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 Some unpublished poems of Fanshawe are in Brit.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.
[Lady Fanshawe's Memoirs, ed. H. C. Fanshawe, 1905, and ed. Nicolas, 1829; Notes, Genealogical and Historical, of the Fanshawe Family, 1868–72; Clarendon State Papers, Calendars i. ii. iii.; Clarendon's Autobiography, pp. 307, 308; Carte's Orig. Letters (1739); Carte's Ormonde (1851); Evelyn's Diary; Pepys's Diary; Cal. State Papers, Dom.; Nicholas Papers (Camden Soc.); Bagshaw's Sermon preacht in Madrid, 1667; Biog. Brit. ed. Kippis; Macmillan's Mag. December 1888, art. by Mr. J. W. Mackail.]
FANSHAWE, THOMAS (1530?–1601), remembrancer of the exchequer, was the eldest son of John Fanshawe of Fanshawe Gate, Derbyshire, where he was born some time in the reign of Henry VIII, and probably about 1530. He studied at Jesus College, Cambridge, and became a member of the Middle Temple. His uncle, Thomas Fanshawe, took him under his protection, and procured for him the reversion of the appointment of the office of remembrancer of the exchequer, then occupied by the elder Fanshawe. This office was held during five tenures by members of the family. Fanshawe acquired considerable wealth in his office, to which he succeeded on his uncle's death in 1568. Besides Fanshawe Gate, which he let to his brother, he possessed the estates of Ware Park, Hertfordshire, of Jenkins, in Barking, Essex, and others.
He fulfilled the duties of his office with diligence, as we find by various entries in the State Papers of Elizabeth's reign. In 1597 (29 May) he wrote to Lord Burghley that ‘by my continually attending the business of my office all the term, I have too much neglected my health and business in the country, and as my presence is urgently required there I have left all things in such a state that the duties may be as well performed without me. I hope I may repair thither and stay until the term. … If there shall be any occasion for my attendance, I will speedily return, though to my hindrance both in health and profit.’
Fanshawe sat in the parliament of 1571 for Rye, in five succeeding parliaments for Arundel, and in 1597 for Much Wenlock, Shropshire. In 1579 he established, in accordance with the will of his uncle, the free grammar school of Dronfield. He died at his house, Warwick Lane, London, 19 Feb. 1601. His ‘funerall was worshipfully solemnised,’ 19 March, at the parish church of Ware. A portrait is in the possession of his descendant, J. G. Fanshawe, esq., of London, and Parsloes, Essex. Fanshawe married twice: (1) Mary (d. 9 June 1578), daughter of Antony Bourchier; and (2) Joan, daughter of Thomas Smith of Ostenhanger, and had issue by both marriages. His elder son by his first marriage, Henry [q. v.], succeeded him as remembrancer. Alice, his eldest daughter by the second marriage, was wife of Sir Christopher Hatton, a relative of the chancellor. Thomas, his eldest son by his second marriage, inherited Jenkins and other estates at Barking, to which he added by purchase from the crown in 1628. He was knighted in 1624, and held the offices of clerk of the crown in the king's bench and surveyor-general of the crown
