Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Weston, Richard (1466?-1542)
WESTON, Sir RICHARD (1466?–1542), courtier and diplomatist, son of Edmund Weston, an adherent of Henry VII, was born about 1465–6. Sir William Weston (d. 1540) [q. v.] was his brother. Immediately after his accession, on 22 May 1509, Henry VIII appointed Richard to several offices, including that of governor of Guernsey. In 1511 he served under Thomas, lord Darcy [q. v.], in the English contingent sent to assist Ferdinand, king of Spain, in his campaign against the Moors. On his return Weston visited the court of Spain, and received considerable honour. He was knighted by Henry VIII in 1514, and from 1516 was in personal attendance on the king as knight of the body. On 3 Jan. 1518 he was dubbed knight of the Bath. Next year he was one of the four ‘sad and ancient knights’ who were ‘put into the king's privy chamber’ (Hall's Chronicle). In 1520 he followed Henry to the Field of the Cloth of Gold. Next year he sat on the jury which tried and condemned Edward Stafford, third duke of Buckingham [q. v.] (State Trials, i. 287). The manor of Sutton was granted to him on the day of the duke's execution (17 May 1521).
In 1523 Weston served under Charles Brandon, duke of Suffolk [q. v.], in France; in 1525 he became treasurer of Calais, and in 1528 under-treasurer of England. In 1533 Henry paid a state visit to Sutton, and a little later Thomas Cromwell was a guest there. In 1539 Weston was appointed to meet Anne of Cleves on her landing in England. He must then have been considerably over seventy years of age. In 1542 he surrendered his post of sub-treasurer of England ‘ob senectutem debilitatam et continuam infirmitatem’ (20 Jan.), and died on 7 Aug. He was buried in his family chapel in the church of the Holy Trinity, Guildford. ‘There is hardly a single state ceremony or event during the eighth Henry's reign in which he is not recorded to have part. A bare list of the offices he held would fill some pages. He is a soldier, seaman, ambassador, governor, treasurer, privy councillor, judge of the Court of Wards’ (Harrison).
He married Anne, one of Queen Catherine's gentlewomen, daughter of Oliver Sandys of Shere, by whom he had a son Sir Francis [q. v.] and two daughters, Margaret and Katherine.
[Letters and Papers of Henry VIII, ed. Brewer and Gardiner, passim; Harrison's Annals of an Old Manor House, pp. 31–65; Manning and Bray's History of Surrey, i. 133, 134.]