London in June 1693, leaving the government of Ireland to three lords justices, viz. Henry, lord Capel of Tewkesbury [q. v.], Wyche himself, and William Duncombe. Between Capel, who from the first took the foremost place, and his colleagues no great cordiality existed. Capel ‘espoused the interest of the English settlers … Wyche and Duncombe, regardless of court favour, sought impartially to give the full effect to the articles of Limerick, upon which the court party and the protestants in general looked with a jealous eye, as prejudicial to their interest’ (Plowden, Hist. Rev. 1803, i. 201).
Another matter of contention was the grant of 1,200l. a year (the origin of the ‘Regium Donum’) assigned by William out of the Belfast customs to the presbyterian ministers in Ireland in recognition of their services. The bishops, who regarded this grant as an intolerable affront, induced Wyche and Duncombe to offer the advice, but without success, that the grant should be discontinued (Froude, English in Ireland, 1881, i. 267–8).
Wyche and Duncombe also differed from Capel in regard to the advisability of calling a parliament. They wrote a joint letter to secretary Trenchard in one sense, and Capel sent another in an opposite sense (14 July 1694). The divergence of opinion shown in the two letters illustrates the difference of principle by which the Irish government was divided (the letters are preserved in the Southwell MSS.; they are also printed in full in O'Flanagan's ‘Lives of the Lord Chancellors of Ireland,’ p. 443). The inflexibility of Wyche and Duncombe at length brought about their removal, and in May 1695 Capel obtained the sole government as lord deputy. According to Luttrell (iii. 476) Wyche was in the same month appointed to succeed Lord Paget as ambassador in Turkey.
In 1697 Wyche spent Christmas at Wotton with his father-in-law George Evelyn. The lady's uncle, John Evelyn (1620–1706) [q. v.], was also a guest. On 28 March 1700 Wyche was elected one of the commissioners for the Irish forfeitures (Luttrell, iv. 628). He purchased the estate of Poynings Manor and other lands at Hockwold in Norfolk, where he died on Monday, 29 Dec. 1707.
Wyche married, on 15 May 1692, Mary, eldest daughter of George Evelyn of Wotton, by his second wife, the widow of Sir John Cotton, and niece of John Evelyn the diarist. The latter speaks of Wyche as ‘a noble and learned gentleman.’ His wife ‘had a portion of 6,000l., to which was added about 300l. more’ (Evelyn, Diary, 4 Oct. 1699).
[Weld's History of the Royal Society, 1848; Luttrell's Brief Hist. Relation of State Affairs, 1857; Evelyn's Diary, 30 Nov. 1683, 15 May 1692, 1 Aug. 1693, 4 Oct. 1699; Leland's Hist. of Ireland from the Invasion of Henry II, 1773; Plowden's Hist. Rev. of the State of Ireland, 1803, vol. i.; Bishop Burnet's Hist. of his own Time, ed. 1838, p. 596; Wood's Fasti Oxon.; Froude's English in Ireland, 1881, vol. i.; O'Flanagan's Lives of the Lord Chancellors of Ireland, 1870; Martin Haverty's Hist. of Ireland, 1860, p. 677; Gordon's Hist. of Ireland, ii. 186, 187.]
WYCHE, Sir PETER (d. 1643), English ambassador at the Porte, was the sixth son of Richard Wyche (1554–1621), a London merchant, who married in 1581 Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Richard Saltonstall [q. v.], by Susan, sister of Sir Gabriel Pointz. He claimed lineal descent from Sir Hugh Wyche, who was lord mayor of London in 1461, and was buried in St. Margaret's, Lothbury, in 1466. All the Wyches seem to have made prosperous ventures in the East India trade. Peter, upon the accession of Charles I, brought his fortune to the court. On 16 Dec. 1626 he was knighted at Whitehall (Metcalfe), and two years later he was made a gentleman of the privy chamber (Carlisle, Privy Chamber, p. 128).
Meanwhile, early in 1627 he had been appointed English ambassador as successor to Sir Thomas Roe [q. v.] at Constantinople (Addit. MS. 21993, f. 285). He sailed with a trading fleet in November, and was followed by his wife in May 1628. Sir Peter sent home a detailed account of the great fire of September 1633 (Von Hammer, chap. xlvii.). He obtained from Murad (Amurath) IV a welcome reduction of the duty upon English cloth, while his wife is said to have greatly astonished the reigning sultana by a visit to the harem, upon which occasion she and her suite wore farthingales, and had difficulty in persuading the Turkish ladies of ‘the fallacy of their apparel’ (see a curious account of the incident in John Bulwer, Anthropometamorphosis, 1653, 4to, p. 54). By an order in council dated 25 March 1640, it was decreed that Wyche was to enjoy the same salary during his embassage as his predecessors, Sir Paul Pindar and Sir Thomas Roe, and he was also declared exempt from giving an account to the Turkey Company of the ‘consulage’ payments due from the shipping during his term of office (Eg. MS. 2541, p. 209). Upon his return to England at the end of 1641 Wyche was made a privy councillor, and comptroller of the king's household, in which capacity, together with thirty-five peers and
