the latter wished him to employ catholics in his army. On 13 Feb. 1642–3 information reached the Marquis of Huntly that Newcastle had committed Newport to prison at Pomfret (Pontefract) (Spalding, Memorialls, ii. 234–5). On 11 March 1642–3 the lords remaining at Westminster sent for Newport as a delinquent. On 15 March it was reported that ‘he was stayed at Coventry,’ and the parliamentary committee there were directed to bring him to London, which they declined to do until they received the order of the House of Commons (21 March). On 28 March 1642–3 Newport surrendered himself and was committed to the custody of the gentleman usher of the House of Lords; on 4 April 1643 leave was granted him ‘to take the air’ with his custodian. Newport's saddle and horse-arms, and other property left in the Tower, when he occupied it as constable, were handed over to Sir Thomas Middleton by order of the commons, 11 June 1643, but the lords had allowed Lady Newport to remove some of the furniture earlier. In the following year Newport was released. He was present at the second battle of Newbury (27 Oct. 1644), and marched in the king's company with the royal regiment to Bath on the night following the battle (Symond's Diary, Camd. Soc. 146; Money's Newbury (1884), 249). At the end of 1645 he was with the king's forces in Devonshire. On 23 Jan. 1645–6, when Dartmouth was stormed and fell, Newport was taken prisoner. He was sent to London, and the lords committed him to the custody of the gentleman usher (26 Jan. 1645–6), but it was reported that Newport ‘was a means of delivering up [to the parliament] divers forts of great strength without forcing.’ On 11 Feb. Newport petitioned the lords to confine him in some private place where his maintenance would cost him less money. On 17 Feb. 1645–6 his recognisances in 1,000l. were accepted by the lords that he would not leave the parishes of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields and Covent Garden if freed from custody. On 23 March the bail was raised to 2,000l., and Newport was allowed ‘to take the air’ within five miles of London. On 22 July 1646 he was released from his bail. On 4 Oct. 1647 the lords recommended to the commons Newport's petition ‘for lessening of his compositions,’ in consideration of his loss of the office of master of the ordnance.
Little is heard of Newport after the capture and death of Charles I. On 16 Feb. 1653–4 Lord Lisle and Major-general Lambert were ordered in council to ‘accommodate the business’ of Newport and Lord Vaux, who had been apprehended on a warrant ‘touching a challenge.’ In June 1655 Newport and Lord Willoughby of Parham were committed to the Tower on suspicion of treason.
At the Restoration Newport recovered some of his importance, but age was telling upon him, and he took no active part in public affairs. In June 1660 he was formally suspended and discharged from the office of master of the ordnance. He was at court on the day before the coronation of Charles II, 22 March 1660–1, and carried the king's mantle (Evelyn's Diary, ed. Bray, i. 34). On 10 Nov. 1662 he was granted a pension of 1,000l. a year as gentleman of the bedchamber, which was renewed, 6 Jan. and 18 March 1662–3, with the proviso that it was to date from 24 June 1660. Newport died at Oxford, in St. Aldate's parish, 12 Feb. 1665–6, ‘to which place he before had retired to avoid the plague raging in London.’ He was buried in the south aisle adjoining the choir of Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford (Wood, Fasti, ed. Bliss, i. 250).
Lord Newport married Anne, daughter of John, Baron Boteler, of Bramfield, Hertfordshire. Lady Newport is frequently mentioned in the State Papers as a prominent leader of London society, and in 1637 she was induced by her sister, the wife of Endymion Porter, to follow a prevailing fashion and declare herself a catholic. Her husband, angered by this step, begged Laud's assistance in punishing those who had influenced Lady Newport, and Laud's endeavour to carry out Newport's wish led him into a serious quarrel with the queen (cf. Laud's Works, iii. 229; Strafford's Letters, ii. 125). It is possible that Newport's temporary alliances with the leaders of the parliamentary opposition were a result of the irritation produced by his wife's conversion. There is little to prove that she was in much intercourse with her husband during the civil wars. Passes were granted her by the authorities to travel to France (23 Sept. 1642), to go to the west of England (11 Nov. 1642), and to leave the country on her giving security to do nothing prejudicial to the state (14 March 1652–3). In June 1657, when a plot against the Protector's life was on foot in London, a search after her with a view to her arrest was suggested (Thurloe, State Papers). Care must be taken to distinguish between the Earl of Newport (in the Isle of Wight) and his sons from Richard Newport [q. v.], created Baron Newport of High Ercall, Shropshire, 14 Oct. 1642, who died in 1650, and from Richard Newport's son and heir Francis [q. v.], created Viscount Newport of Bradford, Shropshire,
