Jamaica to be restored to him by England, which occasioned his arrival
to be so impatiently longed for, and magnificently celebrated. During
his residence at this court King Philip died, September 17, 1665,
leaving his son Charles an infant, and his dominions under the regency
of his queen, Mary Anne, daughter of the emperor Ferdinand III. Sir
Richard taking the advantage of his minority, put the finishing hand
to a peace with Spain, which was sufficiently tired and weakened with
a 25 years war, for the recovery of Portugal, which had been
dismembered from the Spanish crown in 1640; the treaty of peace was
signed at Madrid December 6, 1665. About the 14th of January
following, his excellency took a journey into Portugal, where he staid
till towards the end of March; the design of his journey certainly was
to effect an accommodation between that crown and Spain, which however
was not produced till 1667, by the interposition of his Britannic
Majesty. Our author having finished his commission was preparing for
his return to England, when June 4, 1666, he was seized at Madrid with
a violent fever, which put an end to his valuable life, the 16th of
the same month, the very day he intended to set out for England: his
body being embalmed, it was conveyed by his lady, and all his
children, then living, by land to Calais, and so to London, whence
being carried to All Saints church in Hertford, it was deposited in
the vault of his father-in-law, Sir John Harrison. The Author of the
Short Account of his Life, prefixed to his letters, says, 'that he was
remarkable for his meekness, sincerity, humanity and piety, and also
was an able statesman and a great scholar, being in particular a
compleat master of several modern languages, especially the Spanish,
which he spoke and wrote with as much advantage, as if he had been a
native.' By his lady, eldest daughter of Sir John Harrison, he had six
sons, and eight daughters, whereof only one son and four daughters
survived him.