Charles Grenville

“ Grenville died in 1658; of the last four years of his life Lord Lansdowne writes (with some exaggeration) : ‘He retired from all conversation with mankind, shut himself up from the world to prepare himself seriously for another, never so much as suffering his beard to be shaven from that moment to his dying day, which followed soon, his great heart not being able to hold out any longer. He lies buried in a church in Ghent, with this inscription only upon a plain stone, “Sir Richard Granville, the King's general in the West”’ (Lansdowne, Works, i. 560) . ”

“ But he was soon released; he went to France and Italy, and after visiting England in disguise passed some time in Holland. He was excepted by parliament from pardon in 1648, and after the king’s execution he was with Charles II. in France and elsewhere until some unfounded accusation which he brought against Edward Hyde, afterwards earl of Clarendon, led to his removal from court. He died in 1658, and was buried at Ghent. In 1644, when Grenville deserted the parliamentary party, a proclamation was put out against him ”

“ He continued, however, to take part in public life, being one of the chief supporters of Roman Catholic emancipation, and during the remaining years of his active political career, which ended in 1823, he generally voted with the Whigs, although in 1815 he separated himself from his colleague, Charles Grey, and supported the warlike policy of Lord Liverpool. ”

“ At the battle of New Ross, however (18 March 1643) , the cavalry of Ormonde's army ran away, and one eye-witness gravely impugns Grenville's own conduct (ib. ii. 432; Meehan, Confederation of Kilkenny, Creightons Narrative, p. 293) . Grenville is said to have opposed the cessation of arms concluded in the summer of 1643, and left Ireland in August 1643, ‘importuned,’ he says, ‘by letters to come to England for his Majesty's service’ (Lansdowne, ii. 548) . He landed at Liverpool, but was immediately arrested by the parliamentary commander there, and sent up to London under a guard. ”

“ Grenville represented Cornwall in the parliaments of 1621 and 1624, and Launceston in the first three parliaments of Charles I (Return of Names of Members of Parliament, 1878) . During this period he sided with the popular party, and was the friend and follower of Sir John Eliot. Grenville's letters to his wife in 1626 show with what anxiety he regarded Eliot's brief imprisonment in that year (Forster, Life of Cromwell, p. 99) . ”

“ Lord King's conduct is worse than your brother's, who was not at the moment aware of "his honourable friend's" intention, and really does not know the details of your father's conduct as teller. I find from Charles W—— that Lord Grenville is equally outrageous with Lord King. It is evident that the Mountain are moving heaven and earth to lower you and your friends, but it will not do. I dread all the discussions arising from the Catholic question; Canning consulted no one, and I really believe not a soul was aware of his intention previous to his giving the notice. ”

“ From the beginning of the war he devoted himself to the king's service, and as he was, according to Clarendon, ‘the most generally loved man’ in Cornwall, his influence was of the greatest value. On 5 Aug. 1642 Grenville and others published the king's commission of array and his declaration against the militia at Launceston (Journals of the House of Lords, v. 275) . ”

“ Sir John Grenville’s future career and the prominent part he took, in conjunction with his cousin, George Monk, in the Restoration of Charles II., who created him Earl of Bath, and showered countless honours and endowments upon him, do not belong to a paper confined to giving the fighting qualities of the family. These, however, found expression in his two sons, Charles, Lord Lansdown, and John, afterwards created Lord Granville of Potheridge. ”

“ Grenville is rather deaf, and he complains of loss of memory, but he hears well enough for social purposes, and he is full of recollections of former times and remarkable people. He only laments his own infirmities on account of the trouble or inconvenience they may cause to others; not that he does not hear all that is said, but he pities those who are obliged to exert their voices to make him hear. No old man was ever less selfish and querulous. ”

“ Four days only after his arrival at Oxford, Grenville was despatched to the west to take part in the siege of Plymouth, and with a commission to raise additional troops in Cornwall (Black, Oxford Docquets, p. 198) . Shortly afterwards Colonel John Digby, who commanded the besiegers of Plymouth, was disabled by a wound, and Grenville succeeded to his post (Clarendon, viii. 142) . ”

“ Berkeley's commission as colonel-general of Devon and Cornwall clashed with his own as sheriff of Devon and commander of the forces before Plymouth. At the same time general complaints of Grenville's conduct arose from all parts of the west. Towards prisoners of war, towards his own soldiers, and all those under his command, he was severe and cruel, ‘so strong,’ says Clarendon, ‘was his appetite to those executions he had been used to in Ireland’ (ib. viii. 133, 141) . ”

“ His brilliant talents and great popularity were recognised advantages, but then the necessity by which he might consider himself bound to put forward an original policy, made reflecting politicians regard his appointment with distrust. He appears to have exhibited a wish to serve some members of the Grenville family, though not in the required direction. Mr. Charles Williams Wynn was ambitious of filling the distant but lucrative post to which the new Foreign Secretary had been appointed before Lord Londonderry's death, but Mr. Canning suggested a position scarcely less honourable at home. ”

“ The king made various attempts to induce Pitt to come to his rescue by forming a ministry, but without success, and at last had recourse to the marquis of Rockingham, on whose agreeing to accept office Grenville was dismissed July 1765. He never again held office, and died on the 13th of November 1770. ”

“ Success alone was wanted to confirm the confidence of the people; but as yet the genius and headlong valour of France was in the ascendant, and the solid endurance of England was doomed to a long and harassing term of fluctuating fortunes.
The Correspondence traces some of the principal events of the year; and maps out in advance the plans and difficulties of Ministers, by which we are admitted, so to speak, to the deliberations of the Cabinet upon nearly every fresh exigency that arose in the course of the campaigns.
MR. T. GRENVILLE TO THE MARQUIS OF BUCKINGHAM.
Charles Street, Jan. ”

“ In February 1782 Grenville was returned to parliament as member for the borough of Buckingham, and in the following September he became secretary to the lord lieutenant of Ireland, who at this time was his brother, Earl Temple, afterwards marquess of Buckingham. He left office in June 1783, but in the following December he became paymaster-general of the forces under his cousin, William Pitt, and in 1786 vice-president of the committee of trade. ”

“ In one important qualification Grenville himself acknowledged his deficiency. ‘I am not competent,’ he says in a letter to his brother, ‘to the management of men. I never was so naturally, and toil and anxiety more and more unfit me for it’ (The Court and Cabinets of George III, iv. 133) . Though not a great orator, Grenville was a successful speaker in the House of Lords, where his weighty and sonorous speeches, though sometimes long and tedious, were listened to with attention. ”

“ On 23 June 1747 Grenville became a lord of the treasury. On the death of Henry Pelham Grenville was appointed treasurer of the navy in the Duke of Newcastle's administration, and was sworn a member of the privy council on 21 June 1754. By untiring industry Grenville had already made a mark in the House of Commons. Pitt, writing to the Earl of Hardwicke in the previous April, says: ‘Mr. Grenville is universally able in the whole business of the house, and after Mr. Murray and Mr. Fox is certainly one of the very best parliament men in the house’ (Chatham, Correspondence, i. 106) . ”

“ Sir James, First Lord of the Admiralty, ii. 66; elevation of, 90; remarks on, 91; resignation of, iii. 88; declines to join the Peel Administration, 176; conservative spirit of, 249; on the crisis of 1835, 249; joins the Opposition, 272 Grange, The, attacked by a mob, ii. 68 Grant, Right Hon. Charles, see Glenelg, Lord Granville, Earl, Ambassador in Paris, iii. 385 Granville, Countess, i. 10; quarrel with M. Thiers, iii. 380 Greece, policy of the English Government towards, i. 255 Greenwich, dinner at, iii. 1 Grenville, Thomas, conduct during the riots of 1780, iii. ”

“ The younger branch has been rich in statesmen and rich in scholars. Not a few of them have shone equally and at once in either path of labour.
Parentage and early life of Thomas Grenville. Thomas Grenville was the second son of the Minister of George the Third, George Grenville,—himself the second son of Richard Grenville, of Wotton, and of Hester Temple (co-heiress of Richard Temple, Lord Cobham, and herself created Countess Temple in 1749) . He was born on the thirty-first of December, 1755, and entered Parliament soon after attaining his majority. ”

“ Grenville, though strictly upright, was grasping and parsimonious. Pitt was a man of excitable nerves, sanguine in hope, easily elated by success and popularity, keenly sensible of injury, but prompt to forgive; 28Grenville’s character was stern, melancholy, and pertinacious. Nothing was more remarkable in him than his inclination always to look on the dark side of things. He was the raven of the House of Commons, always croaking defeat in the midst of triumphs, and bankruptcy with an overflowing exchequer. ”

“ No man would have been quicker to lay down such a principle than Grenville, but it is clear that on this occasion he did not observe it, and to maintain that he did so would be to mistake the nature of the man. ”

“ The members of the House of Commons can cough an orator down, or can walk away to dinner; and they were by no means sparing in the use of these privileges when Grenville was on his legs. But the poor young King had to endure all this eloquence with mournful civility. To the end of his life he continued to talk with horror of Grenville’s orations. ”

“ He understood well the rights of his own country and those of the crown. He was eminently prepared to discover approaching danger and sound a timely alarm. He was fully competent to probe the intrigues and venality of designing men although the broad Atlantic rolled between him and them.
Mr. Grenville was the master spirit of the British ministry. He determined to put in practice his long cherished theory of taxing the American Colonies. The alarm was soon spread from the north to the south. Appeals for redress, petitions and remonstrances, numerously signed, were forwarded to Parliament. ”

“ Lord Palmerston on brigandage in, 418 Green, Mr., anatomical lecture by, iii. 375 Greenwich dinner, freaks of Lord Brougham at a, i. 229; Lord Normanby's health drunk at a, 237 Gregory, Mr., house of, near Belvoir, i. 42 Grenville, Thomas, Mr., anecdote of, i. 80; dinner with, ii. 114; anecdote of Porson, 114; Julio Clovio, 115; recollections and anecdotes, 116; anecdote of Wolfe, 120; death of, iii. 1; character of, 2 Greville, Charles C., Mr., pamphlet of, on Prince Albert's Precedence, i. 266, 269, 270 (see Appendix, vol. i.) ; book of, on Ireland, ii. ”

“ SHE was the daughter of John Granville, first Earl of Bath, by Jane, daughter of Sir Peter Wyche. The Granvilles, or Grenvilles, as they were originally called, were a noble and heroic race; witness the exploits by sea of Sir Richard, immortalised in history and poetry, who lived in the time of Queen Elizabeth, and of the brave Sir Bevil, who perished in arms for King Charles I. at the battle of Lansdowne, he on whose death it was written—
‘Where shall the next famed Grenvil’s ashes stand? ”

“ My mother expects him every hour in London, and before this time I should hope that he had himself waited on you. Once more, my dear Lord, before I close this part of my letter, let me thank you most warmly for this flattering instance of your friendship. Grenville, I hope, has shown you my letter, in which I declare that I would not have asked you for this favour, knowing your inclination to attend to my requests, and apprehending that you might suffer your regard for me to interfere to the prejudice of your Government ”

“ In 1749 he married Elizabeth, daughter of Sir William Wyndham, by whom he had a large family. His son, the second Earl Temple, was created marquess, and his grandson duke, of Buckingham. Another son was William, afterwards Lord 581 Grenville. Another, Thomas Grenville (1755-1846) , who was, with one interval, a member of parliament from 1780 to 1818, and for a few months during 1806 and 1807 president of the board of control and first lord of the admiralty, is perhaps more famous as a book-collector than as a statesman; he bequeathed his large and valuable library to the British Museum. ”

“ Lysons’s Cornwall is the best account that the Editor can give of the distinguished family of Grenville.
The manor of Kilkhampton is supposed to have belonged to the Grenville family from nearly the time of the Conquest; 344 Dugdale says, that they were seated here in the reign of William Rufus. Richard de Grenville, who came over with William the Conqueror, is said in the pedigrees of the family to have been a younger brother of Robert Fitzhamon, Earl of Carbill, Lord of Thurigny and Grenville, in France and Normandy, and to have been lineally descended from Rollo, Duke of Normandy. ”