Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Savage, Richard (1660?-1712)
SAVAGE, RICHARD, fourth Earl Rivers (1660?–1712), born about 1660, was second but only surviving son of Thomas, third earl. The father, born in 1628, was son of John Savage, a colonel in the royal army, and governor of Donnington Castle; he married at St. Sepulchre's, London, on 21 Dec. 1647 (by consent of her mother, Mrs. Jeanes), Elizabeth, second of the three illegitimate daughters and eventual heiresses of Emanuel, lord Scrope (afterwards Earl of Sunderland); he exchanged the Romish for the Anglican communion about the time of the ‘popish plot,’ died in Great Queen Street, London, on 14 Sept. 1694, and was interred under a sumptuous monument in the Savage Chapel at Macclesfield. The third earl was a miser, and strongly deprecated the youthful extravagances of his second son. One evening, in answer to an appeal for money, he replied in the presence of a witness that he had none in the house. The next day. Sunday, when the household were at church, Richard entered his father's closet, forced a cabinet, and helped himself. The earl, in a fury, demanded of the lord chief justice a warrant for his son's arrest; the latter, however, denied the facts, and brought evidence of his father's declaration that there was no money in the house. The chief justice persuaded the earl to desist from further proceedings, but Richard by this escapade earned for himself the name of ‘Tyburn Dick,’ which clung to him for some time.
Upon the death of his elder brother, Thomas, about 1680, Richard acquired the title of Viscount Colchester, and he was elected M.P. for Wigan in 1681. On 23 May 1686 he obtained a lieutenancy in the fourth troop of horseguards, commanded by Captain Henry Jermyn, baron Dover [q. v.], his senior officer being Patrick Sarsfield (Dalton, Engl. Army Lists, i. 75, 118). Handsome and unscrupulous, he made a reputation as a rake, sharing in the nightly diversions of debauchees like Lords Lovelace and Mohun, and William, lord Cavendish. Though he subsequently became a firm tory, his political views were at this time those of his associates. On the news of the landing of the Prince of Orange he set out to join the prince simultaneously with Lord Lovelace; more fortunate than the latter, he arrived at Exeter with four of his troopers and sixty retainers, and had the distinction of being the first nobleman to give in his adherence to William (cf. Lord Kenyon's Papers, Hist. MSS. Comm. 14th Rep. App. iv.; Boyer, William III, p. 139). He accompanied William to London, where his influence with the new king was eagerly solicited by his friends in the north, and in the Convention parliament he sat for Liverpool.
Soon after his accession William disbanded the fourth troop of guards; but Colchester was no loser by the change, being first given Fenwicke's troop, and promoted in January 1692 to command the third troop in place of Marlborough, who was in temporary disgrace. He led the grenadiers under a heavy fire in the van of the attacking force when Cork was taken in September 1690, and he accompanied William to Flanders in 1691 and 1692 (ib. p. 284). In the latter year he was excepted by name in the pardon promulgated by James II, and was in 1693 promoted major-general by a commission dated from The Hague on 1 April. He was invalided at Brussels during the battle of Landen, and succeeded his father as fourth Earl Rivers in September 1694, but he served through the campaign of 1695, and was favourably noticed for his coolness under fire. In February 1699, when a large portion of the army was disbanded, his troop was retained. During the summer of this year the fierce rivalry between the three troops, commanded respectively by Ormonde, Albemarle, and Rivers, was accentuated by a quarrel between the commanders themselves, arising from some disputed point of etiquette. This difference was with some difficulty composed upon the interposition of the king; and the three troops were reviewed together in Hyde Park, in token of their reconciliation, in November. In November 1701 Rivers obtained the lord-lieutenancy of Lancashire and governorship of Liverpool in place of the Earl of Macclesfield, whom he had recently enabled to obtain a long-sought divorce from his wife. He resigned these appointments early in 1702, and served for a year with the army in Flanders under Marlborough, who made him lieutenant-general in November 1702. Anxious to push his fortunes at court, he sold his regiment and his troop for 6,000l. a few months later (Luttrell). His ambition was to obtain a command in chief. Marlborough wrote highly of his claim, and when, in the summer of 1706, the government decided upon a descent upon France, in accordance with a scheme first conceived by Guiscard, the command was given to Rivers. Shovel was to convoy an army of about ten thousand foot and twelve hundred horse to the mouth of the Charente, where it was hoped that Rivers would be able to effect a junction with the Camisards. Michael Richards [q. v.] was to command the train, and Guiscard the Huguenots, with whom, however, no very clear understanding had been arrived at; otherwise the scheme was a promising one. The general was directed to publish upon landing a manifesto declaring that it was his intention neither to conquer nor to pillage, but to restore the liberties of the French people, the States-General, and the edict of Nantes. The troops were embarked at Portsmouth early in July, and sailed as far as Torbay; but the expedition was frustrated by persistent contrary winds, and in October the destination of the army was changed to Lisbon. Rivers reached Lisbon after a stormy voyage, and thence proceeded to Alicante, arriving on 8 Feb. Confinement in transports for four months had reduced the men on the active list from ten to scarcely more than seven thousand, and Rivers was severely mortified when, little more than a fortnight after his arrival, a despatch arrived from Sunderland nominating Galway [see Massue de Ruvigny, Henri de] commander-in-chief in the Peninsula. He was offered his choice of acting second in command or returning home, and promptly chose the latter, thus escaping all share in the disaster of Almanza (Boyer, Annals of Queen Anne, 1735, pp. 244–5). He was afterwards charged with having systematically thwarted and disparaged Galway, and it is certain that during his stay in Spain he attached himself to the faction of Galway's chief opponent, Charles's sinister adviser, Noyelles.
Shortly after his return in April 1708, he was made general of horse at Marlborough's suggestion (ib. p. 338; Murray, Marlborough Despatches, iii. 719), and sworn a privy councillor. When the post of constable of the Tower fell vacant in 1709, Marlborough, intending the appointment for the Duke of Northumberland, politely parried Rivers's appeal to secure the post for him. But Rivers already foresaw the coming eclipse of the whigs, and, losing no time in paying his court to the opposite party, he procured from Harley a promise of support for his candidature. He met with an unexpected triumph. When Marlborough requested an audience with the queen to discuss the appointment, he was astounded to learn that the post had been bestowed upon Rivers. The incident was the first visible sign of the impending change of government (Swift, Change in the Queen's Ministry). In the following year Rivers, now high in court favour, was sent as plenipotentiary to the elector of Hanover on a delicate errand, that of removing from the electoral mind any unfavourable impression caused by the tory reaction in England, and the marked favour shown to avowed Jacobites. He sailed from Harwich on 22 Aug. 1710, arrived at Hanover on 19 Sept., dined with the elector on the following day, and returned next month. The mission was mainly ceremonial, and proved quite ineffectual in throwing dust in the eyes of George and Sophia. In January 1711 Rivers was created master of the ordnance in place of Marlborough, and colonel of the blues. He was constant in his attendance in the House of Lords at this period (cf. Wentworth Papers, passim), and was intimate with Swift and the coterie that surrounded Harley. He was a member of the Saturday Club when it was most select, and distanced them all in hostility to his old patron Marlborough (cf. Journal to Stella, 18, 25 Feb. and 12, 19 May 1711). Early in 1712 his health, undermined by his profligacy, suddenly gave way, and he went down to Bath, whence several false reports of his death reached London. He returned to die at his house in Ealing Grove, Middlesex, on 18 Aug. 1712; he was buried at Macclesfield on 4 Oct. He married at Chiswick, on 21 Aug. 1679, Penelope, daughter of Roger Downes of Wardley, Lancashire, by whom he left a daughter Elizabeth; she married James Barry, fourth earl of Barrymore, and kept up a great state at Rock Savage in Cheshire (whither her father had removed from the old family seat at Halton) until her death in 1731; her daughter Penelope married General George Cholmondeley (d. 1775), son of George, second earl of Cholmondeley [q. v.], and died in 1786, after which Rock Savage fell into decay. The earldom descended upon Rivers's death to his cousin, John Savage (1665–1735), grandson of John, the second earl; he was educated at Douai, and ordained a priest in the Roman catholic church (in which he was known as Father Wilson) about 1710, shortly after which he was made canon of Liège; for some years previous to his cousin's death he resided at Ealing, where Swift records that he was treated little better than a footman; upon his death in 1735 the peerage became extinct.
Mackay says of Rivers: ‘He was one of the greatest rakes in England in his younger days, but always a lover of the constitution of his country; is a gentlemen of very good sense and very cunning; brave in his person; a lover of play, and understands it well; hath a very good estate and improves it every day; something covetous; a tall, handsome man and of a very fair complexion;’ to which Swift adds ‘an arrant knave in common dealings, and very prostitute.’ ‘He left a legacy,’ says the same commentator, ‘to about 20 paltry old wh-r-s by name, and not a farthing to any friend, dependent, or relation; I loved the man, but detest his memory.’ These particulars are confirmed by Rivers's will. He left 500l. to Mrs. Oldfield, and 10,000l. (together with Ealing Grove) to his illegitimate daughter Bessy, who married Frederick, third earl of Rochford, and was mother of Richard Savage Nassau Zulestein. By Lady Macclesfield he had two children, a daughter and a son, born on 16 Jan. 1697, and christened at St. Andrew's, Holborn, as Richard Smith (cf. Croker, Boswell, p. 62). Richard Savage [q. v.], the poet, put forward, but did not substantiate, his claim to be a son of Earl Rivers.