a political sympathy with Spain. He was favourably known to Gondomar, the Spanish ambassador, and it was through his influence that Weston was sent on a mission to the archdukes at Brussels. Sir Edward (afterwards Viscount) Conway [q. v.] was associated with him, and the object of their embassy was to bring about an accommodation of the difficulties arising out of the question of the palatinate, which James I imagined could be done by mere words and his own statecraft. From Brussels they were to pass on to the states of the Rhine, Dresden, and Prague, whence they were to open communications with Sir Henry Wotton [q. v.] at Vienna. The Spaniards naturally did not regard their mission seriously; their protest at Brussels in July against the invasion of the palatinate was disregarded, and the German princes whom they consulted at Oppenheim paid no greater heed to their advice. They arrived at Prague only in time to witness the crushing defeat of the elector palatine by the imperialists on 29 Oct., and a few weeks later were recalled (Gardiner, iii. 361 sqq.)
Shortly after his return Weston was on 29 Jan. 1620–1 appointed chancellor and under-treasurer of the exchequer, in succession to Sir Fulke Greville, first lord Brooke [q. v.]; about the same time he was sworn of the privy council. He is confused by Doyle with the Sir Richard Weston (see below ad fin.) who was returned for Lichfield to the parliament summoned to meet on 16 Jan. 1620–1, but the chancellor of the exchequer did not enter that parliament until 22 Nov. following, when he succeeded Sir Lionel Cranfield, raised to the peerage, as member for Arundel. In February 1621–2 he was again sent to Brussels, Gondomar once more recommending him as ‘the most appropriate instrument for this affair’ (Ranke, i. 511); he was to attend a conference on the question of restoring the palatinate to James I's son-in-law. He set out on 23 April, but he had no instructions from the elector, on whose behalf he was to treat, and a courier despatched on 16 May returned from the elector without the formal powers demanded by the Infanta Isabella. These were procured on 28 June, but Weston's demands for the suspension of hostilities and his threats that England would make war on Mansfeld and Christian if they refused to submit were alike powerless to stay the advance of the imperialists or bring the protestant princes to terms. He was recalled on 15 Sept., and the report on his mission which he presented to the privy council on the 27th is preserved among the Inner Temple records (vol. xlviii.)
The failure of these negotiations and of the Spanish marriage project led Buckingham to press for war with Spain. Weston voted against the war, and was equally opposed to the calling of a parliament which war would involve. Being overruled, he acquiesced in Buckingham's policy, and sat in the parliament summoned to meet on 12 Feb. 1623–4, though his name does not appear in the official return. On the 27th he was selected to deliver to the commons the formal report of Buckingham's narrative of his mission to Spain. From 25 May to 11 Dec. 1624 he was acting treasurer to the exchequer. To the first parliament of Charles I he was returned on 25 April for Callington, Cornwall, and to the second, on 21 Jan. 1625–6, for Bodmin, boroughs under crown influence, in which Weston was probably driven by his general unpopularity to seek refuge. In both these sessions his main function was to obtain supplies from the commons, but in the latter he was also employed in evading the commons' demand for Eliot's release by pretending that his imprisonment was due to offences committed outside parliament. For the next two years Weston's position was one of great difficulty. He disliked the war, but was compelled to find money for the Ré expedition, while it was impossible to wring supplies out of parliament. Nevertheless, by various financial expedients on which Ranke (History of England, ii. 31) passes too high an encomium, Weston managed to pay his way, and on one occasion at least the sailors of the fleet were agreeably surprised by the punctual receipt of their wages (Oppenheim, Administration of the Navy, pp. 234–5).
Weston was not, apparently, returned to the parliament of 1628–9, but on 13 April 1628 he was raised to the peerage as Baron Weston of Neyland. He took his seat at once, and on 17 May he gave its final shape in the House of Lords to the Petition of Right, which by his proposal was reduced to little more than an empty form of words, and was consequently rejected by the commons. The success of the parliamentary opposition rendered necessary some steps towards peace, and on 23 July Weston, the most strenuous advocate of peace, became lord high treasurer. This slippery post had been held by five living treasurers, none of whom had retained it more than a few months, and Clarendon suggests that Weston's removal was only prevented by Buckingham's death on 23 Aug.
Charles now determined to be his own first minister, and no one succeeded to quite the same position that Buckingham had
