r.3. Sir. Edward WORTLEY

r.3.  Sir Edward, geb. c. 1594, of Ordsdell,. Nottinghamshire x  02/07/1627 met Elizabeth ELDRED, ged. 27/06/1596, Middlesex, London, Engeland,  d.v. John Eldred of London. Wed. van Sir Samuel Tryer, Baronet of Boys Hall, Halstead, Essex.

Edward was die seun van Richard Wortley en Elizabeth Boughton.

(Foster, Joseph:  Pedigrees of the County Families of Yorkshire, Vol. 2, West Riding. London. 1874)

(The Visitation of Essex, 1612.  P 303)

Sir Samuel Tryon, of Halstead, county of Essex, baronet, son of Peter and Mary, was born in England and christened at Austin Friars, Mar. 25, 1582. He was knighted by King James at Newmarket, Apr. 25, 1613, and was made a baronet on Mar. 28, 1620. He married Elizabeth Eldred, daughter of John Eldred of London. Sir Samuel died at Boys Hall on Mar. 8, 1627, and was buried on the north side of the chancel of Halstead Church. Elizabeth married second, Sir Edward Wortley, knight, and second son of Sir Richard Wortley, of Wortley, county of York, baronet.

(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)

Die dorpie Ordsall is naby die markdorp Retford, Nottinghamshire, Engeland. Die gemeente Ordsall het eeue lank bestaan uit die dorpie en twee klein nedersettings, Thrumpton en Whitehouses. Die kerklike gemeente Ordsall het vroeër 'n veel groter gebied as die Ordsall-dorpie beslaan.

The last of the de Hency family was Sir John, who died in 1570. His daughter, Barbara, married George Nevile, who probably sold the Ordsall property with the Advowson to Samuel Bevercotes, and so he became possessed of the living. Na ‘n kort rukkie het dit in die besit van die Wortley family van Yorkshire gekom. Thomas Cornwallis married Anne, only daughter of Samuel Bevercotes, and he sold his Ordsall property to Lady Wortley, who became Countess of Devonshire on her second marriage. (http://www.nottshistory.org.uk/monographs/ordsall1940/ordsall10.htm) The Countess of Devonshire, settled it on her son, Sir Edward Wortley. The patronage of the Church went with the Manor, and this continued in the Wortley family for nearly three centuries. (http://www.nottshistory.org.uk/monographs/ordsall1940/ordsall21.htm)

Edward Wortley se biografie soos beskryf in: The history of parliament.

Constituency Dates
EAST RETFORD 1621; EAST RETFORD 1626

b. aft. 1591, 2nd s. of Sir Richard Wortley (d.1603) of Wortley Hall and Elizabeth, da. of Edward Boughton† of Cawston, Warws.; bro. of Sir Francis.

Educ. I. Temple 1612; travelled abroad (Low Countries) 1616. M. 2 July 1627, Elizabeth (d.1665), da. of John Eldred, merchant, of London and Great Saxham, Suff., wid. of Sir Samuel Tryon, 1st bt., of Boys Hall, Halstead, Essex, s.p.3 kntd. 6 Aug. 1621.4 d. by 21 Oct. 1661.

Offices Held
Freeman, Leicester, Leics. 1620; Commr. assessment, Notts. 1647-52, Militia 1648, J.P. by 1650-at least 1657.

Gent. of the privy chamber extraordinary by c.1641.

Wortley was the younger son of a prosperous West Riding knight. By 1610 his mother had remarried, taking as her second husband William Cavendish, 1st Lord Cavendish and subsequently 1st earl of Devonshire. Admitted to the Inner Temple in 1612, one of his pledges was Richard Dyott, whose step-mother was Wortley’s aunt. Wortley may initially have intended to pursue a legal career, but then thought better of it. Recommending him to the care of William Trumbull, the ambassador to Brussels, Samuel Calvert stated in 1616 that Wortley, “not being fit for the study of the law” had decided “to travel a while for his experience” Calvert described him as a “little volage, but very honest, loving and kind full of friends and great alliance. However his sister, the wife of Sir Edward Radcliffe, found him a woeful man to have to do with, so furious and everything must be as he list. Wortley’s admission to the freedom of Leicester in 1620 suggests that he was the unnamed son the countess of Devonshire nominated there for election to the 1621 Parliament. The corporation rejected her nomination but she was more successful at East Retford, where her influence was partly derived from that of her first husband. Wortley’s father had owned two manors, Babworth and Bollom, both within a couple of miles of East Retford. When he had settled the estate in 1597 these properties formed part of his wife’s jointre. In addition, the countess had recently purchased extensive properties at Ordsall, within a mile of East Retford, which she had settled on Wortley. Moreover the earl of Devonshire owned the advowson of East Retford parish schurch. Wortley made no recorded contribution to the proceedings of the 1621 Parliament. (http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1604-1629/member/wortley-edward-1591-1661)

On Shrewsbury’s death in 1616 the Talbot estates were divided up between the earl’s three daughters. East Retford’s next high steward was thus not a peer but Sir Gervase Clifton who, ‘being a near neighbour’, was someone ‘from whom the town had received many favours’. However, despite a promising beginning, Clifton subsequently found it difficult to maintain the high steward’s parliamentary patronage in the borough, perhaps because of his lower social status. In 1620 he almost certainly nominated the Essex gentleman Sir Nathaniel Rich, a connection of his first wife, who took the senior seat. Sir John Holles, by now Lord Houghton, sought the remaining place for his eldest son, John, but warned the latter on 16 Nov. 1620 that William, 3rd earl of Pembroke, whose wife was one of Shrewsbury’s heirs, and Pembroke’s principal local agent George Lassells, had already ‘spoken to those of Retford for their burgess before I sent to them’. This strongly suggests that Pembroke had nominated Lassells for the seat, but if he did so then Lassells was either rejected or was defeated after a contest, as the place went to Edward Wortley, whose mother held considerable property in the neighbourhood in jointure and whose second husband, William Cavendish†, 1st earl of Devonshire, owned the advowson of the East Retford parish church. (http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1604-1629/constituencies/east-retford)

KNIGHTS BACHELORS
1610-11, Jan. 15. FRANCIS WORTLEY, of Co. Yorks. (at Theobalds).
1621, Aug. 6. EDWARD WORTLEY, of Co. York, (at Belvoir Castle).
1629, Sept. 24. THOMAS WORTELEY (at Hampton Court).
(Shaw, WM. A. ed.: The Knights of England. A Complete Record from the Earliest Time to the Present Day of the Knights of all the Orders of Chivalry in England, Scotland, and Ireland, and of Knights Bachelors.)

Wortley probably stood again at East Retford in 1624, but was defeated by John Holles. He was certainly a candidate at the subsequent election held on 9 Mar. after Holles colleague (Sir) Nathaniel Rich plumped for Harwich, but he was defeated by John Darcy. At the by election following Darcy’s death on 21 Apr, Wortley stood aside for his elder brother Sir Francis, who was elected on that occasion and again in 1625.  (http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1604-1629/member/wortley-edward-1591-1661)

 In 1624 Clifton again nominated Rich, who was elected, according to the town clerk Robert Browne, with ‘not one voice dissenting’. However there was ‘great opposition’ for the other seat, indicating that John Holles was only chosen after a contest. The other candidate or candidates were not named in Browne’s account, but it is likely that Edward Wortley, now knighted, also stood. Following the election Rich agreed to serve for Harwich, where he had also been returned, at the request of the countess of Devonshire to make way for Sir Edward Wortley.  However this private agreement cut across the rights of Clifton as high steward and consequently on 23 Feb., the day after Rich formally plumped for Harwich, Clifton’s messenger, a Mr. Saunderson, arrived in East Retford. Having determined that the bailiffs, who were unaware that Rich had been returned twice, had not already promised the vacant seat to someone else, Saunderson presented Clifton’s letter recommending John Darcy, the son of the 3rd Lord Darcy and nephew of Clifton’s close friend Sir Peter Frescheville. The bailiffs thereupon convened a meeting of the aldermen and freemen for the following day, at which Clifton’s letter was read out. According to Robert Browne, the assembly ‘generally approved’ of its contents, ‘not one burgess gainsaying’ the choice of Darcy. The next day, however, saw the arrival of the countess of Devonshire’s messenger, Philip Spurling, with her nomination of Sir Edward Wortley. On learning that the corporation had already committed itself to Darcy, Spurling refused to withdraw and ‘requested a fair election’. In order to accomplish this, however, he needed time in which to build up a party in the town for Wortley. Fortunately for him he possessed the means to delay the election as, before leaving Westminster, he had obtained the writ for the election which, naturally, he refused to hand over to the bailiffs, claiming that he was first owed a fee for its carriage. When the bailiffs refused payment, on the ground that no fee was due for writs conveyed on the king’s business, Spurling delivered the writ to the sheriff, whose precept did not reach the borough until 5 March. Consequently, the election was not held until 9 March. Between his arrival in East Retford on 26 Feb. and the date of the election Spurling succeeded in building up an impressive political machine which, if not successful in securing the election for Wortley, did seriously alarm Clifton’s supporters. The core of Wortley’s support came from townsmen connected to the countess of Devonshire and those disaffected with the corporation. The former group included the bailiff of the countess’ nearby property and the vicar, who used his Sunday sermon to sing the praises of his patroness, ‘naming the countess divers times …, pressing what good her honour had done to him and intended to the town’. In addition the family of Richard Elsam, a prominent supporter of Wortley, came from the manor of Ordsall, part of the countess’ property near the town. Wortley supporters also included Thomas Draper, who had been dismissed as alderman ‘for his miscarriage and evil government’ in 1622, and Richard Welch, a butcher who had long been in dispute with the corporation about commercial premises in the borough. Spurling used various forms of persuasion to reach beyond his core support. He argued that Darcy was too young to be elected, claiming that he was only 16, whereas he was probably 22. He also alleged that Clifton was actually indifferent to the outcome of the election, said that Clifton was not ‘great enough’ to act as patron for the borough, ‘for he could not speak to the king for the town if need be’, and questioned the legality of Clifton’s office, arguing that ‘the town had no power to make a high steward’. This was presumably a reference to the fact that the office of high steward was not actually mentioned in the 1607 charter. Furthermore, Spurling made various threats and promises on behalf of the countess of Devonshire. She would, he declared, establish a workhouse in the town to relieve the poor if Wortley were elected, but if she did not get her way any enclosures on property leased by freemen from the earl or countess of Devonshire would be levelled and actions brought for trespass. Moreover, the poor would lose their rights to glean in her fields and gather fuel in her woods. Although the poor had no vote, Spurling was clearly hoping to intimidate them into coercing the freemen. Spurling also used more direct inducements to influence the voters. According to Browne, the town clerk, Spurling’s faction ‘spent bravely and entertained their burgesses that they won with brave merriments at the tavern’, inviting their wives as well ‘to make their husbands faster’, and running up a bar bill of £40. Direct bribery was also used to buy the votes of the ‘poorer burgesses’, the going rating varying between £2 and £4 a vote, so that by the eve of the election the ‘common speech through the town’ was ‘ten pounds for three voices’. To prevent any backsliding, those whose votes were purchased were forced to sign an agreement and threatened with prosecution in Star Chamber if they broke their promise. Naturally, Wortley’s supporters subsequently cast doubt on the charge that they had bought votes, claiming that the allegation was ‘slenderly proved by persons of mean condition’, and that there was only one witness per each incident. To counteract Spurling’s threats and rumours the bailiffs convened a meeting on 1 Mar., at which Clifton’s messenger, Saunderson, reassured the freemen that Clifton was serious in his support for Darcy, and how ‘fearful Sir Gervase was to hazard my Lord Darcy’s honour and his son’s upon the strength of his letter now in absence’. In addition, the bailiffs and aldermen, ‘fearing that … the town should receive an incurable blemish to have a burgess place thus bought and sold’, tried to pack the electorate at this meeting by enrolling new freemen sympathetic to Clifton. The town clerk Browne claimed that all the new freemen were legitimately enfranchised, being the sons of aldermen, but in a paper apparently drawn up for the Commons’ privileges committee, Wortley’s supporters claimed that only one of the 11 new freemen created was a householder and thus eligible to vote: the rest were ‘foreigners and sojourners’. When Wortley’s supporters presented their own sons to be made free, they were rejected on the grounds that they had not given prior notice and had not brought proof of their sons’ dates of birth. The meeting ended in ‘a great uproar’ and the ‘bailiffs were enforced in all haste to adjourn the court and speed themselves away for fear of some mischief’. On the day of the election the town authorities took steps to maintain order and overawe Wortley’s supporters. The bailiffs posted a guard of 10 or 12 armed men to stand at the door of the Moothall. Sir George Lassells ‘and other gentlemen that were comed [sic] to the town as well wishers to Mr. Darcy’ were asked to patrol the market place during the election to ‘stay the multitude’. Lassells, presumably a relation of George Lassells, was a Nottinghamshire j.p. and friend of Clifton’s, who had been sued by Wortley’s elder brother Sir Francis in Star Chamber in 1620 for beating his servant. In addition the bailiffs and town clerk had the serjeant-at-mace arrest two prominent members of the Wortley party. Only the freemen were allowed into the hall, but then, according to Browne: just as it was plotted beforehand, all the poor of the town, with some others of the commons were brought into the market place accompanied with Vicar Watt and Welch his wife, who emboldened and encouraged them to cry ‘a Wortley, a Wortley’, telling them, that if were not ‘a Wortley’ they and all the town were undone. There upon begun a great cry and noise, with whooping and shouting so loud that we in the hall could not hear one word when the king’s writ was read. Indeed, the disturbance was so great that Browne was forced to stop reading the writ until the noise had died down. When he finally resumed he was again interrupted, this time by the noise from the market place. Nevertheless the bailiffs were eventually able to proceed to the election, and Darcy was returned, winning the seat by a margin precisely equal to the number of new freemen created by the corporation. In his account of the election, Browne constantly emphasized the poverty of Wortley’s supporters. This allowed him to emphasize the use of bribery and threats in Spurling’s campaign, which would have had more influence on the poor freemen, and to portray the Wortley campaign as socially subversive. However, while it is true that only two of the 12 aldermen voted for Wortley, the latter’s supporters included other prominent townsmen, among them at least three former bailiffs. In the aftermath of the election both factions considered how to continue their struggle. During the Easter recess Clifton wrote to the corporation thanking it for ‘preserving my reputation withal which hath ever been of more esteem with me then all I possess’. He also supported a proposal by Browne to have ‘some exemplary punishment … mediated, for avoiding this tumultuous and corrupt carriages of elections hereafter, and to reduce the inferior sort to terms of better conformity’. Browne seems to have been thinking along the lines of a prosecution in Star Chamber, probably because he considered that Wortley’s supporters were essentially guilty of riot. However, Clifton advised a petition to Parliament ‘because it is the proper court for complaints of that nature’. He may also have heard that Wortley’s supporters were preparing to petition the committee for privileges, and consequently wanted to bring a counter suit. The corporation agreed with Clifton, and borrowed £60 to fund their own petition, which was subsequently termed ‘the second or cross petition’ by Wortley’s supporters. One of the most interesting features of the Wortley petition is that its authors never claimed that their candidate had been rightfully elected. Instead they charged Browne with ‘divers misdemeanours’ and sought a new writ. Clifton himself acknowledged the importance of Browne’s ‘endeavours throughout the whole passage’, praising him as not merely ‘firm and cordial’ but also ‘ingenious’. Before the case could be heard, however, Darcy unexpectedly died. The committee nevertheless considered that ‘the misdemeanours, on either side, touching the undue preparation or disturbance of the election remained fully examinable’, and consequently it proceeded to a hearing. As well as complaining of the creation of the new freemen, Wortley’s supporters protested against the arrest of prominent members of their faction by the town serjeant, who apparently told one voter that ‘he would pull the flesh from his bones if he gave his voice for Sir Edward Wortley’. They also argued that the bailiffs had been openly opposed to Wortley and that the security measures adopted on election day had been unnecessary. The committee decided that offences had committed by both sides, but that three Wortley supporters, Spurling, Watt and Welch, were particularly culpable, as was the serjeant. This finding was reported by John Glanville to the Commons on 28 May, but he also recommended that as Darcy was dead, the session was drawing to an end and ‘the offences committed were not very enormous, nor proved for the most part, other than by single testimony’, it would be advisable to ‘pass by the matter’. According to Glanville’s own account the House agreed to these suggestions, but the evidence of the Commons Journal suggests rather that it was decided to let the matter sleep until the next session which, in the event, never transpired. The election of Darcy proved to be a pyrrhic victory for Clifton. At the by-election held to choose Darcy’s replacement Sir Edward Wortley’s elder brother Sir Francis was returned. Sir Francis was re-elected in 1625, and Sir Edward himself was returned again in 1626, when Sir Francis was a candidate in the Yorkshire county election. (http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1604-1629/constituencies/east-retford)

Wortley was re-elected in 1626, when Sir Francis was a candidate in Yorkshire, but once again he made no impression on the surviving parliamentary records. Before the next election Wortley followed his brother’s example in marrying a wealthy London widow. She was sister-in-law to the regicide Miles Corbet. (http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1604-1629/member/wortley-edward-1591-1661) 

During the Civil War Wortley resided peacefully in and around London, promising “to contribute his proportion” to the parliamentary coffers “when his estate comes into his hands” Under a settlement forced on his heavily indebted elder brother he succeeded his mother in control of the Wortley estate when she died in 1642 together with Sir Henry Crofts as trustees for his royalist nephew Francis.(http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1604-1629/member/wortley-edward-1591-1661)

It is remarkable that in the month immediately succeeding the death of the countess a warrant was issued by the Marquis Newcastle to Sir Francis Wortley, not only to disarm and disenable his brother, Sir Edward Wortley, who had been put into possession of the estates of their mother, for safety's sake, no doubt, and had espoused the side of parliament, which was gaining the upper hand; but also to imprison him, if he found cause, and he was himself to handle the lands and cause them to be tilled, manured, and sown, according to the course of husbandry, so that they might the better yield profits and contribute assessments to the king's commissioners. This order does not appear to have been executed, for it came from the weaker side. It was dated 25th November, 1643. 'The estates became sequestered under the common- wealth, and on the 4th April, 1646, Francis Wortley, the younger, took the national covenant and compounded for the lands to which he was heir.  (https://archive.org/stream/wortleywortleysl00gatt/wortleywortleysl00gatt_djvu.txt)

In 1644 his stepson Peter Tryon had to appeal to the House of Lords to force Wortley to surrender a collection of books, which Tryon had been bequeathed by his uncle. The following year Wortley’s sister, now a widow, described him as ”so unworthy and naught; hath not nor will not part with a penny” He was appointed by Parliament to local office in Nottinghamshire from 1647, becoming a j.p. under the Commonwealth, though he resided in a large and well-furnished house on Turnham Green. (http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1604-1629/member/wortley-edward-1591-1661) 

In 1648 information was given that Sir Edward Wortley, Bart, of Great St. Bartholomew's, had in his hands a jewel worth "1,500, given by the Countess of Devon to Sir Henry Griffith's lady, and for which Sir Henry had not compounded. http://www.forgottenbooks.com/readbook_text/The_Records_of_St_Bartholomews_Priory_and_of_the_Church_and_Parish_of_St_v2_1000775768/405

He was still managing the family iron interests in 1658. (http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1604-1629/member/wortley-edward-1591-1661) 

It is of course true that the Wortley estate had been important in iron working, but the signatory to a lease on Wortley Top Forge in 1658 is Sir Edward Wortley, not Sir Francis the younger. Maybe the family estate had been divided, but that would tend to spread more thinly the recovery from supposed poverty. (https://sites.google.com/site/wortleywalledgarden/Home/history/the-wortley-family-history)

John Spencer I (1600 – 1658) appears as lessee on the 1658 lease of Top Forge. The lessor was Sir Edward Wortley (Parliamentary supporter) rather than Sir Francis Wortley II. (https://www.topforge.co.uk/wortley-people-in-history/)

He died intestate soon after the Restoration. Administration of his estate was granted to his widow on 21/10/1661. (http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1604-1629/member/wortley-edward-1591-1661)  Sir Edward Wortley was buried at St. George's Chapel at Windsor. (https://archive.org/stream/wortleywortleysl00gatt/wortleywortleysl00gatt_djvu.txt)

(Long, Charles Edward:  Royal Descents: A Genealogical List of the Several Persons Entitled to quarter the arms of the Royal houses of England, London, MDCCCXLV)

r.2. Eleanor WORTLEY, geb. c. 1592

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, 1^st 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, 6^th 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, 2^nd Earl of Warwick, s.v. Robert Rich en Penelope Devereux xxxx  15/07/1659 met Edward MONTAGU, geb. 1602, oorl. 07/05/1671, 2^nd 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)

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, 2^nd 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, 2^nd 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)