Richard Rich, 1st Baron Rich

"Richard Rich" redirects here. For other uses, see Richard Rich (disambiguation).

The 1st Lord Rich.

Sir Richard Rich, 1st Baron Rich (1496/7 – 12 June 1567), was Lord Chancellor during the reign of King Edward VI of England (r. 1547 - 1553). He was the founder of Felsted School with its associated alms houses in Essex in 1564.

Since the mid-sixteenth century Rich has had a highly negative reputation for amorality, financial dishonesty, double dealing, perjury and treachery that is seldom matched in all of English history. The low point was his perjury that convicted Sir Thomas More of treason. While on trial, Sir Thomas said that Sir Richard was always reputed light of his tongue, a great dicer and gamester, and not of any commendable fame. Be that as may be, he was a commissioner of the peace in Hertfordshire in 1528, and in the next autumn became reader at the Middle Temple.

Early life and education

He was the second son of Richard Rich of Hampshire and Joan Dingley. He was born in the parish of St Lawrence Jewry in London. His grandfather was Richard Rich who died in 1469. He was described as being 54 in 1551^{[citation needed]} which gives him a birth year of around 1497. He may have had connections with a Rich family prominent in the Mercer's Company in the 15th century. Early pedigrees linking him to a Richard Rich of St Lawrence Jewry are incorrect.^{[citation needed]} Beyond that, little is known of his early life.

He may have studied at Cambridge before 1516.^{[citation needed]} In 1516 he entered the Middle Temple as a lawyer and at some point between 1520 and 1525 he was a reader at the New Inn. By 1528 we know that Rich was in search of a patron and wrote to Cardinal Wolsey, in 1529, Thomas Audley succeeded in helping him get elected as an MP. As Audley's career advanced in the early 1530s so did Rich's through a variety of legal posts, before he became truly prominent in the mid-1530s.

Career

Other preferments followed, and in 1533 he was knighted and became Solicitor General, in which capacity he was to act under Thomas Cromwell as a "lesser hammer" for the demolition of the monasteries, and to secure the operation of Henry VIII's Act of Supremacy. He had an odious share in the trials of Thomas More and Bishop John Fisher. In both cases his evidence against the prisoner included admissions made in friendly conversation, and in More's case the words were given a misconstruction that could hardly be other than wilful. More expressed his opinion of the witness in open court with a candour that might well have dismayed Rich. In an irony, Rich would also play a major part in the fall of Cromwell, whom he despised, using similarly dubious methods.

As King's Solicitor, Rich travelled to Kimbolton Castle in January 1536 to take the inventory of the goods of Catherine of Aragon, and wrote to Henry advising how he might properly obtain her possessions.

Chancellor

Rich became the chancellor (19 April 1536) of the Court of Augmentations established for the disposal of the monastic revenues. His own share of the spoil, acquired either by grant or purchase, included Leez (Leighs) Priory and about a hundred manors in Essex. Rich also acquired—and destroyed—the real estate and holdings of the Priory of St Bartholomew-the-Great in Smithfield. He built the Tudor-style gatehouse still surviving in London as the upper portion of the Smithfield Gate. He was Speaker of the House of Commons in the same year, and advocated the king's policy. In spite of the share he had taken in the suppression of the monasteries, and of the part he was to play under Edward VI, his religious convictions remained Roman Catholic. His testimony helped the conviction of Thomas Cromwell. Rich was also a participant in the only recorded torture of a gentlewoman at the Tower of London, Anne Askew, who later stated that Chancellor Wriothesley and Rich had screwed the rack to torture her with their own hands.

Baron Rich of Leez

Leez Priory tower

Rich was an executor of the will of King Henry VIII, on which much suspicion has been thrown, and on 26 February 1548 he became Baron Rich of Leez. In the next month he succeeded Wriothesley as chancellor, an office in which he found full scope for the business and legal ability he undoubtedly possessed. He supported Protector Somerset in his reforms in church matters, in the prosecution of his brother Thomas Seymour, and in the rest of his policy until the crisis of his fortunes in October 1549, when he deserted to Warwick (afterwards Northumberland), and presided over the trial of his former chief. His daughter had married Warwick's eldest son, Henry (1526-1544/5; died at Boulogne). He was one of the subscribers of the device of 21 June 1553 settling the crown on Lady Jane Grey, but he swiftly abandoned his support (as indeed almost everyone else did). During the final years of the reigns of Henry, Edward, and Mary, he was in favour of whatever religion was in power; he was not Catholic enough to oppose the persecution of the Church under Somerset and Northumberland, and he enthusiastically persecuted Protestants during Mary's reign.

Prosecution of bishops

Rich took part in the prosecution of bishops Stephen Gardiner and Edmund Bonner, and had a role in the harsh treatment accorded to the future Mary I of England. However, Mary on her accession showed no ill-will to Rich. He retired from the chancellorship on the grounds of ill-health in the close of 1551, at the time of the final breach between Northumberland and Somerset. He was now sixty years old, and there is no reason to suspect the sincerity of his plea. There is an improbable story, however, to the effect that Rich warned Somerset of his danger in the Tower of London, and that the letter was delivered by mistake to Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk, who handed it to Northumberland.

Lord Rich took an active part in the restoration of the old religion in Essex under the new reign, and was one of the most active of persecutors. His reappearances in the privy council were rare during Mary's reign; but under Elizabeth he served on a commission to inquire into the grants of land made under Mary, and in 1566 was sent for to advise on the question of the queen's marriage. He died at Rochford in Essex, on 12 June 1567, and was buried in Felsted church.

In Mary's reign he had founded a chaplaincy with provision for the singing of masses and dirges, and the ringing of bells in Felsted church. To this was added a Lenten allowance of herrings to the inhabitants of three parishes. These donations were transferred in 1564 to the foundation of Felsted School for instruction, primarily for children born on the founder's manors, in Latin, Greek and divinity. The patronage of the school remained in the family of the founder until 1851. By his wife Elizabeth Jenks, or Gynkes, he had fifteen children. The eldest son Robert (1537?–1581), second Baron Rich, supported the Reformation. One grandson, Richard Rich, was the first husband of Catherine Knyvet and another grandson Robert, third lord, was created Earl of Warwick in 1618.

In Popular Culture

He is the great villain in the play by Robert Bolt and the Oscar-winning film A Man for All Seasons. In the 1966 film he was played by John Hurt.

He was played by Jonathan Hackett in a 1988 television movie.

He is a supporting character in the Shardlake crime novels by C. J. Sansom, which are set in the reign of Henry VIII. Rich is portrayed as a cruel villain who is prepared to subvert justice in order to enhance his property and position. He has a significant role in the plot of Sovereign, the third of the series and in Heartstone, the fifth.

He is also represented on seasons two, three and four of the Showtime series The Tudors by actor Rod Hallett.

The historian Lord Dacre dismissed him as a man "of whom nobody has ever spoken a good word".^{[citation needed]}

Bibliography

• P. R. N. Carter, "Rich, Richard, first Baron Rich (1496/7–1567)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, (2004) online edition accessed 30 Aug 2011
• John Guy, Thomas More (2000)
• W. C. Richardson, History of the court of augmentations, 1536–1554 (1961) ·
• R. S. Sylvester and D. P. Harding, eds., Two early Tudor lives (1962)
• Engebretson, Elizabeth. Richard Rich, the Man Who Kept His Head (Author House Lt. UK 2006 ), a novel

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. 

External links

• Luminarium Encyclopedia; England under the Tudors: Richard Rich, 1st Baron Rich

Political offices
Preceded by Sir Humphrey Wingfield	Speaker of the House of Commons 1536	Succeeded by Sir Nicholas Hare
Preceded by The Lord St John (Keeper of the Great Seal)	Lord Chancellor 1547–1551	Succeeded by Thomas Goodrich (Keeper of the Great Seal)
Peerage of England
Preceded by New Creation	Baron Rich 1548–1567	Succeeded by Robert Rich