He left the university without taking a degree, studied law in London and afterwards travelled in Europe.
In 1603 he was knighted by King James I, in 1620 he acted as high sheriff at Oxfordshire where he owned some property, and soon afterwards he married Margaret, daughter of Sir George Mainwaring, of Ightfield, Shropshire.
By making himself responsible for some debts of his wife’s family, he was reduced to great poverty, which led to the seizure of his Oxfordshire property in 1625.
For many years the Chronicle was extremely popular, but owing to numerous inaccuracies its historical value is very slight.
Baker also wrote Cato Variegatus or Catoes Morall Distichs, Translated and Paraphrased by Sir Richard Baker, Knight (London, 1636); Meditations on the Lord’s Prayer (1637); Translation of New Epistles by Mounsieur D’Balzac (1638); Apologie for Laymen’s Writing in Divinity, with a Short Meditation upon the Fall of Lucifer (1641); Motives for Prayer upon the seaven dayes of ye weeke (1642); a translation of Virgilio Malvezzi’s Discourses upon Cornelius Tacitus (1642),[10] and Theatrum Redivivum, or The Theatre Vindicated, a reply to the Histrio-Mastix of William Prynne (1642).