WARWICK, ROBERT RICH, 2ND EARL OF, BARON RICH

born , June? 1587 died April 19, 1658, London, Eng. English colonial administrator and advocate of religious toleration in the North American Colonies. As admiral of the fleet in 1642, he secured the adherence of the navy to the Parliamentary cause in the English Civil Wars (1642-51). He was the eldest son of Robert Rich, 1st Earl of Warwick, and his wife, Penelope (ne Devereux; the "Stella" of Sir Philip Sidney's Astrophel and Stella); and he succeeded to the earldom in 1619. He joined the Bermudas, Guinea, Amazon River, and New England companies, and also the Virginia Company, which was suppressed in 1624 because of a quarrel between Warwick and other members. His Puritan sympathies, which lost him favour at the English court, were advantageous to his association with the New England Colonies. In 1628 he helped the Puritans to obtain the patent for the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and in 1632 he granted the patent for the settlement (1635) of Saybrook, Conn. Compelled in 1632 to resign the presidency of the New England Company, he continued to manage the Bermudas Company as well as the Providence Island Company (founded 1630), which administered Old Providence on the Mosquito Coast of Central America and which provided a convenient meeting place for critics of royal policy. In England Warwick and his brother Henry Rich, 1st Earl of Holland, were among the leading Puritans, particularly in the House of Lords in the Long Parliament. In March 1642 the House of Commons, despite a veto by King Charles I, appointed Warwick admiral of the fleet; in July of that year the navy, induced by Warwick, went over to the side of Parliament. During the English Civil Wars he intercepted the king's ships and relieved threatened ports. In 1643 Warwick was appointed head of a colonial government commission, which in 1644 incorporated Providence Plantations, afterward Rhode Island. In this office he attempted to secure a guarantee of religious liberty in the colonies. The city of Warwick, R.I., is named for him.