Richard Willis (spy)

Sir Richard Willis, 1st Baronet (sometimes spelt 'Willys') (13 January 1614 – December 1690) was a Royalist officer during the English Civil War, and a double agent working for the Parliamentarians during the Interregnum.

Willis went up to Christ's College, Cambridge in 1631, and was admitted to Gray's Inn in the same year. As a younger son, he stood to inherit little, so became a career soldier, enlisting in the Dutch military and serving at the Siege of Breda in 1637, returning to serve under King Charles I in the Bishops' Wars from 1639 to 1640. Prior to the outbreak of civil war, Willis was a member of the King's Guard based at Whitehall under Sir Thomas Lunsford.

He joined the Royalist cause as an officer in the King's army, being knighted on 1 October 1642 by the King for gallantry in a cavalry skirmish at Shrewsbury, and was promoted to Colonel of a Regiment of Cavalry under William Villiers, 2nd Viscount Grandison, being captured twice during this period but escaping. Imprisoned in the Tower of London for nine months following capture at Ellesmere in 1644, Willis joined Prince Rupert's forces.

Willis eventually became Colonel General of the counties of Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire, and Rutland, and in May 1645 was appointed Governor of Newark. By this time Prince Rupert had been defeated at the Battle of Naseby, and through the machinations of Lord Digby, a rival and advisor to the King, came under suspicion as plotting against the crown. Rupert's subsequent surrender at Bristol caused Charles to dismiss his nephew from his service. While Charles was at Newark, Rupert arrived to confront him over what he considered the injury done to his honour; Willis rode out with Lord Gerard to greet him. The court-martial Rupert demanded exonerated him, but Willis, for what the King considered to be the disloyalty of his attendance on Rupert, was replaced by Lord Belasyse as Governor of Newark. Willis challenged him to a duel, but was stopped by the King; Rupert, his brother Prince Maurice, Gerard and other cavaliers took Willis's side and in the ensuing argument were all dismissed from the King's service. Rupert later reconciled with the King, and Willis, for his previous service, was created a Baronet of Fen Ditton in June 1646, as his elder brother, a landowner and politician, had been five years previously.

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