soldier and adventurer, who sailed on 2 June 1609 from Plymouth for Virginia in the Sea Venture, which was commanded by Captain Christopher Newport [q. v.] In the same vessel were the three commissioners, Sir Thomas Gates [q. v.], Lord de la Warr, and Sir George Somers [q. v.], who were directed to colonise the new country. The fleet consisted of nine vessels. A violent storm separated the Sea Venture from the other ships, and drove her on to the rocks of the Bermudas, where her crew and passengers were forced to remain for forty-two weeks. During that time they built two pinnaces of cedarwood, in which they ultimately proceeded to Virginia.
Rich reached England in 1610, and published, on 1 Oct., a poem, entitled ‘Nevves from Virginia. The lost Flocke Triumphant. With the happy Arriual of that famous and worthy knight Sr Thomas Gates; and the well reputed and valiant captaine Mr. Christopher Newporte, and others, into England. With the manner of their distresse in the Iland of Deuils (otherwise called Bermoothawes), where they remayned 42 weekes, and builded two Pynaces, in which they returned into Virginia, by R. Rich, gent., one of the voyage, London, Printed by Edw. Allde, and are to be solde by John Wright, at Christ Church dore, 1610,’ 4to. The poem consists of twenty-two eight-line verses, to which is added a brief and bluntly humorous preface. His object was to ‘spread the truth’ about the new colony, and he announced his intention of returning with Captain Newport next year to Virginia. The only known copy is in the Huth Library. It was formerly included in Lord Charlemont's collection, where it was found in 1864 by James Orchard Halliwell[-Phillipps], who reprinted it in 1865 in a limited edition of only ten copies. Twenty-five copies were reprinted by Quaritch for private circulation (London, 1874). Both reprints lack the woodcut of a ship, which is in the original.
The narratives by Rich and others of the Bermudas adventure—Rich spells the word ‘Bermoothawes,’ Shakespeare spells it ‘Bermoothes’—doubtless suggested to Shakespeare some of the scenes in his ‘Tempest’ (cf. arts. Newport, Christopher; Gates, Sir Thomas; and Jourdain, Silvester; and Malone, Account of the Incidents from which Shakespeare's ‘Tempest’ was derived, London, 1808).
Rich speaks in his preface of another work on Virginia, to be ready in ‘a few daies.’ An entry in the ‘Stationers' Register’ gives under the same date (1610) ‘Good Speed to Virginia.’ But no second book by Rich has been discovered.
[Arber's Transcript of the Reg. of Stationers' Hall, iii. 444; Catalogue of the Huth Library, iv. 1247; editions of the Newes mentioned above; Hazlitt's Handbook to the Lit. of Great Britain, p. 506.]
RICH, ROBERT (fl. 1240), biographer, was second son of Reginald and Mabel Rich of Abingdon, and younger brother of St. Edmund (Rich) [q. v.], archbishop of Canterbury. He seems to have been the latter's lifelong companion, and was sent with him to study at Paris about 1185–90. With Edmund he was called home by his mother's illness, and accompanied Edmund to Oxford. He is perhaps the Master Robert de Abingdon who, in consideration of his services and sufferings, had license to hold an additional benefice on 31 Aug. 1220 (Bliss, Cal. Papal Registers, i. 76). In 1239 Robert, who is there styled Magister Robertus de Abingdon, was employed by Archbishop Edmund as one of his officials in negotiating with the monks of Christchurch, Canterbury (Wallace, pp. 297–9, 507; Gervase of Canterbury, ii. 161–5). He accompanied Edmund in his exile at Pontigny, and was present with him at his death. Edmund gave Robert his hair shirt (Osney Annals ap. Annales Monastici, iv. 87–8), and also bequeathed him a sapphire, which subsequently passed into the possession of Nicholas, a goldsmith of St. Albans, who gave it to the abbey there (Matt. Paris, vi. 384). He died before 1244, for Matthew Paris (iv. 378) under that year speaks of miracles that were wrought at his tomb. Eustace the monk, in his life of St. Edmund, speaks of Robert's singular piety, winning conversation, and profound learning (ap. Wallace, p. 543).
Robert was the author of a life of his brother, which seems on the best evidence to be that in Cotton. MS. Faustina B. i. ff. 180–183, in the British Museum, and in Fell MS. 1, vol. iv. in the Bodleian Library; a brief fragment of it is in Lambeth MS. 135. It ‘furnishes us (according to its editor, Mr. Wallace) with an insight into Edmund's interior development, which Robert (his lifelong companion) was most competent to give,’ and was not the work of a monk. This life also appears to have been used by Surius, who professes to follow the lives by Robert Rich and Robert Bacon (Wallace, pp. 4–7, 612–613), and it has been printed in Wallace's ‘Life of St. Edmund,’ pp. 613–24. with another life of the archbishop, ascribed by Mr. Wallace to Eustace, monk of Christchurch, and now in Cotton. MS. Julius D. vi. (1). Sir Thomas Hardy assumed, with less probability, that the latter was the biography from Robert Rich's pen, because there is a statement to
