Sir Richard Leveson (c. 1570 – 2 August 1605) was an important Elizabethan Navy officer, politician and landowner. His origins were in the landed gentry of Shropshire and Staffordshire. A client and son-in-law of Charles Howard, 1st Earl of Nottingham, he became Vice-Admiral under him. He served twice as MP for Shropshire in the English parliament. He was ruined by the burden of debt built up by his father.
Family background
Richard Leveson's parents were
Sir Walter Leveson (1551-1602) of Lilleshall, Shropshire, son of Sir Richard Leveson (d.1560) and Mary Fitton (1529–1591). The family name is pronounced , and could be rendered in many ways in the 16th century, including Lewson, Luson and Lucen. In the late Middle Ages, the Levesons were important wool merchants and minor landowners based in the Wolverhampton area. They became major landowners in Shropshire and Staffordshire mainly through the acquisition of former church lands by Walter's grandfather, James Leveson, after the Dissolution of the Lesser Monasteries. The most important estates were at Lilleshall, where James Leveson had bought first the Abbey and then the entire manor, and at Trentham, where James bought the lands of the dissolved priory. Walter was initially an enclosing and improving landlord, raising the family's profile still further, and serving as MP for Shropshire three times.
Anne Corbet, the daughter of Sir Andrew Corbet of Moreton Corbet, who was vice-president of the powerful Council of Wales and the Marches. The Corbets were very important landowners in Shropshire, supplying knights of the shire through much of the reign of Queen Elizabeth: in concert with the Levesons, they could dictate the representation of Shropshire in the English parliament.
The Leveson and Corbet families were the most powerful of the landed gentry families in Shropshire, a county without a resident aristocracy. Both underwent a crisis in the late Elizabethan and Jacobean periods as a result of overspending and succession problems, coupled with unwise exposure to the vagaries of the State. In Richard Leveson's case, the problems stemmed almost entirely from his father's impulsive and irrational behaviour, stemming apparently from a serious mental illness.
Naval career
Leveson took to the sea in his teenage years and his career was secured by marriage in 1587 to Margaret, the daughter of Charles Howard, 1st Earl of Nottingham, who had been appointed Lord High Admiral in 1585.
In 1588 Leveson served as a volunteer on board the Ark Royal against the Spanish Armada, and in 1596 had a command in the expedition against Cadiz, on which occasion he was knighted. In 1597 he is said to have commanded the Hope in 'the Islands' voyage' under Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, though other lists describe him as commanding the Nonpareil. It is possible that he moved from one ship to the other during the expedition. In 1599 he commanded the Lion in the fleet fitted out, under Lord Thomas Howard, in expectation of a Spanish attempt at invasion. In 1600, with the style of 'admiral of the narrow seas,' he commanded a squadron sent towards the Azores to look out for the Spanish treasure-ships. Great care was taken to keep their destination secret; but the Spaniards, warned by experience, changed the route of their ships, and so escaped. In October 1601 he was appointed captain-general and admiral of certain of her Majesty's ships to serve against the Spaniards lately landed in Ireland. (Cal. State Papers, Ireland), and in the early days of December fought a battle off Castlehaven and forced his way into the harbour of Kinsale, where, after a severe action, he destroyed the whole of the enemy's shipping under Pedro de Zubiaur.