Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Newport, Richard (1587-1651)
NEWPORT, RICHARD, Lord Newport (1587–1651), born in 1587, sprung from a family that was long seated at High Ercall (cf. Eyton, Antiquities of Shropshire, passim), was eldest son of Sir Francis Newport by his wife Beatrice (Dugdale, Baronage, ii. 467; Owen and Blakeway, Shrewsbury, i. 273, 342). On 19 Oct. 1604 he matriculated at Oxford from Brasenose College, and graduated B.A. on 12 June 1607 (Foster, Alumni Oxon., 1500–1714, iii. 1063). On 2 June 1615 he was knighted at Theobalds (Metcalfe, Book of Knights, p. 165). He was M.P. for Shropshire in 1614, Shrewsbury in 1621–2, and Shropshire in 1624–5, 1625, and 1628–9. The king, in consideration of a present of 6,000l., raised him to the peerage as Baron Newport of High Ercall on 14 Oct. 1642 (Clarendon, Hist., ed. Macray, bk. vi. sects. 66–7). By March 1643 he was in the custody of the parliamentarians at Coventry (Commons' Journals, ii. 1004), and in October 1645 he was a prisoner in Stafford. On 23 Jan. 1646 he was ordered to be brought up for examination (ib. iv. 416), but in April the committee were informed that he had been long in France, and intended to remain there. A fine of 16,687l. 13s. 3d., subsequently reduced to 9,436l., was inflicted on him. The committee for advance of money assessed him at 800l. on 11 May 1647, and, on failing to get it, ordered his estate to be sequestered, but finally agreed to take 500l. (Cal. pp. 727, 813). The House of Commons, on 22 March 1648–9, expressed its readiness to accept 10,000l. as the joint fine of Newport and his son Francis (Cal. of Committee for Compounding, p. 924). Newport died at Moulins in France on 8 Feb. 1650–1, and was buried there. ‘By the malignity of the recent times,’ he wrote in his will on 12 Nov. 1648, ‘my family is dissolved, my cheife howse, High Ercall, is ruined, my howsholdstuffe and stocke sold from me for haveing assisted the king’ (registered in P.C.C. 126, Grey). By Rachel, daughter of Sir John Leveson, knt., of Halling, Kent, who survived him, he had, with six daughters, two sons, Francis (1619–1708), afterwards Earl of Bradford [q. v.], and Andrew (1623–1699) [q. v.], both of whom are separately noticed.
[Commons' Journals, vols. ii. iii. iv.; authorities in the text.]