Richard Percivale

Richard Perceval (1556-1621), of Twickenham, Somerset (manner of Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger). Inscribed: Richard Percival, 4th of that name, son of George lord of Sydenham, Nailsay, etc, County of Som(erse)t...

Sir Richard Percivale (alias Perceval etc.) (1550 – 4 September 1620) of Sydenham, near Bridgwater, Somerset, was an English administrator and politician, also known as a Hispanist and lexicographer. He wrote a Spanish grammar for English readers, A Spanish Grammar, and a dictionary, both included in his Bibliotheca Hispanica (1591); this work was later enlarged by John Minsheu in A dictionarie in Spanish and English (London: Edmund Bollifant, 1599; London: printed by John Haviland for various booksellers, including William Aspley, Matthew Lownes, and George Latham, 1623).

Origins He was the eldest son and heir of George Perceval (c1532–1601) (alias Percival, etc.) of Sydenham, near Bridgwater, Somerset, by his wife Elizabeth Bampfylde, a daughter of Sir Edward Bampfylde (d.1528) of Poltimore, Devon and Elizabeth Wadham. His family had inherited the manor of Sydenham by marriage to the heiress of the prominent Westcountry Sydenham family, which had originated there, junior branches of which were seated in Somerset at Combe Sydenham, Orchard Sydenham, Brympton D'Evercy (later Sydenham baronets) and elsewhere.

He was born at Nailsea Court.

Career He was educated at St Paul's School, London. As a law student at Lincoln's Inn, he alienated his father by extravagance, and by marrying Joan Young, seventh daughter of Henry Young of Buckhorn Weston in Dorset who brought him no fortune.

Perceval went to Spain, and lived there for four years till his wife's death; he then returned to England, and vainly sought reconciliation with his father. Through his friend Roger Cave of Stamford, who had married Lord Burghley's sister Margaret, he was introduced to the lord treasurer. The queen rewarded him with a pension, and later with a place in the Duchy of Lancaster; and Burghley, when his son Robert Cecil became master of the court of wards, made him "secretary" of the court. by whom he had two sons and two daughters including: Sir Philip Perceval, younger son and heir, ancestor of the Earls of Egmont.

Death and burial Perceval died in Dublin on 4 September 1620, in his sixty-ninth year, and was buried in St. Audoen's Church.

Works Richard Perceval was the author (spelt Richard Percyvall) of the Spanish-English dictionary, Bibliotheca Hispanica, containing a Grammar with a Dictionarie in Spanish, English, and Latin, London, 1591. It is dedicated to Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex. Much of the preliminary work was done by Dr Thomas D'Oylie, a physician at St Bartholomew's Hospital, and himself an accomplished linguist in Spanish. A second edition, edited and enlarged by John Minsheu, appeared in 1599 under the title A Dictionarie in Spanish and English; this edition appeared in two parts, one containing the dictionary and the other the grammar. A third edition appeared in 1623.