His father, having been disinherited, was described as "a perfect madman", "a Judas and devil incarnate" by his son-in-law, who when obliged to stay with the family for a time at Sidbury, wrote that "to live with him (Cresswell the elder) is to live in Bedlam, for he is made up of noise, nonsense, railing, bawling and impertinence....".
[1] Richard Cresswell succeeded in 1708 to his grandfather's very considerable estates, including several manors in Staffordshire, Shropshire and Herefordshire.
The following election he was returned as the member for Wootton Bassett; however, after the death of Queen Anne, Cresswell refrained from any further involvement in Parliament, probably spending the remainder of his life abroad.
[1] His already questionable reputation was sullied even further by his arrest in 1716 on thirty-eight separate counts of buggery "with a young Genoese boy he had lately dressed up".
In 1730, due to financial problems, he was forced to mortgage his Pinkney Park for £10,000; the Norton manor had already been sold in 1714.