Richard FIENNES

(7th B. Saye and Sele)

Born: ABT 1557, Broughton Castle, Oxfordshire, England

Died: 1613

Father: Richard FIENNES (6° B. Saye and Sele)

Mother: Ursula FERMOR (B. Saye and Sele)

Married 1: Constance KINGSMILL ABT 1570, Sidmanton, Hampshire, England

Children:

1. William FIENNES (1° V. Saye and Sele)

2. Anne FIENNES

3. Ursula FIENNES

Married 2: Elizabeth CODINGHAM (dau. and coh. of Henry Coddenham or Codingham of London) (w. of William Paulet of Winchester)

The details in this biography come from the History of Parliament, a biographical dictionary of Members of the House of Commons.

Son of Richard Fiennes, De jure sixth Baron, and Ursula Fermor. Educated at Winchester where he was admitted as Founder’s Kin in 1569. Married first Constance, dau. of Sir William Kingsmill of Sydmonton, Hants, 1s. 2da; and secondly Elizabeth, dau. and coh. of Henry Coddenham or Codingham of London, w. of William Paulet of Winchester, s.p. suc. fa. 1573. Kntd. by 11 May 1593; confirmed as Baron Saye and Sele 9 Aug 1603.

J.p. Oxon. from c.1579, Hants from c.1583-c.93; sheriff, Oxon. 1583-4, 1594-5, dep. lt. 1593; jt. (with Anthony Cope) superintendent of recusants at Banbury castle c.1589; keeper of Banbury castle by Oct. 1603.

Fiennes’s father dying while he was still a minor, he was placed in the wardship of Sir William Kingsmill, whose daughter he later married. He was first returned to Parliament in 1584 for Banbury, the rectory, castle and hundred of which had been leased to his father in 1568. He was sheriff that year and did not complete his term of office until most of the elections were over. The return for Banbury is dated 49 Nov. which is about a fortnight later than the rest, so it appears that Banbury deliberately delayed its return until Fiennes could safely be chosen. At the next election, in the absence in the Netherlands of William Knollys, Fiennes achieved a county seat, there being a shortage of leading protestant gentry in Oxfordshire. In fact Broughton Castle was one of the places where, in 1590 and 1592, the authorities confined recusants ‘of quality and calling’, some at least of whom were sufficiently well treated to wish to be committed there if they should have to be confined again. On the last occasion that Fiennes sat in the Commons, he secured a seat at Whitchurch. He was probably introduced to the patrons of the borough, the dean and chapter of Winchester, by one of his relatives by marriage. Through his first wife he was related to John Kingsmill, the chancellor of the bishop of Winchester: his second wife was connected with the Paulets, a family that had long held office in the bishopric.

Queen Elizabeth knighted him in the thirty-fifth year of her reign. He was sheriff of Oxford, accompanied his cousin the Earl of Lincoln, Ambassador to the Landgrave of Hesse in 1596, traveled to Florence and Verona, and accompanied the Earl of Hereford, Ambassador to the Archduke Albert at Brussels in 1605.

From his father’s death in 1573, Richard Fiennes, pressed in vain for eighteen years to be recognized as the Baron Saye and Sele, in abeyance since 1471. He enlisted the support of the Earl of Leicester and Sir Christopher Hatton, but without success in Elizabeth’s reign, though in Oct 1597 there was hope that she would agree. His cause was weakened by his financial troubles which also aggravated his difficulties with his second wife, a Catholic sympathizer. In 1592 they decided to ‘live divided by consent’. She agreed that he should spend his income on paying his debts and improving the estates, while she was to be free to spend her portion, £400 a year, on herself and her two daughters by her first marriage. When Fiennes wrote to tell Burghley of this arrangement, he reckoned that his own income would be £1,200 a year. His debts totalled £3,900, but then he had hopes, which were not realised, of inheriting part of the estates of his kinsman Lord Dacre.

Upon the succession of James I, who was more lenient in matter of titles than Elizabeth I, Lord Burghley intervened upon behalf of Richard Fiennes in 1603 to obtain a patent confirming to him and the heirs of his body the name, style, title, rank, dignity, and honor of Baron Saye and Sele of the 1447 creation, creation of him as Baron of Saye and Sele with the same remainder, and the grantee and his heirs should not claim precedence of the old Barons of Saye and Sele but should rank next after the Barons then existing. Because it was assumed in 1603 that the 1447 creation was by writ of summons, and not by patent, the succession was altered from that of heirs male to those of the heirs general, thereby allowing the title to pass through daughters. It was not the intention of James I to create a new barony, but the 1603 patent did. The reduction in precedence from that of 1447 to 1603 was a blow to the Fiennes family’s pride, but they yielded in order to claim the title that had been dormant since the death of the second baron in battle in 1471. The failure of seventeenth-century peerage lawyers to distinguish titles created by writ of summons from those created by patent caused confusion. This familure, exploited by lawyers was to the consternation of Round.

He took his seat in the Lords as a junior baron 19 Mar 1604. He later wrote a number of begging letters to Sir Robert Cecil stressing his financial plight. He was granted the right to receive the fines of a number of recusants, but complained that this was unprofitable.

In his will, made 17 Jul 1612, Fiennes urged that, as his debts were heavy, his funeral should be simple. He left his wife all the goods in his house at St. Batholomew’s, Smithfield, and made small bequests to his two daughters. The residue he left to his only son William, the sole executor. Lord Chancellor Thomas Egerton, Lord Ellesmere; and Fiennes’s ‘loving neighbour and trusty friend’ Edmund Messe were overseers. A schedule attached to the will lists debts totalling £1,500.

He died in Feb 1613.

Sources:

Hyde, Patricia: http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1558-1603/member/fiennes-richard-1555-1613

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