# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Fanshawe, Richard

Contains subarticle Anne (afterwards Lady) Fanshawe (1625–1680).
​FANSHAWE, Sir RICHARD (1608–1666), diplomatist and author, was the fifth son of Sir Henry Fanshawe [q. v.], of Ware Park, Hertfordshire, by Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas Smith or Smythe, esq. He was born at Ware Park in June 1608, and baptised on the 12th. His father died in 1616, and his education was chiefly directed by his mother. She sent him to the famous school kept by Thomas Farnaby [q. v.] in Cripplegate. In November 1623 he was admitted into Jesus College, Cambridge, as a fellow-commoner, and showed much promise as a classical scholar. Being destined by his mother for the bar, he entered the Inner Temple 22 Jan. 1626. Law proved distasteful to him, and in 1627 he went abroad to acquire foreign languages. At Paris he is said to have been robbed of his slender stock of money by Sherwood, a jesuit, but he stayed there a year, and then proceeded to Madrid. In 1635 Lord Aston, who had been reappointed English ambassador to Spain, learning of Fanshawe's accomplishments as a linguist, selected him to accompany him as secretary. In 1636 he carried despatches from Aston to Secretary Windebank. When Aston left Madrid in 1638, Fanshawe remained as chargé d'affaires till his successor, Sir Arthur Hopton, arrived. About 1640, while seeking fresh employment, his brother Thomas offered to give him the place of king's remembrancer, which had long been in the hands of the family, on condition that he paid 8,000l. for it in seven years. The outbreak of the civil war interrupted the arrangement, and Fanshawe, a zealous royalist, joined Charles I at Oxford. There he met Anne Harrison, the daughter of another royalist, and he married her at Wolvercote Church, two miles from Oxford, 18 May 1644. The wedding was attended by Sir Edward Hyde and Sir Geoffrey Palmer, with four members of the lady's family.
Anne (afterwards Lady) Fanshawe (1625–1680) was elder daughter and fourth child of Sir John Harrison of Balls, Hertfordshire, by Margaret, daughter of Robert Fanshawe of Fanshawe Gate. Her mother was her husband's first cousin. She was born in Hart Street, St. Olave's, London, 25 March 1625, and was carefully trained in needlework, French, singing, the lute, the virginals, and dancing. She loved riding, running, and all active pastimes, and was what graver people called ‘a hoyting girl.’ On 20 July 1640, when she was fifteen, her mother died, in accordance (it was said) with a prophecy made three months after her daughter's birth. The loss gave the girl's thoughts a more serious turn, and much trouble pursued her family. Her father, who held a post in the customs, lent the king a large sum of money in 1641, was imprisoned by order of the parliament in 1642, and was deprived of his property. In 1643 he directed his children to join him at Oxford, where they lodged in a poor baker's house, and suffered all the griefs of poverty. The death of a brother, William, in 1644 aggravated their troubles. When Anne married Richard Fanshawe they had not twenty pounds between them, but the union proved exceptionally happy. If ‘fine Mistress Fanshawe,’ who about 1644 visited Ralph Kettle, the eccentric president of Trinity, to ‘have a frolick,’ be identical with Richard Fanshawe's bride, she had not wholly lost the high spirits of her youth at the time of her becoming a wife (Aubrey, Lives, ii. 428).
About the date of his marriage Fanshawe was made secretary of war to Prince Charles, and joined his council. In March 1645 he left Oxford for Bristol in the company of his new master. His wife had been confined (22 Feb.) of her first child, Harrison, who died in infancy, but she joined her husband at Bristol on 20 May. The plague drove them in July to Barnstaple, and thence they journeyed with the prince's court to Truro and Penzance. Fanshawe exercised much influence in ​the prince's councils, and it was largely owing to him that the party left the mainland (Clarendon). From Land's End they sailed to the Scilly Isles. During the passage they were robbed of nearly all their property, and suffered fearful privations on disembarking. ‘After three weeks and odd days,’ they removed to Jersey, where a second child, Anne, was born (7 May? 1646). Hence they went in August to Caen to visit Fanshawe's brother, Thomas. On 30 Aug. Lady Fanshawe left her husband, came to London, and lodged in Fleet Street with Lady Boteler, her sister, whose husband, Sir William, was slain at Cropredy Bridge. A pass which she obtained from ‘Colonel Copley, a great parliament man,’ enabled her husband ‘to come and compound for 300l.,’ and until October 1647 they lived together very privately in Portugal Row. They both visited Charles I at Hampton Court, and the king gave Fanshawe ‘credentials for Spain’ and letters for Prince Charles and Queen Henrietta. They went to France again in 1648. In September Sir Richard was ordered to embark in Prince Charles's ship in the Downs, to act as treasurer of the navy under Prince Rupert. He afterwards joined Prince Charles in Holland, while his wife was in England seeking to raise money for their pressing needs.
In November 1648 Sir Richard was in Ireland, helping to rally the royalists. Ormonde sent him to consult with Charles in March 1649, but he returned almost immediately. He took up his residence in Cork at the house of Dean Boyle, where his wife joined him after procuring a little money. Lady Fanshawe was by herself in Cork when Colonel Jeffries seized it in behalf of Cromwell (16 Oct. 1649), but she procured a pass to enable her to meet her husband at Kinsale. Thence they journeyed to Limerick, where they were hospitably received, and Fanshawe was granted the freedom of the city. Elsewhere the Irish nobility (Lord Clancarty, Lady Honor O'Brien, and others) entertained them handsomely; but they witnessed many of the unhappy incidents of Cromwell's devastation. On 9 Feb. 1649–50 Charles issued an order granting Fanshawe and other members of his family an augmentation of arms in consideration of their well-tried loyalty. About the same time he was ordered to proceed to Spain with despatches from Charles petitioning for pecuniary aid. Lady Fanshawe's sojourn in Ireland left her with the impression that the natives were a very loving people to each other, but ‘constantly false to all strangers.’
A Dutch ship carried the Fanshawes from Galway to Malaga. On the way they were threatened by a Turkish galley, but they arrived in March and went from Malaga to Madrid, by way of Granada. Reaching the court 13 April 1650, they were kindly received by all the English in Madrid. Hyde and Cottington, who were already there acting as Charles's agents, took a kindly interest in their welfare. Hyde, writing to Nicholas on 4 April, expresses wonder as to how Fanshawe and his family are able to live, seeing their destitution (Cal. State Papers, ii. 51). In another letter to Nicholas, Hyde writes (29 Dec. 1650) that Fanshawe is a very honest and discreet man, and designed by the late king for attendance on the Duke of York (ib. p. 92). But the Spanish king showed no desire to assist Prince Charles, and the Fanshawes retired to San Sebastian in September. On 2 Sept. 1650 he was granted a baronetcy. They were nearly shipwrecked in crossing to Nantes, but reached Paris in November. After an interview with the queen-mother, Lady Fanshawe went to London, and Sir Richard journeyed, by way of Holland, to Scotland, to act as secretary to Prince Charles. When in Scotland Sir Richard declined to take the covenant, but accompanied his master to the battle of Worcester (3 Sept. 1651), and was taken prisoner. From 13 Sept. till 28 Nov. he was detained at Whitehall. His wife constantly went at four in the morning to talk with him under the window of his prison, and at length procured a certificate of ill-health from Dr. Bate [q. v.], which she herself presented to the council with a petition for his release. Through Cromwell's action Fanshawe was allowed out on bail in 4,000l. on 28 Nov., and permitted to visit Bath. In March 1652–3 he accepted Lord Strafford's offer of an asylum at Tankersley Park, Yorkshire. He was forbidden by the parliamentary authorities to go more than five miles from the house.
On 20 July 1654 their daughter Anne, who had been her mother's companion in her wanderings, died at the age of eight, to the great grief of her parents. Saddened by the loss, they obtained permission to remove to Homerton, to the house of Lady Fanshawe's sister. The three following years were spent partly at lodgings in Chancery Lane, London, and partly at the country houses of relatives. On 23 Nov. 1654 Evelyn the diarist, with whom Fanshawe was always intimate, paid them a visit in London. In 1658 Sir Richard and his wife suffered severely from ague, but a visit to Bath in August cured them. On Cromwell's death in October they came to London with Philip, earl of Pembroke. The earl, an old friend, procured Fanshawe's release from his bonds, and requested him to accompany his eldest son to Paris. At Paris Fanshawe saw Clarendon (April 1659), and received orders to wait ​on Charles in the winter and undertake the offices of master of requests and secretary of the Latin tongue. Fanshawe sent for his wife, and with great difficulty she managed to leave England under the name of Anne Harrison. In November they met Charles II in Paris, followed him to Flanders, and were with him at the Hague in May 1660, when he was preparing to return to England.
Fanshawe sailed in the king's ship, and took part in all the festivities of the Restoration. He lived in a house in Portugal Row, Lincoln's Inn, known as the ‘Pine Apples’ (Fanshawe, p. 5), and prepared to fill the office of master of requests; but Clarendon, according to the ill-supported statement of his wife and biographer, contrived that little work or influence should fall to him. On 11 March 1660–1 he was elected M.P. for Cambridge University. At the coronation (23 April 1661), attired in ‘fantastic habits of the time’ (Evelyn, ii. 128), he represented the Duke of Normandy, and on 8 May he accompanied the king at the opening of parliament. He was afterwards ordered to carry Charles's portrait to Catherine of Braganza at Lisbon, and on his return (January 1662) was nominated privy councillor of Ireland. When Princess Catherine landed in April following, Fanshawe was among those who received her. On 30 May—nine days after the marriage—the king introduced Lady Fanshawe to his wife, who promised her future favours. On 10 Aug. 1662 Fanshawe was appointed ambassador to Portugal. Evelyn took leave of him on the 5th. He travelled slowly with his wife and children to Plymouth, paying many visits on the way, and on the last day of the month set sail for Lisbon, where they landed on 14 Sept. On 10 Oct. Fanshawe was received by the king of Portugal with every mark of respect. He remained at Lisbon till 23 Aug. 1663, when he and his family left, loaded with presents, receiving to the last very marked attention from the king and his court. On 4 Sept. they landed at Deal, and six days later Sir Richard was graciously received by Charles II at Bath, and was sworn a privy councillor (1 Oct.) Lady Fanshawe was also kindly entertained at court in London by both the queen and the queen-mother.
On 20 Jan. 1663–4 Fanshawe was appointed ambassador to Spain, and on 31 Jan. he and his family sailed from Portsmouth. They anchored off Cadiz on 23 Feb.; stayed there till 19 March; visited Malaga, Seville, Cordova, Toledo, and other places, and were royally entertained at all. On 18 June Fanshawe presented his credentials in great state to Philip IV, king of Spain, at Madrid. Much of their time was spent in visiting objects of interest about Madrid, and they were especially charmed by the Escurial. In December Fanshawe came into collision with the president of Castile as to the right of asylum belonging to the English embassy. One Don Francisco de Ayala had been arrested within the disputed boundaries, and Fanshawe demanded his release. After much dispute Fanshawe appealed to the king, who decided the matter in his favour. Fanshawe and his wife continued to enjoy the lavish hospitality of the court and nobility till 17 Sept. 1665, when Philip IV died. On 8 Oct. they were present at the proclamation of the new infant king, Charles II.
Meanwhile Fanshawe had been engaged in negotiating a treaty between Spain and England, but the negotiations dragged owing to the ill-health of the king of Spain, to differences among his councillors, and to the commercial jealousies of the two nations. At length a draft treaty was prepared by the Spanish council granting favourable terms to English merchants, but it was presented to Fanshawe with the proviso that it should either be confirmed by his sovereign within a fixed period or withdrawn. Fanshawe felt himself justified in accepting the condition, without communicating with his government, and on 17 Dec. he signed the protocol. On 16 Jan. 1665–6 he went to Lisbon at the request of the Spanish ministers to induce Portugal to join in the treaty, but he returned on 8 March with Sir Robert Southwell without effecting his object. On 26 March news arrived at Madrid that Sandwich had been sent as extraordinary ambassador to supersede Fanshawe. Lady Fanshawe bitterly resented her husband's recall, and attributed it to the hostility of Clarendon, whom she cordially disliked. But the flattering terms in which Clarendon always referred to Sir Richard's abilities and services prove her dislike to have been unreasonable. That minister's chief object, she now asserts, was to find a place for Sandwich out of England. Clarendon gives another version of the episode. ‘No man,’ he admits, ‘knew that court [i.e. Madrid] better, or was so well versed in the language,’ as Fanshawe, ‘who was a gentleman very well known and very well beloved.’ But Clarendon points out that Fanshawe's failure to communicate the terms of the proposed treaty to the home government, while pledging it to confirm the articles within a stipulated time, constituted a breach of duty which left the council no course other than the one they adopted. Clarendon's well-known policy of hostility to Spain doubtless made him unwilling to judge leniently the ​faults of an ambassador who leaned to an amicable settlement of the Anglo-Spanish relations. A month later Fanshawe and his wife took part in the festivities which celebrated the marriage by proxy of the Infanta Donna Maria with the emperor, and were busy with leave-takings of their numerous friends among the Spanish nobility. On 28 May Lord Sandwich arrived and gave Fanshawe his formal letters of recall. On 5 June Fanshawe entertained his successor, and on the 10th introduced him to the king. Sixteen days later Fanshawe was seized with ague, and on 26 June (16 June O.S.), the ague having developed into an inward fever, he died at his house in the Siete Chimineos. He had made arrangements for returning to England fifteen days later. After the body was embalmed and a funeral sermon preached over it (4 July) by his chaplain, Henry Bagshaw [q. v.], it was sent to Bilbao. The sermon was published in London in 1667, with a dedication to the widow.
The queen-mother offered Lady Fanshawe and her children a residence at Madrid and a pension of thirty thousand ducats a year if they would become Roman catholics; but this offer was politely refused. On 8 July Lady Fanshawe, who never quite recovered the shock of her bereavement, quietly left Madrid after receiving many visits of condolence and gifts from the royal family. Want of money greatly embarrassed her, and she had to sell the queen-mother's gift and her own plate to defray the pressing expenses of travel. She reached Bilbao on 21 July; stayed there till 3 Oct.; arrived at Paris on 30 Oct., and on 12 Nov. landed at the Tower Wharf. On 16 Nov. her husband's body, which had been taken to his house in Lincoln's Inn Fields, was buried in All Hallows Church, Hertford. A week later Lady Fanshawe waited on the king and claimed payment both of her husband's salary, which was 2,000l. in arrears, and of a sum of 5,815l. spent by him in the public service. Charles II made lavish promises of speedy settlement. Administration was granted her on 2 March 1666–7 of her husband's property, which was devised to her as sole executrix by a nuncupative will made on the day of his death. In spite of offers of aid from Arlington and Lord-treasurer Southampton, she encountered every difficulty in her endeavour to recover her husband's debts from the crown. Finally, in December 1669, she received 5,600l., which left 2,000l. unpaid.
In 1667 Lady Fanshawe took a house in Holborn Row, Lincoln's Inn. In 1668 she hired a house and grounds at Harting Sudbury, Hertfordshire, so as to be near her father, who lived two miles off at Balls. But her father died on 28 Sept. 1670. Overwhelmed with sorrow, she abandoned her new residence and for six months was ‘sick almost to death.’ On recovering she bought a site in St. Mary's Chapel of Ware Church, and removed her husband's body there (18 May 1671), where an elaborate monument was erected with a long Latin inscription. In 1676 she wrote a memoir of her husband for her only surviving son, Richard. She died on 30 Jan. 1679–80, in her fifty-fifth year, and was buried in Ware Church, by her husband. She bequeathed by her will, dated 30 Oct. 1679, her chief property, most of which came to her on her father's death, to her son, Richard, together with Lely's portrait of her husband, Teniers's portrait of herself, her husband's books, manuscripts, writings, sticks, guns, swords, and trimming instruments (Fanshawe, p. 667). To her daughter Katharine, sole executrix, she left, besides a pecuniary bequest, the works written by herself or her daughters. Two other daughters, Anne and Elizabeth, received 600l. apiece. She desired all her children to wear mourning for her for three years, unless they married in the interval. A fourth surviving daughter, Margaret, was not mentioned in the will.
Lady Fanshawe was the mother of six sons and eight daughters, but five sons and four daughters died before her husband (Harrison, 22 Feb.–9 March 1644–5; Henry, 1647–1650; Richard, 1648–1650; Henry, 1657–1658; Richard, d 1663; Anne, 1646–1654, buried in the church of Tankersley; Elizabeth, 1649–1650; Elizabeth, 1650–1656; Mary, 1656–1660, buried in All Saints' Church, Hertford). The surviving son, Richard, the youngest child, born at Madrid on 6 Aug. 1665, succeeded as second baronet, is said to have become both deaf and dumb owing to a fever, died unmarried in Clerkenwell, and was buried at Ware on 12 July 1694. Of the surviving daughters, Katharine, born on 30 July 1652, was alive unmarried in May 1705; Margaret, whom Lady Fanshawe overlooks in her will, born at Tankersley on 8 Oct. 1653, married Vincent Grantham of Goltho, Lincolnshire, before 1676, and was alive in May 1705; Ann, born at Frog Pool, Kent, on 22 Feb. 1654–5, married, after October 1679, one Ryder, by whom she had a daughter, Ann Lawrence, who with her mother was living in May 1705; Elizabeth was born on 22 Feb. 1662. Mrs. Manley, in her scandalous ‘New Atalantis,’ first issued about 1700, gives unfavourable accounts (iv. 64–100, 7th ed.) of the daughters Margaret and Elizabeth. The former, she declares, was not married to the man who passed as her husband, and who ​predeceased her; the latter, after becoming the wife of a government official named Blunt, engaged in a disgraceful intrigue with Lord Somers. Mrs. Manley credits Lady Fanshawe with ‘affected learning, eternal tattle, insipid gaiety, and false taste of wit,’ and asserts that her impertinent petitions to Charles II covered her with ridicule at court. This is the scorn of a woman of doubtful reputation for one of unblemished character.
Fanshawe's works were as follows: 1. ‘The Pastor Fido. The Faithfull Shepheard. A Pastorall. Written in Italian by Baptista Guarini, a knight of Italie, and now newly translated out of the originall,’ London, 1647, 4to, with portrait of Guarini. Dedicated to Charles, prince of Wales, with commendatory verses by John (afterwards Sir John) Denham. At the close are two short poems, dated respectively 1645 and 1646, ‘presented to his highnesse the Prince of Wales at his going into the West.’ A new title-page introduces ‘An addition of divers other poems, concluding with a short discourse of the Long Civill Warres of Rome,’ London, 1648, with a separate dedication to Prince Charles. The whole volume is continuously paged. The ‘addition’ includes an ode in sapphics on the proclamation of 1630 commanding the country gentry to reside on their estates; poems (in both Latin and English) on the Escurial and the ship called the Soveraigne of the Seas, built in 1637; Latin poems entitled ‘Maius Lucanizans,’ in honour of Thomas May [q. v.], translator of Lucan and ‘Methodus amandi,’ with a translation by Mr. T. C., i.e. Thomas Carew; ‘a canto of the Progresse of Learning,’ in Spenserian stanzas; a translation in the same metre of Virgil's ‘Æneid,’ bk. iv.; and ‘A Summary discourse of the Civill Warres of Rome, extracted out of the best Latin writers in Prose and Verse.’ The poem on the Escurial (in English) was reprinted from Addit. MS. 15228 in the ‘Athenæum’ (1883), i. 121 (see also pp. 185 and 376). The volume was reissued in 1648 (with frontispiece by T. Cross), 4to; in 1664, 8vo; in 1676, 8vo; and in 1736 (with the original of Guarini), 12mo.
2. ‘Selected Parts of Horace, Prince of Lyricks, and of all the Latin poets the fullest fraught with Excellent Morality, concluding with a piece out of Ausonius and another out of Virgil. Now newly put into English,’ London, 1652. The Odes, Epodes, Epistles, Satire vi. (to Mæcenas) are translated and the Latin is printed on the opposite page. Ausonius's ‘Edyl. xiv.’ and his ‘Rosæ,’ together with Virgil's ‘Bull’ from ‘Georgics iii,’ are added in English versions. 3. ‘The Lusiad, or Portugal's Historicall Poem, written in the Portugall Language by Luis de Camoens and now newly put into English by Richard Fanshawe, Esq.,’ London, 1655. Dedicated to William, earl of Strafford, ‘from your lordships Park of Tankersley, May 1, 1655.’ 4. ‘La Fida Pastora. Comœdia Pastoralis. Autore F. F. Anglo-Britanno,’ London, 1658, a translation into Latin verse of Fletcher's ‘Faithful Shepherdess.’ ‘Opuscula’ are added, and include most of the Latin verses in Fanshawe's first volume, together with a Latin dedication of No. 5 to the queen of Sweden, dated 22 July 1654. 5. ‘Querer por solo querer. To love only for Love sake. A Dramatick Romance (in 3 Acts) represented at Aranquez before the King and Queen of Spain to celebrate the Birthday of that king [Philip IV]. Written in Spanish by Don Antonio [Hurtado] de Mendoza, 1623. Paraphrased in English Anno 1654. Together with the Festivals of Aranwhey [i.e. Aranjuez],’ London, 1671. A second title-page, dated 1670, introduces the account of the ‘Festivals’. 6. ‘Original Letters of his Excellency Sir Richard Fanshawe during his Embassies in Spain and Portugal … with divers Letters and answers,’ London, 1702, with portrait engraved by Faithorne. The first of Fanshawe's letters is dated 24 Feb. 1663–4; the last 22 Feb. 1664–5. The volume was reissued in 1724 with a second volume, containing letters chiefly of the Earls of Sandwich and Sunderland and Sir William Godolphin, all written after Fanshawe's death. Many of Fanshawe's originals are in Harl. MS. 7010, which contains other letters by him, printed for the first time in the 1905 edit. of Lady Fanshawe's ‘Memoirs,’ pp. 235 sq.
The fifth piece, like the ‘Lusiad,’ was composed, we are distinctly told, while Fanshawe was in enforced retirement at Tankersley. Of the value of Fanshawe's ‘Lusiad’—his longest work—various opinions have been expressed. Sir Peter Wyche, in his ‘Life of Don J. de Castro,’ translated from the Portuguese (1664), described it as an ‘excellent translation of the Heroique Poem.’ The editor of Fanshawe's letters in 1724 asserts that it was published without the translator's consent or knowledge, and before ‘he could put his last finishing stroaks.’ Mickle, who also translated Camoens in 1776, characterised Fanshawe's work as ‘unfaithful, harsh, and unpoetical.’ Southey was loud in its praises (Quarterly Review, April 1822), and Sir Richard Burton (Camoens: his Life and his Lusiad, 1881, i. 135–43) points out that, although Fanshawe amplified and expanded his original, and is often rugged and harsh, he ​thoroughly understood Portuguese. Of higher literary merit are Fanshawe's renderings of Guarini and Horace and the fourth book of the ‘Æneid.’ The translations of Horace's Odes deserve to rank among the most successful efforts of the kind. Most of the subtle turns of the original are given with rare felicity, and there is throughout an ease and elegance which prove the translator to be a skilled literary workman. His classical scholarship was also shown to advantage in his translation of Fletcher's ‘Faithful Shepherdess’ into Latin hexameters and hendecasyllabics. Fanshawe's few surviving original English poems exhibit rare literary faculty, and it is to be regretted that they are so few. Some unpublished poems of Fanshawe are in Brit. Mus. Addit. MS. 15228.
Lady Fanshawe's ‘Memoir’ of her husband was first printed in 1829 (reissued in 1830) by Sir Harris Nicolas from a transcript made in 1766 by Catherine Colman, stated to be Lady Fanshawe's great-granddaughter. The original is in Lady Fanshawe's handwriting, and belongs to Mr. J. G. Fanshawe. It was printed for the first time in 1905, edited by H. C. Fanshawe. The charming simplicity of Lady Fanshawe's narrative of her adventures under the Commonwealth, and her love and admiration for her husband, give the book a high place in autobiographic literature. But Lady Fanshawe wrote from memory, and her dates are conflicting. Horace Walpole saw the manuscript in 1792, and informed the Countess of Ossory that the memoirs were not unentertaining, although they chiefly dwelt on ‘private domestic distresses’ (Walpole, Letters, ix. 378–9).
Some fine portraits of Fanshawe and his wife belong to Mr. J. G. Fanshawe. One, attributed to Velasquez, in which Fanshawe is accompanied by a dog, is a magnificent painting; and another of Lady Fanshawe, by Van Somer, is of great value and interest. There are other portraits of both, by and after Lely, and one of Sir Richard was engraved by W. Faithorne. A fine copy of the ‘Lusiad,’ inscribed ‘To my Honble. nephew Sir Thomas Leventhorpe—Ric. Fanshawe, July 23rd 1655,’ also belongs to Mr. J. G. Fanshawe.
S. L. L.