RICH, Sir Robert (c.1588-1658), of Wallington, Norf., Hackney, Mdx. and Allington House, Holborn, Mdx.; later of Leez Priory, Essex

Scion of one of the greatest landowners in England, W. Hunt, Puritan Moment, 161. 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’. Calamy, 36-7. 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’. Clarendon, Hist. of the Rebellion ed. W.D. Macray, ii. 544.

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. Hunt, 163 (we are grateful to Mr. Christopher Thompson for this ref.); Oxford DNB sub ‘Culverwell family’. 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†. CSP Dom. 1603-10, p. 152; Chamberlain Letters, i. 204. 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. Hunt, 164.

Gawdy died in December 1605, whereupon administration of his estate was granted to Rich. Index to Admons. in PCC 1596-1608 ed. M. Fitch (Brit. Rec. Soc. lxxxi), iv. 52. 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. LJ, ii. 454b, 456b, 462b; HMC Hatfield, xviii. 434-5. 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. C142/329/193. 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. CJ, i. 293b, 303a; HLRO, O.A. 3 Jas.I, c. 38.

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. CSP Dom. 1603-10, p. 414. 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. Bodl. Tanner 283, f. 98.

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. Illustrations of Brit. Hist. ed. E. Lodge, iii. 223; Progs. of Jas. I ed. J. Nichols, ii. 186; iii. 76, 215; Chamberlain Letters, i. 440. 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, SO3/4, unfol; CSP Dom. 1603-10, p. 581. For his Wallington address, see also Norf. RO, Hare mss 2735, 294/6. 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. CJ, i. 398b, 399a, 400a, 417a.

In October 1611 it was rumoured that Rich had died at Bristol. Chamberlain Letters, i. 306. 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. Recs. Virg. Co. iii. 87. 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. CSP Ven. 1610-13, pp. 368, 377. 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. Chamberlain Letters, i. 459; CSP Ven. 1613-15, pp. 210, 219, 227, 266. Anxious that the duke should not make peace, Rich was undoubtedly disappointed at James’s subsequent decision to avoid military intervention. PRO 30/53/7, f. 14; CSP Ven. 1613-15, p. 332. 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’. SO3/6, unfol.

Rich was returned to the 1614 Parliament as a knight of the shire for Essex, apparently unopposed. Chamberlain Letters, i. 518. 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). Procs. 1614 (Commons), 65, 76, 82, 91, 176, 267-8, 323, 346, 393, 439.

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 Rich Pprs. from Bermuda ed. V.A. Ives, 10, 28. 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. Northants. RO, FH1174; CSP Dom. 1611-18, p. 376. 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. APC, 1615-16, p. 647. 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. APC, 1616-17, pp. 184-5. For additional details, see SIR EDWARD COKE and SIR CHRISTOPHER HATTON. For the conveyance to Rich of the Hatton lands in Northamptonshire, see E367/1318. 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. APC, 1616-17, pp. 258-9, 309, 322-3; Holles Letters ed. P. Seddon (Thoroton Soc. rec. ser. xxxv), ii. 181-2. 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. Letters and Life of Francis Bacon ed. J. Spedding, vi. 226.

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. CSP Ven. 1615-17, p. 437; Letters Received by the E.I. Co. ed. W. Foster, vi. 174; CSP Col. E.I. 1617-21, p. 248. The Venetian secretary in England incorrectly referred to Rich as ‘Lord’ Rich and gave the number of ships as three. CSP Col. E.I. 1617-21, p. 248. Rich may have travelled to Italy in person to register the ships with the duke of Savoy: H.G.R. Reade, Sidelights on the Thirty Years’ War, 212; SO3/6, unfol., March 1617. 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’. CSP Col. E.I. 1617-21, pp. 94, 121, 139; S. Purchas, Purchas His Pilgrimes, v. 4. The ships were subsequently destroyed by the East India Company, whose agents also sold the goods aboard them. CSP Col. E.I. 1617-21, pp. 205-6, 232.

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. SP92/5, f. 216; CSP Col. E.I. 1617-21, pp. 133, 176. 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. Oxford DNB, ‘Robert Rich’; E. Sluiter, ‘New Light on the "20. and Odd Negroes" Arriving in Virginia, August 1619’, William and Mary Quarterly (ser. 3), liv. 395. After the end of the 2nd Mantuan War, this ship, the Treasurer, made her way to Virginia. 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. CSP Dom. 1611-18, p. 513. 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. HMC Bath, ii. 68; Chamberlain Letters, ii. 162-3. As late as mid-October 1618 James sent Rich and his brother, Sir Henry, to Gravesend to greet the newly arrived Turkish ambassador. Chamberlain Letters, ii. 170; Progs. of Jas. I, iii. 492.

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. CSP Col. E.I. 1617-21, p. 207. 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. Ibid. 246, 248. 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. Ibid. 327, 329. 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. Ibid. 329-30. 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. Ibid. 1625-9, pp. 512-13, 516, 518-19; MAURICE ABBOT.

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, CSP Ven. 1610-13, p. 368. 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. P. Benton, Hist. Rochford Hundred, 829. We are grateful to Mr. Christopher Thompson for the 1628 fig. 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’. Chamberlain Letters, ii. 225. 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. Calamy, title page. His likeness is preserved in portraits by Van Dyck and Mytens.