WESTON, Richard I (1564-1613), of Sutton Place, Surr.

Weston inherited the borough of Petersfield and from the family’s Surrey lands, Sutton, Headley and lands in Ashtead. His father had settled a life interest in the house and park at West Clandon and the manors of Merrow and Bosgrave on his second wife, who, in the event, outlived her stepson. Weston returned himself for Petersfield to the Parliament of 1593, sold it in 1597, and sold Headley in 1601. He was with the Earl of Essex at Cadiz in 1596, and so was probably the Richard Weston who commanded the Swan during the voyage,

who meeting with a Fleming who refused to vale his foretop, with ... good courage and resolution attempted to bring him in.

As he was described by the letter writer John Chamberlain on his death in 1613 as Sir Richard Weston the hunter, it was evidently he who was a keeper of the King’s red deer in Windsor park. By this time he was in financial diffculties, receiving two grants of protection against actions for debt in 1604. In the following year Cecil, then Earl of Salisbury, told the Latin secretary, Lake, to borrow £200 for him if the treasurer had no ready money available. By 1609 Weston was in prison, writing desperate letters to Salisbury. He died intestate 7 Sept. 1613. His heir was his son Richard, the author of books on farming.2Vis. Norf. (Norf. Arch. Soc.), i. 196; PCC 100 Cope, 41 Harrington; C142/255/90; VCH Hants , iii. 114; VCH Surr. iii. 292; Hakluyt, Voyages (1903-5), iv. 243; Chamberlain Letters ed. McClure, i. 476; CSP Dom. 1603-10, pp. 81, 108, 115, 237, 503, 551, 553; C142/333/20.