Nathaniel Rich

Colonel Nathaniel Rich ( 1620–1622 to 1701–1702) was a member of the landed gentry from Essex, who sided with Parliament during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms and was "an example of those pious Puritan gentlemen who were inspired by the ideals of the English Revolution". Appointed a colonel in the New Model Army in 1645, then elected MP for Cirencester in 1648, he was a close associate of Oliver Cromwell until the two fell out due to his association with the Fifth Monarchists, a radical religious group that opposed the latter's appointment as Lord Protector in 1653. Although Rich was removed from the army and lost much of his influence as a result, he remained a committed republican and opposed the Stuart Restoration in May 1660. Since he had not participated in the Execution of Charles I, he was pardoned under the Indemnity and Oblivion Act, but arrested in January 1661 during the short-lived uprising led by his fellow Fifth Monarchist, Thomas Venner. Released in 1665, he lived quietly on his estate in Essex until his death sometime between October 1700 and March 1702, one of the few senior officers of the New Model to survive into the 18th century. Personal details Nathaniel Rich was born in Felsted, Essex, eldest son of Robert Rich (died 1630) and Elizabeth Dutton; the precise date is unknown but was probably sometime between 1620 and 1622. A junior member of the powerful and well connected Rich family, he was related to Robert Rich, 2nd Earl of Warwick, commander of the Parliamentarian navy from 1643 to 1649, as well as his younger brother Henry Rich, 1st Earl of Holland, executed by Parliament in March 1649. In January 1644, he married Elizabeth ( 1625–1655), daughter of Sir Edmund Hampden and cousin of John Hampden, the Parliamentarian leader killed at the Battle of Chalgrove Field in 1643. They had three children, Nathaniel (before 1648, after 1702), Robert (1648–1699), and a daughter, of whom little is known. In 1663, Lady Elizabeth Kerr became his second wife; they had no children and his will left her a life interest in his lands, which reverted to his son Nathaniel on her death. His younger son Robert married Mary Rich, a distant cousin, and in 1677 inherited the title and estates of his father-in-law, Sir Charles Rich.