suc. bro. 30 May 1659 as 4th earl of WARWICK
First sat 27 Apr. 1660; last sat 17 Feb. 1668
MP Sandwich 1645-53; Essex 1658-9
b. 1616, 2nd s. of Robert Rich†, 2nd earl of Warwick and Frances, da. of Sir William (Newport) Hatton‡ of Holdenby, Northants. educ. G. Inn 1662. m. 21 July 1641 (with £7,000), Mary (d.1678), da. of Richard Boyle, earl of Cork [I] and Catherine Fenton, 1s. d.v.p., 1da. d.v.p.1 d. 24 Aug. 1673; will 14 Apr.-20 Aug. 1673, pr. 30 Aug. 1673.2
Custos rot. Essex 1660-d.; gov. Landguard Fort, 1660-2.
Associated with: Leighs, Essex and Warwick House, High Holborn, Mdx.
As a younger son, Charles Rich was not expected to succeed to his father’s peerage. His income prior to his succession to the earldom was estimated at only £1,300–£1,400 a year. This being the case, his prospective father-in-law, Cork, considered him to be a totally unsuitable match for his daughter, who stood to inherit a considerable share of his fortune. She nevertheless refused to marry anyone else, and eventually the couple married secretly. Mary Rich enjoyed joining the Warwick household, where ‘great care … was had that God should be most solemnly worshipped’ and where the chaplain was John Gauden, the future bishop of Exeter and then Worcester. She later underwent a conversion experience that influenced her conduct for the rest of her life.3
Rich also held strong religious views. Like his father, the parliamentarian high admiral, he initially supported the parliamentary cause and, during the Commonwealth, had himself sat in Parliament. His wife’s worries about their house being ‘made terrible by … oaths’ rather than ‘perfumed with prayers’ indicates that Rich’s piety did not prevent him from cursing and swearing liberally, but after the Restoration it did secure a measure of protection for those ejected presbyterian ministers who resided in Essex.4 His associates (and close friends) included his cousin the radical Nathaniel Rich‡, his auditor-general, William Jessop‡, the steward of his courts, John Rotherham, and George Montagu‡, brother of Edward Montagu 2nd earl of Manchester. All were former parliamentarian sympathizers. Rotherham, a fervent anti-episcopalian who later stood unsuccessfully for election at Bury St Edmunds and took a leading role in the electoral management of Maldon, was described by Sir John Bramston‡ as a fanatic.5 All benefited from generous legacies at Warwick’s death. Jessop and Montagu had been trustees for his son’s marriage settlement, and both were also appointed trustees for the estates that he bequeathed to his widow.
Rich’s wider family connections, as well as being close-knit, were also parliamentarian and Presbyterian. One sister married John Robartes, 2nd Baron Robartes (later earl of Radnor); after her death Robartes married Warwick’s ‘dear cousin’ Isabella Smythe. Another sister married Nicholas Leke, 2nd earl of Scarsdale. Rich’s nephew had married Frances Cromwell, daughter of the Protector (Oliver Cromwell‡).6 Through his wife he was related to Roger Boyle‡, earl of Orrery [I], and Richard Boyle, Baron Clifford of Lanesborough (later earl of Burlington). Shortly after Rich succeeded his brother in the peerage his stepmother married Manchester. Two of Manchester’s previous wives had also been members of the Rich family (one was another of Warwick’s sisters) and it seems likely that Manchester had considerable influence over the new earl. Certainly at about the same time John Mordaunt, later Viscount Mordaunt, assured his new-found royalist allies that Manchester would use his influence to make the earl of Warwick ‘useful’ in the forthcoming royalist uprising, though Sir Edward Nicholas‡ remarked sarcastically that Warwick was ‘as virtuous and loyal a man as his grandfather [recte father] the old rebel Warwick’.7
Warwick’s professions of loyalty were sufficiently convincing for him to be appointed to the party to receive the king at his return, although he was prevented from joining it by an attack of gout (something that was to be a constant backdrop to his career).8 Nevertheless, the political legacy of his past still showed. Warwick’s name appeared on the list of Lords drawn up by Philip Wharton, 4th Baron Wharton in the spring of 1660 with the comment that his father had sat in Parliament. He almost certainly regarded himself as the natural leader of the county, but even before the Restoration he was vying for that leadership with Aubrey de Vere, 20th earl of Oxford. The outcome of the 1660 election demonstrated that even in a county as famous for its dissenting sympathies as Essex neither wealth nor impeccable Presbyterian credentials were a match for the royalist backlash. Warwick, who was by far the wealthiest peer in Essex, with lands said to be worth over £5,000, supported Harbottle Grimston‡ and his running mate, Oliver Raymond, against the court candidates John Bramston‡ and Edward Turnor‡. Fully aware that the rest of the county’s peers and the Essex gentry were ranged against him, he nevertheless believed that the ordinary freeholders would follow his lead. He was so confident of his candidates’ success that he refused to compromise with his opponents, and was consequently mortified when the court candidates won by an overwhelming margin. According to Bramston, Warwick even risked his life by his exertions in the balmy conditions that spring, which brought on a dangerous fever. In the subsequent election of 1661 the king ordered him (through the medium of Manchester) not to oppose Bramston again, a prohibition that according to Bramston was obeyed in appearance but not in substance: ‘he appeared not, but he sent all he could against me’.9 Once again his efforts proved to be in vain. One of the defeated candidates was Sir John Barrington‡; three years later Warwick’s niece Anne Rich married Barrington’s son.10
If Warwick struggled to capitalize on his interest in parliamentary elections, his local importance was recognized in other ways. Under the direction of George Monck, duke of Albemarle, he was appointed governor of Landguard Fort, just over the river Orwell in Suffolk. He also became custos rotulorum of Essex after the death of James Hay, 2nd earl of Carlisle, in November 1660, thus gaining control of the local magistracy. However, despite being the leading landowner in the county, he was denied the lord lieutenancy of Essex (and with it command of the militia), which went instead to Oxford.
Warwick did not take his seat at the opening of the Convention Parliament. His decision to delay his appearance may have been due to Albemarle’s advice to refrain from doing so but he nevertheless appeared in the chamber for the first time two days into the new session.11 Crippled by frequent attacks of gout, he was regularly excused attendance on grounds of illness at calls of the House. Under the circumstances his attendance rate, which fluctuated between approximately one quarter and just under a half of possible attendances between 1660 and the end of 1663, was creditable, but the surviving evidence of Warwick’s activities in the House is scanty. During the course of the Convention, besides being nominated one of those to wait on the king, he was named only to the committee for petitions on 2 May, to the committee for the poll money bill on 19 July and to the committee for one private bill after the adjournment on 6 November.
Warwick was missing from the attendance list at the opening of the new Parliament. Although his name was still absent from the list on 11 May, he was included in a roll of the membership of the new committee for privileges so had presumably taken his place later in the day. He was finally noted on the attendance list on 13 May. Once again, he seems not to have made much impression on the House’s business. He was missing at a call of the House on 20 May and on the 31st was excused attendance on the grounds of ill health. He was named to two committees in July and the same month he was listed as one of those ‘supposed to go out of the House’ during the vote on Oxford’s case for the great chamberlaincy. The pattern remained similar after the adjournment. On 24 Jan. 1662 he was nominated to the committee for drawing up an act for repealing the acts of the Long Parliament. The clerk annotated his name with a cross, but it is not clear what the significance of this may have been.12 The following month, on 6 Feb., he entered a protest against passing the bill to restore the estates of Charles Stanley, 8th earl of Derby, and on 19 May he supported the Lords’ right to alter money bills by entering a protest about the bill for mending the common highways. Besides this, he was named to just two further committees.
Warwick returned to the House a month into the 1663 session, on 23 March. Present on 35 per cent of all sitting days, he was named to three committees. On 2 May he brought the arrest of his servant Thomas Lodington to the House’s attention. Lodington had been arrested for debt immediately after the adjournment of Parliament (and therefore in breach of Warwick’s privilege) at the suit of Samuel Atkins, who had also spoken ‘slighting words’ of Warwick. In making his defence, Atkins raised the issue of sham protections, alleging that, although Lodington ‘pretends to be bailiff to Lord Warwick, he was never really concerned in managing his lordship’s estate, and has offered to procure another protection from the said lord for one Bassett for £20’. He also described Lodington as ‘a dangerous person, and disaffected to the kingly government’.13 By the time that the privileges committee investigated the matter two days later Warwick was able to inform them that Atkins had apologized and that ‘he is a person whom the duke of Albemarle has employed upon great and eminent service since his majesty’s coming’.14 One might have expected this to have bolstered the credibility of Atkins’ allegations against Lodington and to have raised questions about the latter’s employment by Warwick. Yet the committee seems to have been concerned only with the need to record the reason that Atkins was not required to make a formal submission to Warwick at the bar of the House ‘as a salvo to any breach of privilege to be made of the like nature hereafter’. It was not to be the last time that someone was investigated for speaking disparagingly of Warwick. The following year a list of prisoners held at the gaol in Colchester included John Clapham, who had been arrested for ‘speaking scandalous and contemptuous words’ against both Warwick and Parliament.15
Towards the close of June 1663 Warwick was said to have promised his interest on behalf of his kinsman, Clifford of Lanesborough, whose title was being challenged by the countess of Pembroke (Lady Anne Clifford).16 Warwick’s attendance of the House during the latter part of the session may also have reflected his interest in the attempt by George Digby, 2nd earl of Bristol to impeach Edward Hyde, earl of Clarendon: he was present throughout the debates on the impeachment and was listed as one of Clarendon’s supporters.
Warwick took his seat five days into the new session of March 1664. He was named to the committee for privileges but proceeded to attend on just ten days (approximately 28 per cent of the whole) before quitting the session three weeks before the close. His only noticeable activity in the session related to his nomination on 22 Apr. to the committee for the bill confirming land in Froome Forest to his kinsman, Orrery. An incorrectly recorded proxy, probably dating from 1664, suggests that he then either attempted to give or was under pressure to give his proxy to his brother-in-law Robartes. Thereafter his attendance dipped sharply, probably because of his acute depression after the illness and death (on 16 May 1664) of his only surviving child, his son and heir, also named Charles Rich. Warwick did not share his wife’s conviction ‘that this affliction came from a merciful father and therefore would do me good’.17 Lady Warwick’s autobiography strongly implies that the couple had previously restricted the size of their family for fear of impoverishment. Now they tried unsuccessfully for more children, hoping that the earldom, so long associated with ‘the owning and countenancing of good people’ would not descend to Warwick’s younger brother, Hatton Rich, of whom they strongly disapproved.18
Warwick failed to attend the House at all in 1665 or 1666. On 9 Oct. 1665 the lord chamberlain (Manchester) requested that the House excuse Warwick’s absence from the Oxford Parliament on the grounds of ill health. On 16 Nov. 1666 he gave his proxy to his brother-in-law Burlington (as Clifford had since become), who held it for the remainder of the session. Burlington may have solicited the proxy for use against the Irish Cattle bill. Warwick played host to his brother-in-law Laurence Hyde, later earl of Rochester, in April 1667 as part of an effort to concert measures relating to their father-in-law’s business. In August, he was said to be ‘very ill of the gout’ but he nevertheless reappeared in the House early in the session that began in October 1667, presumably to support Clarendon.19 He attended approximately 37 per cent of the remaining sitting days in that year but was named to just two committees. After the Christmas recess he managed only a single attendance, his last.
By the autumn of 1668 Warwick appears to have been contemplating retreating to France, presumably for recovery of his health.20 It is not clear whether he fulfilled his intention but by December 1670 he appears to have been in England, when a warrant was made out granting him game rights in the vicinity of his Essex seat.21 His proxy for the 1670–1 session was given on 17 Nov. 1670 to Manchester.
Despite the remedy prepared by his wife for the gout, which she claimed to be the only thing capable of offering him any relief, the sermon preached by Dr Walker at his funeral hints that Warwick’s illness sometimes got the better of his temper. Towards the end of his life he completely lost the use of his legs and required constant nursing.22 In April 1673 Warwick drew up his will. In ordering his estate he provided generously for his wife, members of his extended family, his friends, servants and sympathetic local clergymen. According to Cary Gardiner, he left his wife £11,000 per annum (who thereby became ‘the richest widow for revenue that this age has had’).23 He also made provision for portions of £5,000 to each of his two unmarried nieces and for the payment of a portion of £4,000 to his older niece, Anne Barrington. The one person who was not mentioned was his cousin Robert Rich, 2nd earl of Holland. There is little or no mention of Holland in either Lady Warwick’s diary or her autobiography so it is likely that, even though Warwick was one of the trustees for Holland’s estate, the cousins moved in different social circles. Holland had become heir to the earldom of Warwick after the death of Hatton Rich in 1671.24 However, he seems to have inherited none of the earl’s estates, apart from Warwick House in Holborn (and even that was stripped of its contents). Warwick may have expected his will to prove controversial for he directed that it should be proved in chancery. His widow proudly claimed that she had been able to settle all the resulting disputes without resort to law, conveniently forgetting that she needed to obtain a private act of Parliament in order to do so.25
Little documentary evidence has survived for Warwick’s life. His countess’s diary and autobiography can be used to reconstruct the couple’s social circle but their primary purpose is as a record of religious meditation, rather than as a complete account of either her or her husband’s activities. On 20 Aug. 1673, for example, her entry for the day records that her husband was lucid and able to express penitence for his sins; it does not record that he also drew up a long codicil to his will. Warwick died four days later and was succeeded in the peerage by Holland. His wife survived him by another five years.
R.P./R.D.E.E.- 1 Add. 27357.
- 2 TNA, PROB 11/341.
- 3 Add. 27357.
- 4 Add. 27351–27353; Swatland, 150–1.
- 5 HP Commons 1660–90, i. 225, 397.
- 6 CSP Dom. 1657–8, p. 168.
- 7 Letter Book of John Viscount Mordaunt 1658-60 ed. M. Coate (Cam. Soc. ser. 3, lxix), 21–23; HMC Bath, xi. 134.
- 8 LJ, xi. 12; M.P. Schoenfeld, Restored House of Lords, 88.
- 9 HP Commons 1660–90, i. 228; Bramston Autobiog. 114–15, 119–20.
- 10 Essex RO, D/DBa/E30/2.
- 11 CCSP, iv. 674–5.
- 12 Beinecke Lib. OSB mss fb 159, no. 16.
- 13 HMC, 7th Rep. 170.
- 14 PA, HL/PO/DC/CP, 4 May 1663.
- 15 LJ, xi. 519; Essex RO, Q/SR 401/188.
- 16 Chatsworth, Cork ms 33/62.
- 17 Cork ms 29, Lady Burlington diary; Add. 27357.
- 18 Add. 27357.
- 19 Add. 75354, Lady Ranelagh to Burlington, 10 Aug. 1667; Add. 75355, L. Hyde to Lady Burlington, 27 Apr., 20 July 1667.
- 20 Boyle Corresp. ed. Hunter, iv. 117.
- 21 CSP Dom. 1670, p. 565.
- 22 M.E. Palgrave, Mary Rich, Countess of Warwick, 273; Add. 75354, Lady Warwick to Burlington, 31 Jan. 1660; Add. 27357.
- 23 Verney ms mic. M636/26, C. Gardiner to Sir R. Verney, 1 Sept. 1673.
- 24 CSP Dom. 1671, p. 127.
- 25 LJ, xiii. 15, 18, 20, 34.