GRAHAM (GRAHME, GREAMES, GRIMES), Richard (c.1583-1654), of Cannon Row, Westminster; Norton Conyers, Wath, Yorks. and Netherby Hall, Kirkandrews-upon-Esk, Cumb.

Graham came from one of the more obscure branches of a border clan, notorious for its participation in violent raiding, that settled at Plump by the middle of the sixteenth century.HMC Hatfield, xviii. 79. His elder brother was deported to the Low Countries after a particularly audacious week of pillage in 1603, and his ‘debatable lands’ were granted to George Clifford, 3rd earl of Cumberland.Spence, 104-5. Graham himself ‘came on foot to London and got entertained into ... Buckingham’s service, having some spark of wit, and skill in moss-trooping and horse-coursing’.E. Sandford, Antiqs. and Fams. of Cumb. 50. Despite a temporary loss of office in 1620 after a duel with his employer’s kinsman, a younger son of Basil Feilding*, he was able to lay out £3,955 on the purchase of property in Lincolnshire in 1621-2.Chamberlain Letters ed. N.E. McClure, ii. 300; Spence, 116-17. As a part-time resident in Cumberland, he endeavoured to reform vice there by building a church and educating the young.CSP Dom. 1619-23, p. 339. Appointed customer of Carlisle in 1623, he was granted permission to execute the office by deputy on account of his attendance at Court.Ibid. 508. In the same year, with Sir Francis Cottington* and Endymion Porter†, he accompanied Buckingham and Prince Charles on their ill-fated journey to Spain.HMC Mar and Kellie, ii. 151; CJ, i. 725b, 727a. In 1624 he bought Norton Conyers from his wife’s family, the Musgraves, for £6,500.C78/305/17; VCH Yorks. (N. Riding), ii. 393. During the autumn he fought a duel with another follower of Buckingham, Sackville Crowe*, but again escaped serious consequences.Chamberlain Letters, ii. 577. Graham took the credit for persuading Lord Robartes to buy a peerage for £3,000 in 1625, and Edward Clarke* heard that he had been rewarded with a suit valued at £500 a year.Procs. 1626, ii. 359; Harl. 1580, f. 278v.

Graham was first elected for Carlisle, ten miles from his Cumbrian estate, in 1626, during the mayoralty of his kinsman Edward Aglionby*, who acted as returning officer. He left no trace on the records of the second Caroline Parliament, though he may have heard his transaction with Robartes mentioned in Sir John Eliot’s* report on 24 Mar. 1626 of the charges of corruption levelled against Buckingham.Procs. 1626, ii. 363. Graham attended his master on the expedition to the Ile de Ré in 1627, and with John Ashburnham* helped to rally a faltering regiment at the landing.CSP Dom. 1627-8, p. 265; R. Lockyer, Buckingham, 381-2. He was re-elected in 1628, but again went unnoticed in the parliamentary records. On 8 July he re-purchased Nicholl Forest and other ‘debatable lands’ formerly confiscated from his family, from the Cliffords at the favourable price of £7,050.CSP Dom. 1628-9, p. 198. After his patron’s assassination he was granted a market and fair on his Cumberland estate, and rebuilt Kirkandrews church in 1637, though in a thoroughly shoddy manner.Trans. Cumb. and Westmld. Antiq. and Arch. Soc. viii. 291-2; W. Nicolson, Misc. Accts. Dioc. Carlisle, 142; CSP Dom. 1629-31, p. 298; 1635, p. 15.

Graham kept in touch with his constituency through Aglionby; but to his surprise and dismay the corporation rejected his claims as freeman, benefactor and former Member to represent them in the Short Parliament.Cumb. RO (Carlisle), Ca2/120/10, 17, 22 (Graham to Carlisle corp., 30 Jan., 28 Feb. 1640). Wounded in the royalist army at Edgehill (1642), he resided in the York garrison until its surrender.Clarendon, Hist. of the Rebellion ed. W.D. Macray, ii. 353; Royalist Comp. Pprs. ed. J.W. Clay (Yorks. Arch. Soc. rec. ser. xv), 128-31. Taken prisoner while on his way from Oxford to Newark in November 1645, he promptly submitted to Parliament and was thus able to compound for his delinquency at a favourable rate, paying £2,385 on an estate of just under £1,250 a year.CCC, 1018. He made his will on 26 Mar. 1653, leaving a portion of £1,500 for his only unmarried daughter, who was named after the queen, and an annuity of £20 for a cousin, at whose house in Newmarket Graham died on 28 Jan. 1654. He was buried in his own chapel at Wath.PROB 11/240, f. 133v; Abstracts of Yorks. Wills ed. J.W. Clay (Yorks. Arch. Soc. rec. ser. ix), 61-2; Top. and Gen. iii. 418. His Cumberland property had been settled on his elder son, who died before the Restoration; his grandson Sir Richard Grahme was given a Scottish peerage and represented the county under James II. Graham’s younger son founded another branch of the family at Norton Conyers.