Richard Grenville (died 1550) lord of the manor of Stowe, Kilkhampton in Cornwall and of Bideford in Devon, was an English soldier, politician, and administrator who served as a Member of Parliament for Cornwall in 1529, [1] and served as Sheriff of Cornwall and Sheriff of Devon.
Richard Grenville was the son of Sir Roger Grenville (d. 1523) of Stowe and of Bideford, by his wife Margaret Whitleigh. His forebears had held those two seats since the 12th century. One of his sisters, Amye, married John Drake of Musbury, Devon. By tradition the earliest English ancestor of the family was Sir Richard de Grenville (died after 1142) (alias de Grainvilla, de Greinvill, etc.), one of the Twelve Knights of Glamorgan who served in the Norman Conquest of Glamorgan under Robert FitzHamon (died 1107), the first Norman feudal baron of Gloucester and Lord of Glamorgan from 1075. He obtained from FitzHamon the lordship of Neath, Glamorgan, in which he built Neath Castle and in 1129 founded Neath Abbey.
Early in his career Richard Grenville had some minor posts in the royal household. On the death of his father in 1523 he completed his father's term as Sheriff of Cornwall, a post he also held in 1526–7, 1544–5. In between he was Sheriff of Devon in 1532–3. He was Justice of the Peace for Cornwall from 1524 till his death and also in Devon, at Exeter from 1535 to 1547.
Further afield he was Marshal of Calais, [2] a post that required his residence there, from October 1535 to October 1540. In 1544 Grenville accompanied the king to France as a commander in the English army.
He was active in his Christian faith and openly favoured 'God's word'.
In the Prayer Book Rebellion of 1549 Grenville was called upon against the western rebels, and with a company of friends and followers he defended Trematon Castle. When they were unsuccessful in defending the castle, he and his wife were held in custody in Launceston prison. Grenville contracted a fatal illness probably while in gaol [3] and died from it on 18 March 1550. He was buried at Kilkhampton five days later.
Richard Grenville married Matilda Beville, daughter of John Beville of Gwarnick, [4] near Truro, Cornwall.
Their son, Sir Roger Grenville, had been captain of the Mary Rose and drowned when it sank in Portsmouth Harbour in 1545. Sir Richard was therefore succeeded by Roger's son, Richard Grenville, naval commander and the captain of Revenge.
Bideford is a historic port town on the estuary of the River Torridge in north Devon, south-west England. It is the main town of the Torridge local government district.
Robert Fitzhamon, or Robert FitzHamon, Seigneur de Creully in the Calvados region and Torigny in the Manche region of Normandy, was the first Norman feudal baron of Gloucester and the Norman conqueror of Glamorgan, southern Wales. He became Lord of Glamorgan in 1075.
Sir Richard Grenville, also spelt Greynvile, Greeneville, and Greenfield, was an English sailor who, as captain of Revenge, died at the Battle of Flores (1591), fighting against overwhelming odds, and refusing to surrender his ship to the far more numerous Spanish. His ship, Revenge, met 53 Spanish warships near Flores in the Azores. He and his crew fought the fifty three in a three-day running battle. Many Spanish ships were sunk or so badly damaged that they had to retire from the battle. Revenge was boarded three times and each time the boarders were seen off.
Sir Bevil Grenville, lord of the manors of Bideford in Devon and of Stowe in the parish of Kilkhampton, Cornwall, was a Royalist commander in the Civil War. He was killed in action in heroic circumstances at the Battle of Lansdowne in 1643. He served as a Member of Parliament for the county of Cornwall in 1621–1625 and 1640–1642, and for the borough of Launceston in Cornwall, in 1625–1629 and 1640.
Trerice is an historic manor in the parish of Newlyn East, near Newquay, Cornwall, United Kingdom. The surviving Tudor manor house known as Trerice House is located at Kestle Mill, three miles east of Newquay. The house with its surrounding garden has been owned by the National Trust since 1953 and is open to the public. The garden features an orchard with old varieties of fruit trees.
George Granville, 1st Baron Lansdowne PC, of Stowe, Cornwall, was an English Tory politician who sat in the English and British House of Commons from 1702 until 1712, when he was raised to the peerage as Baron Lansdown and sat in the House of Lords. He was Secretary at War during the Harley administration from 1710 to 1712. He was also a noted poet and made a name for himself with verses composed on the visit of Mary of Modena, then Duchess of York, while he was at Cambridge in 1677. He was also playwright, following in the style of John Dryden.
Sir Bevil Grenville's Monument is a monument erected in 1720 on Lansdown, then called "Lansdowne Hill", 4 miles (6.4 km) north-west of the city of Bath, in Somerset, England. It was designated a Grade II* listed building on 1 February 1956, and a scheduled monument on 12 December 1950.
Sir John Arundell (1495–1561), of Trerice, Cornwall, nicknamed "Tilbury Jack", was a commander of the Royal Navy during the reigns of Kings Henry VIII and Edward VI and served twice as Sheriff of Cornwall.
Sir Bevil Granville was an English soldier who served as Governor of Pendennis Castle in Cornwall and as Governor of Barbados.
Sir Henry Ashley was an English politician.
Penstowe Castle, also called Kilkhampton Castle, was a medieval fortification built near Kilkhampton, Cornwall, England, possibly during the years of the civil war in the 12th century known as the Anarchy.
Sir Bernard Grenville was an English politician.
Stowe House in the parish of Kilkhampton in Cornwall, England, UK, was a mansion built in 1679 by John Grenville, 1st Earl of Bath (1628–1701) and demolished in 1739. The Grenville family were for many centuries lords of the manor of Kilkhampton, which they held from the feudal barony of Gloucester, as they did their other principal seat of nearby Bideford in Devon. It is possible that the family's original residence at Kilkhampton was Kilkhampton Castle, of which only the groundworks survive, unusual in that it had a motte with two baileys.
Holcombe Rogus is a historic manor in the parish of Holcombe Rogus in Devon, England. The present grade I listed Tudor manor house known as Holcombe Court was built by Sir Roger Bluett c.1540 and was owned by the Bluett family until 1858 when the estate was sold to Rev. William Rayer. The house is immediately to the west of the parish church. The gardens and grounds are screened off from the public road at the south by a high wall in which is a tall and broad entrance archway which forms the start of the entrance drive.
Sir Thomas Grenville II, K.B.,, lord of the manors of Stowe in Kilkhampton, Cornwall and Bideford, Devon, Sheriff of Cornwall in 1481 and 1486. During the Wars of the Roses, he was a Lancastrian supporter who had taken part in the conspiracy against Richard III, organised by the Duke of Buckingham. On the accession of King Henry VII (1485–1509) to the throne, Sir Thomas was appointed one of the Esquires of the Body to Henry VII. On 14 November 1501 upon the marriage of Prince Arthur to Katherine of Aragon, he was created a Knight of the Bath. He served on the Commission of the Peace for Devon from 1510 to his death in circa 1513.
Colonel John Giffard (1602–1665), of Brightley in the parish of Chittlehampton, Devon, England, was a Royalist leader during the Civil War. Giffard commanded the Devon Pikemen at the Battle of Lansdowne in 1634, in which his 3rd cousin the Royalist commander of the Cornish forces Sir Bevil Grenville (1596-1643) was killed in heroic circumstances. Giffard's loyalty to the Royalist cause led to him being proposed in 1660 as a knight of the intended Order of the Royal Oak. He was personally known to the biographer John Prince (1643–1723) who included him as one of his Worthies of Devon. He was buried in Chittlehampton Church, where his small kneeling effigy survives on the base of the monument he erected in 1625 to his grandfather.
Sir Peter Prideaux, 3rd Baronet (1626–1705), of Netherton in the parish of Farway, near Honiton, Devon, was an English politician.
Sir Richard de Grenville was one of the Twelve Knights of Glamorgan who served under Robert FitzHamon, in the conquest of Glamorgan in Wales. He obtained from FitzHamon the lordship of Neath in which he built Neath Castle and in 1129 founded Neath Abbey. He is by tradition the founder and ancestor of the prominent Westcountry Grenville family of Stowe in the parish of Kilkhampton in Cornwall and of Bideford in Devon, the later head of which family was John Granville, 1st Earl of Bath (1628–1701). The surname of his supposed descendants the Westcountry Grenville family was spelled by tradition "Grenville" until 1661 when it was altered to "Granville".
The manor of Bideford in North Devon was held by the Grenville family between the 12th and 18th centuries. The full descent is as follows:
Bernard Granville of Birdcage Walk, Westminster, and Apps Court, Walton-on-Thames, Surrey, a member of an ancient and prominent Westcountry family, was a courtier of King Charles II who served as a Member of Parliament for several Cornish constituencies.