His cousin, also called Richard, had been MP for Northamptonshire and one of Hampden's parliamentary allies before the King dismissed Parliament in 1629.
He aligned himself with the opposition, and it was at Fawsley that John Pym and other leading anti-Royalists met, presumably to discuss policy, after the dissolution of the Short Parliament.
He represented Northampton again in the Long Parliaments, adhering to the Parliamentary cause when civil war broke out, and sat until he was excluded in Pride's Purge.
In 1660 he was a member of the council which arranged the recall of Charles II, and was MP for St Germans in the Convention Parliament.
His contemporary Edmund Ludlow suggested that the "popish and superstitious ceremonyes" involved in admission to the Order contributed to his death, as he