In our last Tudor post, we looked at Nicholas Carew, a man who had been close enough to Henry VIII to hunt, joust and spend years in the king’s company - only to discover that royal friendship offered very little protection when suspicion turned against him.
Today I want to look at a man who followed a rather different path through the Tudor court.
Richard Rich.
While men such as Carew, Thomas More and eventually Thomas Cromwell fell, Rich somehow kept climbing.
Born in around 1496, Richard trained in law and was associated with the Middle Temple by 1516, one of the institutions where aspiring barristers studied and built their legal careers. He was intelligent, ambitious and apparently very good at recognising where power lay, and making certain that he remained close to it.
By the early 1530s he was building a career in Henry VIII’s government, eventually becoming Solicitor General.
It was during the downfall of Sir Thomas More that Rich gained the reputation which has followed him for nearly five centuries.
More would not affirm Henry VIII's supremacy over the Church in England, but had been extremely careful about what he actually said. Silence, he hoped, would prevent the government from proving treason.
Then Richard Rich gave evidence.
Rich claimed that during a conversation in the Tower of London, More had denied Parliament’s power to make Henry head of the Church.
More fiercely denied the accusation and effectively accused Rich of lying.
Nevertheless, Rich's evidence was crucial. More was found guilty of treason on the 1st of July 1535 and executed on the 6th of July.
And Richard Rich continued to rise.
When Henry VIII began closing England's monasteries, a new organisation called the Court of Augmentations was created to manage the enormous quantities of land and wealth passing into royal hands.
Rich became its Chancellor.
It was an extraordinarily powerful position and one which also helped Rich become a substantial landowner himself.
His career was not finished with controversy either.
In 1546, Protestant reformer Anne Askew was imprisoned in the Tower. Authorities wanted her to reveal the names of other reformers, particularly influential women who might have connections with Queen Catherine Parr.
Askew later described being placed on the rack and claimed that Richard Rich and Lord Chancellor Thomas Wriothesley personally operated it. Other accounts record that the Tower's lieutenant had refused. She would later be executed for heresy.
But once again, Rich survived.
Henry VIII died in 1547. Rather than disappearing with the old king's regime, Richard was created Baron Rich of Leez and became Lord Chancellor during the reign of the young Edward VI.
Then came another extraordinary change.
Edward died in 1553 and the Catholic Mary I took the throne.
Men who had prospered during the Protestant reforms suddenly found themselves in danger.
Rich adapted again.
He served under Mary's government and remained an important figure.
Then, when Elizabeth I became queen in 1558 and England changed religious direction once more, Rich survived that transition too.
By the time he died on the 12th of June 1567, Richard Rich had lived through the reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary I and for nearly the first nine years of Elizabeth I.
He had accumulated considerable wealth and estates and, late in his life, founded Felsted School in Essex in 1564.
His story makes an interesting contrast with Nicholas Carew.
Carew had enjoyed the king's friendship but still ended on the scaffold.
Richard Rich seems to have understood something perhaps even more valuable in Tudor England: when the people around you were falling, knowing when to change direction could keep you alive.
But Rich's extraordinary survival came with a reputation that has lasted for centuries.
Was Richard Rich simply a highly capable Tudor servant doing what his monarchs demanded - or was he one of the most ruthless opportunists of Henry VIII's England?
What do you think?
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