Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 48.djvu/134

 that effect in a modern hand inscribed on an abridgment of it (in Cotton. MS. Cleop. B. 1, f. 24). The nine lessons given in the York ‘Breviary’ (Surtees Society, lxxv.) for the office of St. Edmund are taken from the life by Robert Rich. It seems not improbable that the ‘proper’ office for St. Edmund was composed by Robert (, pp. 446, 453, 455). Some fragments of this office are given in Wallace's ‘Life of St. Edmund’ (pp. 453–8).

Bale also ascribes to Robert: 1. ‘De Translatione Eadmundi.’ 2. ‘Exegesis in Canonem S. Augustini.’ 3. ‘Eadmundi Archiepiscopi Cantuariensis Liber de resurrectione,’ &c. This last was printed in 1519, 8vo.

[Lives of St. Edmund by Eustace and Robert Bacon ap. Wallace, pp. 542–3, and 591–3, and by Bertrand ap. Martène's Thesaurus Anecdotorum, iii. 1775–6; Bale's Scriptores, iii. 97; Tanner's Bibl. Brit.-Hib. p. 630; Hardy's Descript. Cat. of Brit. Hist. iii. 87, 90, 93; Wallace's Life of St. Edmund of Canterbury.] 

RICH, ROBERT, second (1587–1658), eldest son of Robert, lord Rich (created Earl of Warwick 2 Aug. 1618), by Penelope Devereux [see ], was born about June 1587. Henry Rich, earl of Holland [q. v.], was his younger brother. Robert was admitted to Emmanuel College, Cambridge, on 4 June 1603 (Hist. MSS. Comm. 4th Rep. p. 417;, Official Baronage, iii. 596). He was created a knight of the Bath on 24 July 1603, became a member of the Inner Temple in November 1604, and was M.P. for Maldon in 1610 and 1614 (ib.) He was one of the performers in Ben Jonson's ‘Masque of Beauty’ in 1608–9, and frequently took part in the tiltings before the king (, Progresses of James I, ii. 186, iii. 646). For one of these tiltings Ben Jonson wrote the verse speech which is printed in his ‘Underwoods’ (No. xxix.). But Warwick, who succeeded to his father's title on 24 March 1619, was of too active and independent a spirit for court life. ‘Though he had all those excellent endowments of body and fortune that give splendour to a glorious court, yet he used it but as his recreation; for his spirit aimed at more public adventures, planting colonies in the western world rather than himself in the king's favour’ (, History of the Reign of James I, p. 162). He was one of the original members of the company for the plantation of the Somers Islands or Bermudas (29 June 1614), and on 3 Nov. 1620 was granted a seat on the council of the New England Company (Cal. State Papers, Col. Ser. 1574–1660, pp. 17, 25). He was also a member of the Guinea company, incorporated 16 Nov. 1618. At the same time he sought to increase his fortune by privateering in the Elizabethan fashion. Obtaining in 1616 commissions from the agent of the Duke of Savoy, he fitted out two ships for a roving voyage in the East Indies, which made valuable prizes, but involved him in a long dispute with the East India Company, whose legitimate trade his piracies threatened with ruin (, History of England, iii. 216; Cal. State Papers, Col.: Indian Ser. 1617–21, p. lxxxvi).

In April 1618 he sent, under the same commission, a ship called the Treasurer to Virginia and the West Indies, commanded by Captain Elfrith, whose captures from the Spaniards and ‘unwarrantable actions’ caused Warwick still greater difficulties, and were one of the causes of the division of the Virginia Company, about 1620, into two parties, one headed by the Earl of Southampton and Sir Edwin Sandys, the other by Warwick and his kinsman, Sir Nathaniel Rich [q. v.] (Hist. MSS. Comm. 8th Rep. ii. 4, 35). Their disputes ran so high that in May 1623 Lord Cavendish, Sir Edwin Sandys, and other opponents of Warwick were confined to their houses by order of the privy council on the charge of intemperate language and misrepresentations (ib. pp. 42–6; Cal. State Papers, Col. 1574–1660, pp. 44–6). Warwick gave Cavendish the lie, and they arranged a duel, which only the vigilance of the government prevented (Notes and Queries, 3rd ser. xi. 519). The end of the matter was the appointment of commissioners to inquire into the government of Virginia, and the revocation of the company's charter (24 July 1624). The king took the government of the colony into his own hands, and appointed a new council, of which Warwick was a member. Warwick's action has been regarded as dictated by purely personal motives, and his party described as ‘greedy and unprincipled adventurers;’ but his subsequent political conduct makes it difficult to accept the view that he was merely a tool of the court (, The English in America, i. 206;, The Genesis of the United States, ii. 981–3).

In 1625 Warwick was appointed joint lord-lieutenant of Essex, and was very active in making preparations against an expected Spanish landing (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1625–6, p. 102). In March 1627 he obtained a liberal privateering commission from the king, and put to sea with a fleet of eight ships to attack the Spaniards (ib. 1627–8,