Richard Lee was an English politician who sat in the House of Commons of England

House of Commons of England

The House of Commons of England was the lower house of the Parliament of England from its development in the 14th century to the union of England and Scotland in 1707, when it was replaced by the House of Commons of Great Britain...

  from 1640 to 1648.

Le was from a family of Rochester and in 1621 became one of the bridge wardens of Rochester Bridge

Rochester Bridge

Rochester Bridge was for centuries the lowest fixed crossing of the River Medway in Kent, southern England. There have been several generations of bridge at this spot, and the current "bridge" is in fact four separate bridges: two carrying the A2 road, one carrying the railway and one carrying all...

, a post he held until 1653.

In April 1640, Lee was elected Member of Parliament

Member of Parliament

A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...

 for Rochester

Rochester (UK Parliament constituency)

Rochester was a parliamentary constituency in Kent. It returned two Members of Parliament to the House of Commons of England from 1295 to 1707, then to the House of Commons of Great Britain from 1708 to 1800, and finally to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom from 1801...

 for the Short Parliament

Short Parliament

The Short Parliament was a Parliament of England that sat from 13 April to 5 May 1640 during the reign of King Charles I of England, so called because it lasted only three weeks....

. He was re-elected MP for Rochester in November 1640 for the Long Parliament

Long Parliament

The Long Parliament was made on 3 November 1640, following the Bishops' Wars. It received its name from the fact that through an Act of Parliament, it could only be dissolved with the agreement of the members, and those members did not agree to its dissolution until after the English Civil War and...

 where he sat until he was excluded under Pride's Purge

Pride's Purge

Pride’s Purge is an event in December 1648, during the Second English Civil War, when troops under the command of Colonel Thomas Pride forcibly removed from the Long Parliament all those who were not supporters of the Grandees in the New Model Army and the Independents...

in 1648. Lee was mayor of Rochester in 1643 when he was also appointed a commissioner for Kent to oversee the speedy raising and levying of money for the relief of the Commonwealth.