A notable Essex historical figure was the founder of Felsted school, and founded a powerful noble family that lasted three centuries – but is also remembered as the man 'of whom nobody has ever spoken a good word.'

Little is known about Richard Rich's early life or his parents. He was born around 1496, and was well enough off to probably study at Cambridge before entering the Middle Temple as a lawyer in 1516. As he progressed in his legal career, he eagerly sought rich and powerful people to act as his patrons.

This was not at all unusual in the 16th Century, but Richard Rich is always portrayed as being particularly good at it. Richard approached Cardinal Wolsey, but his first significant break seems to have come from Thomas Audley (1st Baron Audley of Walden, another major Essex figure). Audley helped Rich get elected as MP for Colchester.

Rich steadily grew in power, and in 1533 he was knighted and became Solicitor General for England and Wales. In this capacity he supported Thomas Cromwell in the Dissolution of the Monasteries and in securing agreement to the Act of Supremacy which established Henry VIII as Head of the Church in place of the Pope.

Famously, Thomas More, who had been Henry's Lord High Chancellor, refused to take the oath, and it was Rich who secured his conviction and execution by misquoting a private conversation with More which made it look as if he had denied the king's right to be head of the church.

In the film 'A Man for all Seasons' (based on the Robert Bolt play), Rich is brilliantly played by John Hurt. It suggests that Rich is given the post of Attorney-General for Wales as a result of his perjury, and More says, 'Why Richard, it profit a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world… but for Wales?'

Rich also helped secure the execution of Bishop John Fisher. As chancellor of the Court of Augmentations, which disposed of the wealth of the monasteries, he creamed off significant property for himself. He acquired Leez Priory in Essex, and about a hundred other manors. In the popular Shardlake novels of C.J. Sansom, and the 'Wolf Hall' series (also televised) by Hilary Mantel, the greedy and unscrupulous side of Richard Rich is fully portrayed.

This included a distinctly cruel streak: Rich personally supervised the torture of Protestant martyr Anne Askew, the only woman ever to be tortured in the Tower of London. He turned the wheels of the rack himself.

On the death of Henry VIII Rich became Baron Rich of Leez in 1547. He supported Protestant reforms during the short reign of Edward VI, but as soon as Mary I came to the throne with a mission to restore the Catholic church, he effortlessly switched sides and became a fervent persecutor of Protestants in Essex. One of his victims was Thomas Watts, a linen draper of Billericay, burned at the stake in Chelmsford.

Rich even went on to serve Elizabeth I, and died in his bed at Rochford on 12 June 1567. He is buried at Felsted church.

His large family (his wife bore fifteen children) became a dynasty that only died out in 1759.