FANSHAWE, SIR RICHARD, BART., cr. 165o (1608 1666), English poet and ambassador, translator of Camoens, son of Sir Henry Fanshawe, remembrancer of the exchequer, of Ware park, Hertfordshire, and of Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas Smith or Smythe, was educated in Cripplegate by the famous school master, Thomas Farnaby, and at Jesus college, Cambridge. In 1635 he was appointed secretary to the English embassy at Madrid under Lord Aston. At the outbreak of the Civil War he joined the king. He was appointed secretary for war to the prince of Wales, with whom he set out in 1645 for the western counties, Scilly, and afterwards Jersey. He compounded in 1646 with the parliamentary authorities, and was allowed to live in London till Oct. 1647. In 1647 he published his translation of the Pastor Fido of Guarini (q.v.) which he reissued in 1648 with the addition of several other poems, original and translated. In 1648 he was appointed treasurer to the navy under Prince Rupert. In Novem ber of that year he was in Ireland, where he actively engaged in the Royalist cause till the spring of 165o, when he was despatched by Charles II. on a mission to obtain help from Spain. This was refused, and he joined Charles in Scotland as secretary. He was taken prisoner at the battle of Worcester. After a brief confine ment he was allowed to choose his own place of residence. His works include: Selected Parts of Horace (1652), Querer por solo querer: To Love only for Love's Sake (pr. 1670) and Fiestas de Aranjuez (pr. 1671) from the Spanish of Antonio de Mendoza. But the great labour of his retirement was the translation (1655) of the Lusiad, by Camoens. It is in ottava rima, with the trans lation prefixed to it of the Latin poem Furor Petroniensis. In 1658 he published a Latin version of the Faithful Shepherdess of Fletcher.
In April 16S9 Fanshawe re-entered Charles's service in Paris. After the Restoration he was engaged in diplomatic missions in Spain and Portugal. He died at Madrid, on June 26, 1666. He had a family of 14 children, of whom five only survived him, Richard, the youngest, succeeding as second baronet and dying unmarried in Fanshawe's translations of Pastor Fido and his Lusiad have not been superseded by later scholars, and his own poems are of real merit.