1539 he was a gentleman of the privy chamber, and in the same year was elected MP for the seat of Huntingdonshire. In 1539, or early 1540, at the age of thirty, he may have been the subject of a portrait by Hans Holbein the Younger. He was knighted 2 May 1540 during a tournament at Westminster where he distinguished himself by his military skill and gallantry: Sir Richard and the five other challengers, had each of them, as a reward for their valour, 100 marks annually, with a house to live in, to them and their heirs for ever, granted out of the monastery of the Friary of St Francis, in Stamford, which was dissolved, 8 October 1538, which the king was better able to do, as Sir William Weston, the last prior, who had an annuity out of the monastery, died two days after the jousts. We may form an idea of the esteem that the king had for him on account of his gallantry from the following anecdote; when Henry saw Sir Richard's prowess he exclaimed, "Formerly thou wast my Dick, but hereafter thou shalt be my diamond"; and dropped a diamond ring from his finger, which Sir Richard taking up, he presented it to him, bidding him afterwards bear such a one in the fore gamb of the demy lion in his crest. The fall and execution of Sir Richard's uncle Thomas Cromwell, 1st Earl of Essex, in July 1540, did not (as might have been supposed) adversely affect his social standing, or private fortune. He was appointed High Sheriff of Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire in 1541, and was again returned as member of parliament for Huntingdonshire, in the parliament which began 16 January 1542. In this year Henry VIII gave him a grant of the monastery of St Mary's, in the town of Huntingdon, and St Neots Priory, whose yearly values were £232 7s. and £256 1s. 3d. Besides the grants already mentioned, Sir Richard had given to him the office of steward of the lordship of Archenfield, with the constableship of Goodrich Castle in the Welsh Marches, and the power of appointing the master serjeant and porter belonging to those offices, during the nonage of the earl of Shrewsbury. He had also grants of the priory of St Helen Bishopsgate in London; the castles, lordships, and manors of Manorbier and Penally, both in the county