Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Wingfield, Richard (d.1634)
WINGFIELD, Sir RICHARD, first Viscount Powerscourt (d. 1634), was the elder son of Sir Richard Wingfield, governor of Portsmouth in the reign of Elizabeth (who, in turn, was the son of Lodovic, ninth son of Sir John Wingfield of Letheringham in Suffolk), and Christian, only daughter of Sir William Fitzwilliam of Milton, and sister of Sir William Fitzwilliam, lord-deputy of Ireland (Visitation of Huntingdon, Camden Soc. p. 129).
Trained up from his youth to the profession of a soldier, Wingfield first saw active service under his uncle, Sir William Fitzwilliam, in Ireland. For some years (1580–1586?) he held the post of deputy to the vice-treasurer of Ireland, Sir Henry Wallop. On 9 May 1584 he was specially appointed ‘to make enquiry during six years … of all bishops and other spiritual persons who have obtained any benefice without paying the first-fruits since the second year of the queen, and to compound or proceed against them or their executors … retaining half the profits for himself’ (Cal. Fiants, Eliz. No. 4378; cf. Cal. State Papers, Irel. Eliz. iii. 340, 403). He offered himself unsuccessfully as an undertaker for lands in the plantation of Munster in 1586, and, quitting Ireland apparently in this year, served for some time under Sir John Norris (1547?–1597) [q. v.] in the Netherlands. In 1589 he took part in the expedition to Portugal, and, in 1591 accompanied Norris into Brittany to assist Henry IV against the forces of the league, returning in December with despatches to England (cf. A Journal of the Service in France against the Leaguers, 1591, pp. 126, 131; Belvoir MSS. i. 291). Coming again to Ireland in 1595, he was wounded in the elbow during a skirmish with Tyrone's forces between Armagh and Newry on 4 Sept., in consequence of which he was invalided and allowed to retire to England (Cal. State Papers, Irel. Eliz. v. 382, 428), being before his departure knighted by the lord-deputy, Sir William Russell, in Christ Church, on 9 Nov. (Cal. Carew MSS. iii. 238). Recovering shortly from his wound, he took part, with the rank of colonel, in the expedition against Cadiz, under the Earl of Essex, in June 1596 (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1595–7, pp. 221, 275).
Wingfield returned to Ireland apparently in 1600 with Lord-deputy Mountjoy. On 29 March in that year he was appointed marshal of the army in succession to Sir Richard Bingham, and at the same time admitted a member of the privy council (Morrin, Cal. Patent Rolls, ii. 570). He took part that year in the campaign in Ulster (Cal. Carew MSS. iii. 465), and was present the year following at the siege of Kinsale. He was confirmed in his office of marshal by James I, and having in July 1608 been instrumental in suppressing the rising of Sir Cahir O'Dogherty [q. v.] by killing that chieftain, he was rewarded on 29 June 1609 by a grant of the district of Fercullen in co. Wicklow, erected into the manor of Powerscourt on 25 May 1611. As a servitor in the plantation of Ulster he obtained two thousand acres of land in the precinct of Dungannon, co. Tyrone, called the manor of Benburb; and from Pynnar's ‘Survey’ (Harris, Hibernica, i. 211), it appears that he did his duty in planting and building. He represented Downpatrick in the parliament of 1613, taking a prominent part in the contested election of Sir John Davies (1569–1626) [q. v.] as speaker; and in this same year he obtained a grant of lands in the plantation of Wexford, in the neighbourhood of Arklow, afterwards erected into the manor of Wingfield. In March the following year he was associated with Thomas Jones, archbishop of Dublin, in the government of Ireland during the temporary absence of Lord Chichester (Cal. State Papers, Irel. Jas. I, iv. 470), and on 1 Feb. 1619 (patent 19 Feb.) he was created viscount Powerscourt. In reference to this dignity Chamberlain wrote to Carleton on 6 Feb.: ‘Sir Richard Wingfield, though eighty-eight years old and childless, has given Lord Haddington 2,000l. for an Irish viscountcy’ (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1619–23, p. 11). Probably eighty-eight is a mistake for sixty-eight, otherwise Wingfield must have lived to the age of a hundred and three. On 30 Sept. 1619 he was appointed a commissioner for the plantation of Longford and Ely O'Carroll, and was again lord justice on the retirement of Lord Grandison in May 1622 (Cal. State Papers, Irel. Jas. I, v. 350).
Wingfield died on 9 Sept. 1634, and having no issue by his wife Elizabeth, widow of Edward, lord Cromwell of Oakham in Rutland, was succeeded in the estate (the title becoming extinct) by his cousin, Sir Edward Wingfield, son of Richard, and grandson of George, third son of Lodovic.
Portraits of Wingfield and his wife, by Cornelius Janssen(?), are preserved at Powerscourt. That of Wingfield represents him wearing a scarf, in connection with which there is a family tradition how on returning to England in 1595, and being asked by Queen Elizabeth what he expected as his reward, he replied, ‘The scarf which your majesty wears round your neck will be sufficient reward for me.’
[Lodge's Peerage, ed. Archdall, v. 268–72; Powerscourt's Wingfield Muniments, pp. 38–9 (not always accurate), and authorities quoted. There are a number of Wingfield's letters in the Cecil Correspondence preserved at Hatfield House, and other references are Webb's Compendium of Irish Biography; Meehan's Fate and Fortunes of the Earls of Tyrone and Tyrconnel; Hist. MSS. Comm. 7th Rep. p. 655, 8th Rep. p. 397.]