Sir Richard, a distinguished cavalier and accomplished man of letters, was the son of Sir Henry Fanshawe of Ware Park, Hertfordshire. He was born in June 1608, studied at Jesus College, Cambridge, travelled for some time in France and Spain, acquiring the languages and investigating the institutions and manners of those countries; and on his return he entered on that course of diplomatic and public service in which he so eminently excelled. His sympathies and exertions were all on the side of the royalists. Charles I. created him a baronet; and in the service of Charles II. he was taken prisoner at the battle of Worcester. This led to his imprisonment; but through the intercession of Cromwell (who could be a generous as well as formidable enemy) he was liberated. The Restoration brought brilliant hopes to the cavaliers, and Fanshawe was promised the appointment of one of the Secretaries of State. He was however, like many others, doomed to disappointment. Through the influence of Monk the office was given to Sir William Morrice, whom Lady Fanshawe, in her interesting Memoirs, terms "a poor country gentleman of about L200 a-year; a fierce Presbyterian, and one who never saw the king's face." Sir Richard was afterwards employed as ambassador at the courts of Spain and Portugal, and he negotiated the treaty of marriage between Charles II. and the Infanta, Donna Catharina, daughter of John VI. He had just completed an important treaty with Spain, when he was seized with fever at Madrid, and died there on the 4th of June 1665. The widow of Sir Richard (daughter of Sir John Harrison) honoured his memory with a Memoir, which forms one of the most interesting, noble, and affecting, of our domestic histories. Though so constantly engaged in posts of honour and peril, Sir Richard Fanshawe found leisure for several translations. The earliest of these was an English version of the Pastor Fido of Guarini, published in 1646. This translation has been eulogised by Denham, who applies to it a couplet which seems to draw the line with great felicity between a bad and a good translation:

"They but preserve the ashes, thou the flame; True to his sense, but truer to his name."

Fanshawe also translated Fletcher's Faithful Shepherdess into Latin verse, the Luciad of Camoens, and some of the Odes of Horace. He was also the author of "A Discourse of the Civil Wars of Rome."