that he was not deprived of the office, but resigned it from growing infirmities; for not only did he retain his seat on the privy council, but in May 1572, by precept of the lord regent, he received a pension of 500l. which was regularly paid him until May 1578. He probably died between that May and the following November; in any case he was dead before August 1579, when 5,000l. was paid to his natural son, Robert Richardson, for the ‘relief of certain his Hienes [the King's] jewels laid in pledge by James, Earl of Moray,’ to the ‘said umwhile Robert Richardson and now delivered’ (Note by Laing in Knox's Works, vi. 681). If he was married he appears to have been survived by no legitimate offspring. According to Crawfurd, Richardson possessed a ‘large estate in land,’ including the baronies of Smeaton and Pencaitland, which he left to his natural son, James Richardson, who married Lady Elizabeth, daughter of James Douglas, earl of Morton, regent of Scotland. Their issue was Sir James of Smeaton; Sir Robert Richardson, reputed first baronet of Pencaitland; Archibald; and Alexander. According to the ‘Register of the Great Seal’ the lord treasurer had another natural son, Stephen.
Another Robert Richardson, (fl. 1543) in 1530 became a canon of the abbey of Cambuskenneth, published in the same year at Paris a Latin exegesis on the rule of St. Augustine, became a convert to protestantism (on which account he fled into England in 1538), and was, on the recommendation of Henry VIII, employed in 1543 in preaching in Scotland; but, on the withdrawal of the protection of the regent Arran, after Cardinal Beaton was set at liberty, he was again compelled to seek refuge in England.
[Reg. Mag. Sig. Scot. 1546–80; Reg. P. C. Scotland, vols. i. and ii.: Knox's Works, with Laing's Notes; Calderwood's History of the Church of Scotland; Lord Herries's Memoirs of the Reign of Mary (in the Abbotsford Club); Scott's Staggering State of Scottish Statesmen.]
RICHARDSON, ROBERT (1779–1847), physician and traveller, born in 1779, was a native of Stirlingshire. After leaving Stirling grammar school he studied arts at Glasgow University, but graduated M.D. at Edinburgh 12 Sept. 1807. After practising for a time in Dumfriesshire, he became travelling physician to Charles John Gardiner, second viscount Mountjoy (first earl of Blessington and husband of the famous countess). In 1816 he joined Somerset Lowry Corry, second earl of Belmore (brother of Henry Thomas Lowry Corry [q. v.]), and a party in a two years' tour through Europe, Egypt, and Palestine. While in Albania they had two interviews with Ali Pasha at Janina. Having visited the Pyramids and many places of interest on the banks of the Nile, as far as the second cataract, Richardson and his friends proceeded to Palestine, reaching Gaza in April 1818. Richardson claims to have been the first Christian traveller admitted to Solomon's mosque. At Tiberias he and his friends received a visit from Lady Hester Lucy Stanhope [q. v.]
On his return to England Richardson, who had become L.R.C.P. on 26 June 1815, settled in Rathbone Place, London, and obtained an extensive practice. He died in Gordon Street, Gordon Square, on 5 Nov. 1847, and was buried in Highgate cemetery. His ‘Travels’ were published in two volumes in 1822, with plans and engravings. They were unfavourably criticised in the ‘Quarterly Review’ for October 1822, but were acknowledged by other critics to contain valuable information. Lady Blessington lent Byron the book, and he highly commended it, saying: ‘The author is just the sort of man I should like to have with me for Greece—clever, both as a man and a physician.’
[Munk's Coll. of Phys. iii. 134; Gent. Mag. 1847, ii. 666; Lady Blessington's Conversations with Lord Byron, 1893, pp. 330–1, n.; Allibone's Dict. of Engl. Lit. ii. 1796; Richardson's Travels, 1822.]
RICHARDSON, SAMUEL (fl. 1646), controversialist, of Northamptonshire birth, was probably a soldier and an army preacher in the early part of the civil wars. In ‘The Life of Faith’ he speaks of a Mistress Ann Wilson as having oft refreshed him in the days of his pilgrimage (The Life of Faith, p. 45). He became, apparently, a leading member of one of the seven baptist churches of London. In the three confessions of faith put forth by these churches in 1643, 1644, and 1646, Richardson's signature stands beside that of John Spilsbury, minister of the baptist congregation at Wapping, and he may have been an elder or Spilsbury's colleague there. He ardently supported the action of the army and the government of Cromwell, to whom he had open access. For a time he had scruples as to the title of ‘Protector,’ and told Cromwell of them to his face (Plain Dealing, p. 70); but, becoming convinced, he tried hard to reconcile Vavasor Powell [q. v.] and others to the protectorate. He was possibly the Samuel Richardson who on 21 July 1653 was appointed one of the committee for the hospitals of the Savoy and Ely House (Cal. State Papers,
