Sir Richard Dyer of Staughton (died 1605), was an English courtier, soldier, and landowner.
Richard Dyer was the son of Laurence Dyer and Jane Southe, he was a gentleman of the privy chamber to King James I.
He was the heir of his great-uncle, Sir James Dyer.[1]
He lived at Place House, Great Staughton in Huntingdonshire.
Dyer married Mary or Marie Fitzwilliam (c. 1556-1601), a daughter of Sir William Fitzwilliam and Anne or Agnes Sidney (1523-1602), a daughter of Sir William Sidney of Penshurst Place and Anne Pakenham.
In June 1586 Sir Philip Sidney recommended "his cousin" Sir Richard Dyer as "very valiant" to Francis Walsingham; "I beseech you both countenance and favour him".[2]
Dyer was said to be at Tilbury in 1588, and Queen Elizabeth is supposed to have visited Place House.[3]
William Cornwallis published his Essayes in 1600, with a dedicatory letter by Henry Olney addressed to Mary, Lady Dyer, and her friends and cousins, the three daughters of Lucy Sidney; Lady Sara Hastings, Lady Theodosia Dudley, and Lady Mary Wingfield. The Wingfields lived at Kimbolton, close to Staughton. Mary, Lady Dyer, gave a silver bottle for travelling to her cousin, Elizabeth Harington, Lady Montagu (d. 1616), and she bequeathed it to her manservant for remembrance.[4]
Richard Dyer died in 1605. There is a double monument to Sir James Dyer and his wife Margaret Barrowe and Sir Richard Dyer and Mary Fitzwilliam in the church at Great Staughton.[5]