Bevil Grenville

For the governor of Barbados, see Bevil Grenville (governor).
Sir Bevil Grenville, after Van Dyck, Victoria & Albert Museum, London, ref: BATVG:P:1954.2. Another oil-painting exists at Hartland Abbey, Devon
Arms of Grenville: Gules, three clarions or
Left:Original portrait in oil of Sir Bevil Grenville (1596–1643), inscribed: Sr. Bevil Grenvill An(n)o D(omi)ni 1636 aetatis suae 40 ("AD 1636 in the year of his age 40"), collection of Prideaux Place, Padstow, Cornwall. Sir Bevil's daughter married into the Prideaux family[1] Right: Copy engraving by Robert Cooper, 17th century, National Portrait Gallery, London, NPG D2807
Detail from plaster relief sculpture c. 1643 (see below) from overmantel, no. 8A The Quay, Bideford, Devon. Popularly supposed to depict Sir Bevil Grenville (1596–1643)
plaster relief overmantel c. 1643 from no. 8A The Quay, Bideford, Devon. Popularly supposed to depict Sir Bevil Grenville (1596–1643). On either side of the figure within strapwork surrounds are escutcheons bearing the Grenville arms of Three clarions

Sir Bevil Grenville (1596 – 5 July 1643) was a Royalist soldier in the Civil War and was killed in action at the Battle of Lansdowne in 1643. He served as MP for Cornwall 1621–1625 and 1640–42, and for Launceston 1625–1629 and 1640.

Origins

Grenville was born near Withiel, west of Bodmin, Cornwall, the son of Sir Bernard Grenville (1567-1636) of Bideford in Devon and Stowe in the parish of Kilkhampton in Cornwall, by his wife Elizabeth Bevil, daughter and heiress of Philip Bevil and niece and heiress of Sir William Bevil. He was a grandson of Sir Richard Grenville (1542–1591), the heroic Elizabethan naval captain, explorer, and soldier. The Grenville family had for centuries been lords of the manors of Stowe[2] in the parish of Kilkhampton in Cornwall, and of Bideford in Devon.[3]

Education

He was educated at Exeter College, Oxford.[4]

Political career

Grenville was elected Member of Parliament for Cornwall in 1621 and remained so until 1625.[5] Under King Charles I he became MP for Launceston in 1625 where he remained until King Charles I decided to rule without parliament in 1629.[6] In parliament, Grenville supported Sir John Eliot and the opposition, and his intimacy with Eliot was lifelong.[4] In 1639, however, he appeared as a Royalist going to the Bishop's War against Scotland in the train of King Charles. The reason for this change of allegiance is unknown, but Grenville's honour was above suspicion and he must have been convinced that he was doing right. At any rate he was a very valuable recruit to the Royalist cause, being "the most generally loved man in Cornwall."[4] When parliament reassembled for the Short Parliament in April 1640, Grenville was chosen as MP for Launceston again. In November he was re-elected MP for Cornwall for the Long Parliament.[7] He was disabled in 1642 for supporting the Royalists.

Civil War

At the outbreak of the Civil War, Grenville together with others of the gentry not only proclaimed the king's Commission of Array at Launceston assizes, but also persuaded the grand jury of the county to declare their opponents guilty of riot and unlawful assembly, whereupon the posse comitatus was called out to expel them. Under the command of Sir Ralph Hopton, Sir Bevil took a distinguished part in the Battle of Braddock Down and, at Stratton (16 May 1643), where the parliamentarian Henry Grey, 1st Earl of Stamford was completely routed by the Cornishmen, he led one of the storming parties which captured Chudleigh's lines.[8] He then led his men on a victorious march through Devon into Somerset.

Death at Lansdowne

Sir Bevil Grenville's Monument erected after 1714 by his grandson George Granville, 1st Baron Lansdown (1666-1735), at the place where he died on Lansdowne Hill near Bath. It displays the Royal Arms supported by the arms of Granville and of his cousin Monck, as jointly concerned in the Restoration of the Monarchy[9]

A month later, the endeavour of Hopton to unite with Prince Maurice and the Marquess of Hertford from Oxford brought on the Battle of Lansdowne (1643), near Bath in Somerset. Here Grenville was killed on 5 July 1643 at the head of the Cornish infantry as it reached the top of Lansdown Hill.[4] He received a blow to the head with a pole-axe and was taken to the rectory at nearby Cold Ashton where he died.[10] His death was a blow from which the king's cause in the West never recovered, for he alone knew how to handle the Cornishmen. Hopton they revered and respected but Grenville they loved as peculiarly their own commander and, after his death, there is little more heard of the reckless valour which had won Stratton and Lansdown.[4]

Marriage & progeny

He married Grace Smith, a daughter by his second marriage of Sir George Smith (d.1619) of Madworthy, near Exeter,[11] Devon, a merchant who served as MP for Exeter in 1604, was three times Mayor of Exeter and was Exeter's richest citizen, possessing 25 manors.[12][13][14] Grace's half-sister Elizabeth Smythe was the wife of Sir Thomas Monk (1570–1627) of Potheridge, Devon, MP for Camelford in 1626, and mother of the great general George Monck, 1st Duke of Albemarle, KG (1608-1670). It was largely due to his close kinship to his first cousin the Duke that Sir Bevil's son Sir John Grenville was raised to the peerage in 1660 as Earl of Bath[15] and was also granted the reversion of the Dukedom of Albemarle in the event of the failure of George Monck's male issue.[16] Sir Bevil had by Grace fourteen children, who by Royal Warrant of Precedence were granted the rank and title of Earl's children by King Charles II on 20 August 1675, in recognition of their father's services.[17] Sir Bevil's children adopted a new spelling of the family name as "Granville" in 1661 following the elevation of the eldest son to the peerage as Baron Granville and Earl of Bath. Sir Bevil's children included:[18]

Sons

Daughters

Character

According to the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition: "Grenville was the type of all that was best in royalism. He was neither rapacious, drunken nor dissolute, but his loyalty was unselfish, his life pure and his skill no less than his bravery unquestionable."

Death & burial

Following his mortal wounding at the Battle of Lansdown and his death later that day of 5 July 1643 in the rectory at Cold Ashton in Gloucestershire, his giant servant Anthony Payne, about whom Alan M. Kent wrote a poem Oogly es Sin: the Lamentable Ballad of Anthony Payne, Cornish Giant,[40] brought his body back to Kilkhampton in Cornwall,[41] where he was buried in the parish church of St James the Great. His Cornish soldiers refused to fight under any other leader and returned home.[42]

Monuments

There is a portrait miniature of Grenville in the Waddesdon Bequest in the British Museum.[43]

Mural monument, Kilkhampton Church

Mural monument to Sir Bevil Grenville in Kilkhampton parish church, Cornwall. Erected in 1714 by his grandson George Granville, 1st Baron Lansdown (1666-1735).[44] The heraldic achievement above displays the arms of Grenville impaling Smith of Exeter: Sable, a fess cotised between three martlets or.[45] Above left hangs his funeral helm and above right his funeral gauntlets

A mural monument to Sir Bevil Grenville in the Granville Chapel in Kilkhampton parish church, Cornwall, was erected in 1714 by his grandson George Granville, 1st Baron Lansdown (1666-1735).[46] The main inscription reads:

"Here lyes all that was mortall of the most noble & truly valiant Sr Bevill Granville of Stowe in the county of Cornwall, Earl of Corbile & Lord of Thorigny & Granville in France & Normandy, descended in a direct line from Robert second son of ye warlike Rollo first Duke of Normandy who after having obtained diverse signall victoryes over ye rebells in ye West was at length slain with many wounds at the Battle of Lansdowne July ye 5th 1643. He was born ye 23d day of March 1595 and was deposited with his noble & heroick ancestors in this church ye 26th of July 1643. He marry'd the most virtuous lady Grace daughter of Sr George Smith of ye county of Devon by whom he had many sons eminent for their loyalty & firm adherence to ye crown & church and severall daughters remarkable examples of true piety. He was indeed an excellent person whose activity interest & reputation was ye foundation of what had been done in Cornwall & his temper & affections so public that no accident which happen'd could make any impressions in him and his example kept others from taking any thing ill or at least seeming so to do. Inamor'd a brighter courage & a gentler disposition were nevar marry'd together to make ye most chearfull & innocent conversation. Vid. Earl of Clarendon's History of ye Rebellion. To ye immortall memory of his renown'd grandf'ther this monument was erected by ye Right Hon.bl George Lord Lansdowne, Treasurer of ye Household to Queen Anne & one of Her Majesty's most Hon.ble Privy Counsel & in ye year of Our Lord 1714"

Underneath on a smaller tablet is the following inscription with verse by Martin Lluelyn (1616-1682), a fellow Royalist captain and a poet and physician, published in 1643:

"Thus slain thy valiant Ancestor did ly
When his one bark a navy did defy
When now encompas't round the victor stood
And bath'd his pinnace in his co'quering blood
Till all his purple current dry'd and spent
He fell and made the waves his monument
Where shall ye next fam'd Granvill's ashes stand
Thy grand syre fills the seas and thou ye land

Martin L. Lewellin. Vid. Oxford University Verses printed 1643"

Sir Bevil Grenville's Monument, Lansdown Hill

Sir Bevil Grenville's Monument was erected in 1720 also by his grandson George Granville, 1st Baron Lansdown (1666-1735).[47] It is situated on top of Lansdown Hill[4] to commemorate his heroism and that of his Cornish pikemen at the Battle of Lansdown.

See also

Sources

Notes

  1. Delderfield 1968, p. 123.
  2. Cleveland, Duchess of (Catherine Powlett), The Battle Abbey Roll with some Account of the Norman Lineages, 3 vols., London, 1889
  3. Hoskins, W.G., A New Survey of England: Devon, London, 1959 (first published 1954), p.336
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Public Domain One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Grenville, Sir Bevil". Encyclopædia Britannica 12 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 580.
  5. Willis 1750, pp. 176, 188, 198.
  6. Willis 1750, pp. 209, 219.
  7. Willis 1750, pp. 230, 241.
  8. Chisholm 1911, p. 580 cites Clarendon, vii., 89
  9. Round, p.142
  10. Barratt 2005, pp. 53–56.
  11. Vivian, Lt.Col. J.L., (Ed.) The Visitation of the County of Devon: Comprising the Heralds' Visitations of 1531, 1564 & 1620, Exeter, 1895, p.569, pedigree of Monk of Potheridge
  12. Yerby, George & Hunneyball, Paul, biography of George Smith (d.1619) of Madford House, Exeter, published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1604-1629, ed. Andrew Thrush and John P. Ferris, 2010
  13. Vivian, Lt.Col. J.L., (Ed.) The Visitation of the County of Devon: Comprising the Heralds' Visitations of 1531, 1564 & 1620, Exeter, 1895, p.569, pedigree of Monk of Potheridge
  14. J. Horace Round, Family Origins and Other Studies, ed. Page, William, 1930, p.164, The Granvilles and the Monks
  15. J. Hoace Round, Family Origins and Other Studies, ed. Page, William, 1930, p.163, The Granvilles and the Monks: "Great as was the favour bestowed on Sir John Granville" (i.e. later cr. 1st Earl of Bath) "and his brothers under Charles II, the actual part taken by Sir John in the restoration of the King was less potent to obtain it than his lucky relationship to George Monk, the prime agent in that event"
  16. Round, p.165
  17. The London Gazette: no. 1020. p. 2. 30 August 1675.
  18. Burke, 1836
  19. Burke, 1836
  20. Round, J. Horace, Family Origins and Other Studies, London, 1930, The Granvilles and the Monks, pp. 130–169, p.130 (1661, the time of the elevation of John Grenville to the Earldom of Bath)
  21. Round, p.149
  22. Burke, 1836
  23. Round, p.143
  24. Round, p.144
  25. Round, p.145
  26. Round, p.147
  27. Round, p.148
  28. Burke, 1836
  29. Round, p.141
  30. Round, p.142
  31. Warrant of 26 April 1661 quoted in Round, pp.140-1
  32. Round, pp.141-2, Jacobite titles
  33. Burke, 1836
  34. Vivian, Lt.Col. J.L., (Ed.) The Visitation of the County of Devon: Comprising the Heralds' Visitations of 1531, 1564 & 1620, Exeter, 1895, p.622, pedigree of Prideaux
  35. Burke, 1836
  36. Burke, 1836
  37. Burke, 1836
  38. Vivian, Lt.Col. J.L., (Ed.) The Visitation of the County of Devon: Comprising the Heralds' Visitations of 1531, 1564 & 1620, Exeter, 1895, p.355, pedigree of Fortescue
  39. Transactions of The Bristol & Gloucestershire Archaeological Society, vol.25, 1902, p.200
  40. BBC staff (8 January 2008). "Anthony Payne: a one man stage play written by Dr Alan M Kent". BBC.
  41. Mee, Arthur (1937). Cornwall. London: Hodder & Stoughton. pp. 98–99.
  42. Stoyle, Mark (2002). West Britons. University of Exeter Press.
  43. British Museum collection database
  44. Round, p.142
  45. Pole, Sir William (d.1635), Collections Towards a Description of the County of Devon, Sir John-William de la Pole (ed.), London, 1791, p.502. Much of the gilding on the martlets has worn off, making them appear as argent
  46. Round, p.142
  47. Round, p.142

References

Further reading

Parliament of England
Preceded by
Richard Carew
John St Aubyn
Member of Parliament for Cornwall
1621–1625
With: John Arundell 1621–1622
William Coryton 1624–1625
Succeeded by
Sir Robert Killigrew
Charles Trevanion
Preceded by
Sir Francis Crane
Miles Fleetwood
Member of Parliament for Launceston
1625–1629
With: Richard Scott
Succeeded by
Parliament suspended until 1640
Preceded by
Parliament suspended since 1629
Member of Parliament for Launceston
1640
With: Ambrose Manaton
Succeeded by
Ambrose Manaton
William Coryton
Preceded by
William Godolphin
Richard Buller
Member of Parliament for Cornwall
1640–1642
With: Alexander Carew
Succeeded by
Hugh Boscawen
Nicholas Trefusis
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