstow itself being sold in 1616. He died intestate in 1643. (http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1558-1603/member/radcliffe-edward-1643)
3. Robert RICH, 2nd Earl of Warwick
Robert Rich was a descendant of Richard
Rich, 1st Baron Rich, who first rose to political prominence and the peerage in
the reign of Edward VI, and was previously an associate of Thomas Cromwell
during the reign of Henry VIII. Robert Rich married firstly, in
February 1605, Frances Hatton (1590-1623), daughter and heir of Sir William
Newport alias Hatton (1560-1597) and Elizabeth Gawdy, by whom he had at least
five children. His second
wife, whom he married between 12 March 1625 and 20 January 1626, was Susan (née
Rowe) Halliday (1582-1646), daughter of Sir Henry Rowe, Lord Mayor of London,
and his wife, Susan Kighley, and widow of William Halliday (d.1624), Alderman
of London. His third wife was Eleanor Wortley, widow of Sir Henry Lee and of Edward
Radclyffe, 6th Earl of Sussex; after Warwick's death she made yet another
marriage to Edward Montagu, 2nd Earl of Manchester, in modern eyes an unusual
marriage since he had previously been married to her step-daughter Anne Rich. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Rich,_2nd_Earl_of_Warwick)Constituency Dates
MALDON 19
Feb. 1610; ESSEX 1614
Family and
Education
b. c.1588, 1st s. of Robert, 3rd Bar. Rich
(Robert Rich†) and 1st earl of Warwick and his 1st w. Penelope, da. of Walter
Devereux, 1st earl of Essex; bro. of Henry*. educ. Eton
c.1602-3; Emmanuel, Camb. 1603, MA 1624, incorp. Oxf. 1624; I. Temple 1605. m.
(1) 12 Feb. 1605, Frances (d.
Nov. 1623), da. and h. of Sir William Hatton alias Newport† of Holdenby, Northants., 4s.
(1 d.v.p.) 4da. (1 d.v.p.); (2) aft. 12 Mar. but bef. 7 Nov. 1625,
Susan (bur. 21 Jan. 1646),
da. of Sir Henry Rowe of Shacklewell, Mdx., Mercer and ld. mayor of London
1607-8, wid. of William Halliday (d.1624),
Mercer, alderman of London and gov. of E.I. Co. 1621-4, ?s.p.; (3) 30 Mar. 1646, Eleanor (d. 20 Jan. 1667),
da. of Richard Wortley of Wortley, Yorks., wid. of Sir Henry Lee, 1st bt. (d.1631) of
Quarendon, Bucks. and Edward, 6th earl of Sussex (Sir Edward Radcliffe*, d.1643),
?s.p.cr. KB 25 July
1603;styled Lord Rich 1618; suc.
fa. as 2nd earl of Warwick 1619. d. 18 or 19 Apr.
1658.sig.
Ro[bert] Riche.
Offices Held
Freeman, Maldon, Essex
1610, Southampton, Hants 1626; commr. repair of highways and bridges,
Essex 1615-at least 1622; j.p. Essex 1617-27, 1628-at least
1638, 1640-2, 1644-53, 1654-d.,
Northants. 1617-at least 1625, 1628-at least 1650, Suff. 1626-?, 1628-at least
1650, Mdx. and Norf. 1628-at least 1650; commr. survey, L. Inn Fields, Mdx.
1618, sewers, highways and bridges, Essex
1618, Chipping Ongar to Ilford bridge, Essex 1620, Essex, Mdx. and Kent 1622-at
least 1625, Canvey Is., Fobbing, Mucking and Corringham, Essex 1627-at least
1634, Rainham bridge to Mucking mill, Essex 1627-at least 1644, Dengie and
Rochford hundreds, Essex 1633-at least 1654, R. Blackwater, Essex 1634, Gt.
Fens 1635-9, Stepney marshes, Mdx. 1639, Essex and Kent 1642, Lincs. and Notts.
1642, R. Lea, Essex, Herts. and Mdx. 1645-at least 1657, Essex 1645, Mdx. 1645, oyer and terminer, Midland circ.
1618-at least 1642, Norf. circ. 1618-at least 1641, Home circ. 1618-at least
1642, Mdx. 1621-at least 1645, London 1621-7, 1629-at least 1641, Newgate 1621, Essex 1621-at least
1645, charitable uses 1619-20, 1629-at least
1630, 1641; v. adm. Essex 1620-at least 1649; commr. subsidy, Essex 1621-2, 1624, survey Tiptree Heath, Essex 1623; ld. lt. Essex
1625-6 (jt.), 1629-42 (jt.), 1642-? (sole), Norf. 1642-?; commr. to compound for provisions,
Essex 1625, Forced Loan 1626-7, gaol delivery, Newgate 1626-7, 1629-at
least 1641,liberty and town of Bury St. Edmunds,
Suff. 1644, Essex 1645; recorder, Warwick, Warws. 1628-41; commr. knighthood fines, Essex 1630-at
least 1632,swans, Staffs. and
Warws. 1635, Suff. and Essex 1635;gov. Charterhouse hosp. London 1641-50; commr. perambulation of Waltham
Forest, Essex 1641; kpr. Hyde Park, Mdx. 1648. Member, Virg. Co.
1612-24, cttee. c.1619; member, Somers Is. Co. 1615, gov. c.1627-c.54; member,
Africa Co. 1618, Amazon River Co. 1620, E.I. Co. 1628, Providence Is. Co. 1630,
Bahamas Co. 1630; cttee. Council for New Eng. 1620, pres. by 1630-at least
1632. Member, Sir Henry
Wotton’s* embassy to Savoy 1612. Adm. privateering
expedition 1627, summer guard 1642-4, winter guard
1642-3, fleet 1648;capt.-gen. of forces about London 22
Oct. 1642-22 Nov. 1642; ld. warden of Cinque Ports by 1643-9; ld. high adm. 1643-5, 1648-9; gov. and ld. high adm. of plantations
in W. Indies 1643-at least 1646; member, admlty. cttee. 1645-8; gov. Guernsey and Jersey 1645-7; cdr., Eastern Assoc. 1645. Commr. swans, Eng.
1628, execution of poor laws 1632, treaty with
Scots 1640, regency 1641; PC 1641;member, cttee. of both kingdoms 1644,
Derby House cttee. 1648.
Speaker, House of Lords
15 Nov. 1642, 16-17 and 29 Feb. 1648.
Elder, Essex classis
1646.
Biography
Scion of one of the
greatest landowners in England, Rich twice served the Long Parliament
as lord high admiral and was remembered at his funeral as ‘one of the greatest
friends that the godly and painful ministers had in England’.To the
royalist Edward Hyde†, 1st earl of Clarendon, however, Rich, though ‘of a
pleasant and companionable wit and conversation’ and given to ‘universal jollity’,
had only ‘got the style of a godly man’ by extending hospitality to silenced
ministers. In reality he was given to ‘such licence in his words and actions
that a man of less virtue could not be found out’. Born in about 1588 to a
puritan nobleman, Rich - not to be confused with an Essex namesake who served
as a master in Chancery - was admitted to Eton in about 1602 with his younger
brother Henry. There he befriended the future puritan minister William Gouge,
whose uncle, Ezekiel Culverwell, was household chaplain to Lord Rich at the
latter’s principal Essex seat of Leez Priory. From Eton he entered Emmanuel College,
Cambridge, a puritan foundation, where his studies were interrupted by the
coronation, at which he was invested a knight of the Bath. While he was at
college his mother secretly arranged for him to marry the 14-year old Frances
Hatton, sole heiress to the Norfolk estates of Sir Francis Gawdy†, one of the
justices in King’s Bench, and co-heiress of the substantial holdings amassed by
the late lord chancellor, Sir Christopher Hatton†.Shortly
after the wedding, which was celebrated in February 1605, Rich was admitted to
the Inner Temple, where he applied himself to his legal studies. These later
put him in good stead, as in 1621 he was one of the few peers in Parliament who
could easily read law French. Gawdy died in December
1605, whereupon administration of his estate was granted to Rich. In the short term the Gawdy
inheritance may have proved a mixed blessing, for while the lands involved were
extensive, allegedly providing Rich with an annual income of £2,200 and a
windfall of £2,300 in cash and moveables, Gawdy died owing around £7,000. It
was clear that some of the estate would have to be sold to pay off this debt,
and therefore in November 1606 Lord Rich laid a bill for that purpose before
the House of Lords. However, this measure was rejected.Rich’s attention now switched to the
lands formerly owned by the late lord chancellor Hatton. These properties had
been extended for debt by the Crown, and though leased by Frances’s father Sir
William Hatton, they had not descended either to Frances or her distant cousin
Sir Christopher Hatton* on Sir William’s death in 1597, but had instead passed
to Sir William’s widow, Lady Hatton, and her new husband, Sir Edward Coke*.
Initially, Rich may have been content to wait before pressing his claims until
the lease enjoyed by Coke and Lady Hatton expired in March 1616. When Sir
Christopher Hatton proved more impatient, and laid a bill before the Commons in
1606 in a bid to gain control of the unentailed lands of the Hatton estate,
Rich did not join in the attack, but instead saw to it that a clause was
inserted into the bill which exempted from its provisions the lands claimed by
Rich’s wife. His spokesman in the Commons was almost certainly William Wiseman,
Member for Maldon and estate steward to Rich’s father. Rich did not seek to
gain control of his wife’s share of the Hatton estates until the spring of
1608. His reasons are not difficult to fathom, for in March 1608 a reversion of
the lease enjoyed by Coke and Lady Hatton was granted to four trustees, as a
result of which Rich would be forced to wait until 1622 rather than 1616 before
entering into his wife’s inheritance. Not surprisingly Rich responded in
April by asking Coke to allow him his wife’s share of the rents arising from
Huningham manor, Northamptonshire, and the arrears on an annuity, which
together were worth around £833. However, his demands were refused. Rich made his first
recorded appearance at Court in January 1608, when he participated in the
masque staged to celebrate the marriage of Viscount Haddington. As an athletic
young nobleman he subsequently appeared regularly at Court, participating in
the Accession Day tilts of 1613 and 1614 and racing at the ring following the
investiture of the Prince of Wales in 1616 By 1610 he was settled at Wallington
in Norfolk, a property which had formerly belonged to Sir Francis Gawdy, and by
1611 he also resided at Hackney, where his eldest son, Robert*, was baptized.
In January 1610 he obtained a licence to travel abroad for three years but the death of William Wiseman
caused him to seek election to Parliament for Maldon instead, presumably at the
behest of his father. Returned unopposed on 19 Feb., he was named three days
later to the committee for the bill concerning entailed lands encumbered by
debt, a matter in which he had some personal experience. He was subsequently
appointed to legislative committees concerning the London Horners’ Company (23
Feb.), purveyance (26 Feb.) and the lands of an Essex landowner, Thomas Mildmay
(31 Mar.), but there are no further mentions of him in the surviving records
for this Parliament. In October 1611 it was
rumoured that Rich had died at Bristol. In fact Rich remained very much alive
and well, and in the following March he embarked upon the first of his many
colonial ventures, joining the newly formed Virginia Company, to which he
contributed £75. Shortly thereafter he went to Turin as
part of the embassy sent to discuss the possibility of a marriage between
Prince Henry and a younger daughter of the duke of Savoy, but he had returned
to London by early June, allegedly after quarrelling with the English
ambassador, Sir Henry Wotton*. The Venetian ambassador in Turin, who referred
to Rich by his father’s title and inexplicably described him and his companions
as ‘good Catholics’, reported that it was rumoured that Wotton was jealous of
his young companion, who attracted as much attention and as many gifts from the
duke as he did himself. On one occasion, Rich was invited into the private
chapel of the duke, who then ‘engaged him in long discourse’ over dinner.
However, another rumour, also related by the Venetian ambassador, was that
Wotton, far from being jealous of his young companion, had actually attempted
to prevent him from returning to England by engineering the robbery of his cash
and goods. Whatever the truth may have been, it
is clear that Rich forged a lasting link with the House of Savoy. In June 1613
he provided a banquet and play at his father’s house in Holborn for the
extraordinary Savoyard ambassador. Moreover, following the outbreak of
hostilities between Spain and Savoy over the succession to the northern Italian
fiefdom of Montferrat in the summer of 1614, the king instructed Rich to be
ready to raise 4,000 troops for service under the duke at short notice. Anxious that the duke should not make
peace, Rich was undoubtedly disappointed at James’s subsequent decision to
avoid military intervention. The First War of the Mantuan
Succession ended in 1615, but after Savoy reopened hostilities in the following
year Rich evidently contemplated offering his services to the duke, and in
March 1617 he was licensed to travel abroad for one year ‘to serve any foreign
prince in amity with His Majesty’. Rich was returned to
the 1614 Parliament as a knight of the shire for Essex, apparently unopposed.His father was undoubtedly
instrumental in this, as Rich, who was not named to the bench until 1617,
exercised little independent influence in the county. Once at Westminster Rich
made just two recorded speeches. In the first, delivered on 12 Apr., he
proposed to defer consideration of the grace bills and supply until after the
House had taken communion. In the second, which he made on the day of the
dissolution (7 June), he belatedly suggested that the House should vote one or
two subsidies ‘so as the king will hear the impositions in Parliament’. He was
named to only six legislative committees, one of which - the Vere
naturalization bill (17 May) - concerned an important Essex family. The
remainder dealt with false bail (16 Apr.), the foundation of the Charterhouse
hospital (9 May), the lands of Herbert Pelham (17 May), the newly instituted
order of baronets (23 May) and the ex officio oath (31 May). In addition to these
bill committees, Rich was also appointed to help draft a message to the king
regarding ‘undertakers’ (13 Apr.); to consider the words criticizing the House
allegedly uttered by Bishop Neile (25 May); and to attend the conference with
the Lords regarding the bill concerning the Elector Palatine and his wife (14
April). In 1615 Rich helped to
found the Somers Island Company, investing heavily in the venture over the next
few years, though initially at least he failed to turn a profit. The following year he exploited the
mounting difficulties of Sir Edward Coke at Court to obtain his share of the
Hatton estates on behalf of his wife. Rich offered to pay off the outstanding
debt owed to the Crown by the Hatton estate, which amounted to £7,500. At the
same time he entered into an agreement over the division of the estate with Sir
Christopher Hatton, who now became his ally. Foolishly, Coke, whose income was
threatened by the loss of the lease of the Hatton lands, attempted to conceal
Rich’s offer, and also the fact that he had earlier forced Sir Christopher to
enter into a legally binding agreement not to pay off the debt to the Crown. On learning the truth the king was
furious, and in mid-November he stripped Coke of office and accepted Rich’s
offer to buy out the extent laid on the Hatton estate. However, Rich was forced
to raise his initial bid to £10,000 after Lady Hatton put in a counter-offer. Although Rich now succeeded in gaining
control of most of his wife’s share of the Hatton inheritance, Coke tried to
retain possession of both Hatton House, in London, and his Dorset seat at Corfe
Castle. He also threatened to seize his wife’s lands if she signed various
assurances to Rich and Hatton regarding her annuity from the Hatton estates.In response, Rich rallied to the
defence of Coke’s estranged wife, even joining the band of armed men she
gathered together after Coke abducted her daughter. Following the outbreak
of the Second War of the Mantuan Succession in 1616, Rich resolved to assist
Savoy despite the fact that the king was then pursuing a Spanish Match for
Prince Charles. He consequently fitted out a warship and secretly obtained
letters of marque from the Savoyard agent in England and from the grand duke of
Tuscany. He was joined in this risky venture by Philip Barnardi, an Italian merchant
living in London, who was licensed to set out a second ship. Together their vessels sailed for the
Indian Ocean where, in September 1617, they espied a richly laden junk
belonging to the mother of the great mogul. As they were about to seize this
fabulous prize they were captured by vessels of the English East India Company
under Admiral Pring. A calamity was thereby averted, for as Pring informed his
employers in London, had the two privateers succeeded in taking the junk and
their nationality been discovered, ‘all your goods in this country could not
have made satisfaction’.The ships were subsequently destroyed
by the East India Company, whose agents also sold the goods aboard them.Well before news of the
events in the Indian Ocean reached England in late October 1618 Rich’s
privateering voyage caused alarm in both the East India and Levant Companies,
whose charters gave them a monopoly in eastern waters. After the duke of Savoy
asked James to permit Rich’s vessels to resupply in an English port before
making their way to Villafranca to unlade, both Companies protested in February
1618 that Rich had set out privateers without royal authority, whereupon James
refused the duke’s request. Undeterred, Rich looked to the magistrates of Emden
instead. He also set out a second ship for the
West Indies under the authority of the letters of marque he had already
received from Savoy. Despite the hostility of the East
India and Levant Companies, Rich remained in favour at Court for the time being.
At the beginning of 1618 he brokered the agreement which resulted in the
marriage of James’s favourite, Lord Hay, and Rich’s cousin Lucy Percy, daughter
of the 9th earl of Northumberland. James was so delighted that he conferred
upon Rich the sale price of a newly created barony. Even after James learned that Rich had
set out privateers without royal authority, there is no evidence that Rich fell
into disfavour. On the contrary, in July 1618 Rich succeeded in persuading the
king to allow his father, who had agreed to buy an earldom for £10,000, the
title of earl of Warwick.As late as mid-October 1618 James sent
Rich and his brother, Sir Henry, to Gravesend to greet the newly arrived
Turkish ambassador. When news of the events
involving Rich’s ships in the Indian Ocean finally reached England, the
government stayed the grant of a new charter allowing Rich and his associates
sole trading rights in West Africa until it was established whether these would
prejudice the activities of the East India Company. The charter was subsequently allowed
to proceed, but in February 1619, after Rich seized one of the East India
Company’s ships for destroying his vessels, he was summoned before the king and
the Privy Council, where he was roughly handled. James’s displeasure proved short
lived, however, for later that year Rich was awarded half the money due to the
Admiralty Court by the East India Company for the capture of his ships. Bent on revenge, Rich now resolved to
gain maximum advantage from this grant. Although his ships had been small he
claimed that the expedition had cost him £19,466, whereupon the Company
produced a certificate compiled by the principal officers of Rich’s ships which
put the true figure at less than £1,280. The dispute
dragged on until 1628 when, through the mediation of the House of Lords, the
Company was induced to pay £4,000 in compensation. Following the death of
his father in March 1619, Rich came into a substantial inheritance. Although
the rumour that his father had enjoyed an annual income of £15,000 was
exaggerated, Rich’s net receipts in Essex in 1628
amounted to £6,471 1s.,
while an inventory of his estates taken in 1640 put his annual income at
£7,190. Rich made no effort to conceal his
delight at landing such a fortune, prompting Chamberlain to note with mock
concern that unless he stopped celebrating he ‘is like to be Rich in
nomine tantum’. On his death in April 1658 Warwick
bequeathed an estate still largely intact to his feckless eldest son Robert,
who represented Essex in Parliament in 1629 and 1640. He was buried on 1 May in
the family’s chapel at Felsted, in Essex. His likeness is preserved in portraits
by Van Dyck and Mytens.
(http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1604-1629/member/rich-sir-robert-1588-1658)
4. Edward MONTAGU, 2nd Earl of Manchester
He
was the eldest son of the 1st Earl by his first wife, Catherine Spencer,
granddaughter of Sir William Spencer of Yarnton, Oxfordshire, England, was born
in 1602, and was educated at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge (1618–22). Montagu accompanied Prince Charles during his 1623
trip to Habsburg Spain in pursuit of the Spanish Match. He was Member of
Parliament for Huntingdonshire in the "Happy Parliament" of 1623-24,
the "Useless Parliament" of 1625, and the Parliament of 1625-26. At
the time of Charles I's coronation in February 1626, he was made a Knight
Companion of the Order of the Bath (KB) to reward him for his service to
Charles in Spain. In May, with help from George Villiers, 1st Duke of
Buckingham, Montagu was elevated to the House of Lords, receiving his father's
barony of Kimbolton and being styled Viscount Mandeville as a courtesy title,
since his father had been created Earl of Manchester in February when
Parliament convened. His first wife, who was related to the Duke of
Buckingham, having died in 1625 after two years of marriage, Mandeville married
in 1626 Anne Rich, daughter of Robert Rich, 2nd Earl of Warwick (Manchester's fourth wife was Anne's stepmother Eleanor Wortley, Countess of Warwick). As a result of her marriage, Eleanor Wortley was styled as Countess of Manchester circa 1659.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Montagu,_2nd_Earl_of_Manchester)
