Pierre de Granvelle

“ He saw that without him the other nobles would be nothing; he was the guiding spirit of Egmont and Hoorne, neither of whom could have stood alone, and the first of whom, at least, would easily have been won by the Cardinal but for Orange.
"He is a dangerous man," said Granvelle with admiration, 133and loyally warned his master; then, with an unruffled spirit and a smile for all, set out on his journey to Burgundy. ”

“ But whatever he may have felt, he was too proud or too politic to betray his mortification to the duchess. Thus discredited by all but an insignificant party, who were branded as the "Cardinalists," losing influence daily with the regent, at open war with the nobles, and hated by the people, never was there a minister in so forlorn a situation, or one who was able to maintain his post a day in such circumstances. Yet Granvelle did not lose heart; as others failed him, he relied the more on himself ”

“ Granvelle was well used to such jests; the Netherlanders were famous for their pasquils, their pamphlets, their medals, and their rhetoric plays, and Granvelle had been the butt of all in turn; not even the terrors of the dreaded Inquisition itself could restrain the sharp and lively wits of the people from ridiculing their enemy. ”

“ As Granvelle is an important personage, as his character has been alternately the subject of much censure and of more applause, and as the epoch now described was the one in which the causes of the great convulsion were rapidly germinating, it is absolutely necessary that the reader should be placed in a position to study the main character, as painted by his own hand ”

“ Considering the natural bent of the king's disposition, there seems no reason to charge Granvelle, as was commonly done in the Low Countries, with having given a direction to his policy. It is, however, certain, that, on all great questions, the minister's judgment seems to have perfectly coincided with that of his master. "If your majesty mitigates the edicts," writes the cardinal, "affairs will become worse in Flanders than they are in France." [664] No change should be allowed in the council of state. ”

“ His Italian possessions were separated from France by the Alps; his Spanish, by the Pyrenees. But no such mountain barrier lay between France and Flanders. They were not even separated, in the border provinces, by difference of language. Every shock given to France must necessarily be felt in the remotest corner of the Netherlands. Granvelle was so well aware of this, that he besought the king to keep an eye on his French neighbors, and support them in the maintenance of the Roman Catholic religion. "That they should be maintained in this is quite as important to us as it is to them. ”

“ The nobles instantly clad their retainers in the new livery, which had the advantage of greater economy. It became the badge of party. The tailors of Brussels could not find time to supply their customers. Instead of being confined to Granvelle, the heads occasionally bore the features of Arschot, Aremberg, or Viglius, the cardinal's friends. The duchess at first laughed at the jest, and even sent some specimens of the embroidery to Philip. But Granvelle looked more gravely on the matter, declaring it an insult to the government, and the king interfered to have the device given up. ”

“ Here is a villainous fellow who preaches black treason in the name of religion, and then sends to me, the envoy of the Queen’s Majesty, to protect him! No, no! let him go forth if he lists, and if he is well bastinadoed by the people, he will only obtain his desert.”
The friar, however, remained shut up in his house, but shortly afterwards, through the aid of Cardinal Granvelle, secretly left the city, and took refuge in Brussels. No man in authority was more hated at that time in the Netherlands than was Cardinal Granvelle. When Philip went to Spain, he had been left behind in Flanders. ”

“ Chapuys tried Granvelle again. "Every man of position here," he said, "is in despair at the Pope's inaction. If something is not done promptly there will be no hope for the ladies, or for religion either, which is going daily to destruction. Things are come to such a pass that at some places men even preach against the Sacrament. The Emperor is bound to interfere. What he has done in Africa he can do in England with far more ease and with incomparably more political advantage." [8]
Granvelle could but answer that Henry was a monster, and that God would undoubtedly punish him ”

“ As he did not redress the evil, his implied disavowal of being privy to it would hardly go for anything with the injured party. In his answer, Philip thanked the nobles for their zeal in his service, and promised to reply to them more at large on the return of Count Hoorne to Flanders. [535]
There is no reason to suppose that Granvelle was ever acquainted with the fact of the letter having been written by the two lords. The privilege claimed by the novelist, who looks over the shoulders of his heroes and heroines when they are inditing their epistles, is also enjoyed by the historian. ”

“ No sooner were they formally made, than he sent Granvelle's son, the Bishop of Arras, with a safe-conduct across France, to say that his army was in extreme danger, that he doubted if he could save himself, and he required either that he should be allowed to make peace on the conditions which the French Government had offered, or that the siege of Boulogne and Mottreul should be immediately raised, and the whole English strength advance towards Paris. ”

“ George Granville, afterwards Lord Lansdowne of Biddiford, in the county of Devon, was born in 1667. He was descended from the illustrious family of that name, seated for many ages in Devonshire and Cornwall, the founder of which was Richard de Granville, second son of Rollo, first Duke of Normandy, who accompanied William the Conqueror, in his expedition to England, and was rewarded for his services with the castle and lordship of Biddiford. ”

“ 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? ”

“ Granvelle did not escape the usual fate of favorites; and whether from the necessity of the case, or that, as some pretend, he did not on his elevation bear his faculties too meekly, no man was so generally and so heartily detested throughout the country. [426]
Before leaving the Netherlands, Philip named the governors of the several provinces,—the nominations, for the most part, only confirming those already in office. Egmont had the governments of Flanders and Artois; the prince of Orange, those of Holland, Zealand, Utrecht, and West Friesland. ”

“ It was one of my crimes, [90] in Lord Hillsborough’s [387] garden, that Lord Granville was my friend, who was so much his, (that is) Pitt’s enemy. Well, the scheme is this: to gain Lord Egmont with Yonge’s place; to try, by Lord Chancellor, to gain Pitt; to trust to my acquiescence, from the influence H. R. H. has over me, and to carry every thing through, without parting (as Lord Granville expresses it) with the least emanation of his power to any body.
Extract of a Letter from the Duke of Newcastle to the Marquis of Hartington, August 30, 1755. ”

“ He understood the relations of the European states, and the interests of Great Britain among them. But the defects which had rendered him unable to baffle the intrigues of Walpole made him equally unable to contend with the Pelhams. His support of the king’s policy was denounced as subservience to Hanover. Pitt called him “an execrable, a sole minister who had renounced the British nation.” A few years later Pitt adopted an identical policy, and professed that whatever he knew he had learnt from Carteret. On the 18th of October 1744 Carteret became Earl Granville on the death of his mother. ”

“ State Papers, vol. ix. p. 615. 'M. de Granvelle received the book thankfully,' and said it should be his daily study after supper; for all the rest of the day he never had any rest or leisure.'—Wotton to Henry VIII.: ibid. p. 624. ↑ 35 Henry VIII. cap. 12. I confess myself unable to see the impropriety of this proceeding, or to understand the censures which historians have so freely lavished upon it: unless, indeed, they have believed that all wars in any generation but their own are necessarily unjust, and all taxation tyranny ”

“ These thoughts did not occur to Egmont, to Montigny, 147to Brederode, to the other seigneurs who rejoiced in the departure of Granvelle; they knew themselves free from even a treasonable thought, and considered themselves as safe as the Regent herself from the wrath of Philip. ”

“ Lord Granville stood high both in the eyes of the King and the Publick, and could not have been passed by. He was the opposite of Sir Robert Walpole. He had been bred a Tory, was a great scholar, brilliant, witty, despised the House of Commons, loved society when he shone, could not stoop to cultivate. He was ambitious, but with a mixture of love of ease and of letters. He looked to the crown, and to the brilliancy of his own actions for support. [50] He had served in foreign embassies, [51] when very young, was the favourite of the favourite, Lord Sunderland. ”

“ Lady Granville [13] has a great deal of genial humour, strong feelings, enthusiasm, delicacy, refinement, good taste, naïveté which just misses being affectation, and a bonhomie which extends to all around her.
[13] [Henrietta Elizabeth, daughter of William, fifth Duke of Devonshire, married in 1809 to Lord Granville Leveson Gower, created Viscount Granville in 1815, and Earl Granville in 1833, during his embassy at the Court of France.]
Nothing could exceed the agreeableness of the life we led at Tixall. ”

“ 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) . ”

“ The rhodomontade, to which he was addicted, was set off by parts and wit, or forgiven to his good-humour. It was very unlike the presumptuous ascendant of Pitt, or the lofty ignorance of Lord Bute. Pitt, unsociable and muffled in clouds, was adored from the terror imprinted by his lightnings. Bute thought distance and obscurity sufficient characteristics of divinity; but Granville, like Bacchus, rattled his car among men, and was but the more admired the more he familiarized himself with mortals. ”

“ Of the former, his historical performances afford some pleasing proofs; of the latter, there are extant two letters, one to his cousin the last Earl of Bath, and the other to his cousin Mr. Bevil Granville, on his entering into holy orders, written with a tenderness, a freedom, and an honesty, which render them invaluable.
The general character of his poetry, is elegance, sprightliness, and dignity. He is seldom tender, and very rarely sublime. In his smaller pieces he endeavours to be gay ”

“ 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. ”

“ GRANVELLA, ANTOINE PERRENOT, Cardinal de (1517–1586) , one of the ablest and most influential of the princes of the church during the great political and ecclesiastical movements which immediately followed the appearance of Protestantism in Europe, was born on the 20th of August 1517 at Besançon, where his father, Nicolas Perrenot de Granvella (1484–1550) , who afterwards became chancellor of the empire under Charles V., was practising as a lawyer. ”

“ Well, let the fellow follow him if he liked! He would reward him himself if ever they reached the coast in safety. And in any case, it was better to go attended by a native. An interpreter who can communicate in their own tongue with the people through whose territory you are going to pass is always, useful in a savage country.
How Granville got over that terrible journey seaward he could never tell. He crawled on and on, supported by the faithful Namaqua with unfailing good-humour, over that endless veldt, for three long days of wretched footsore marching. ”

“ On the principal isle of the Minquiers, scarce a dozen feet above sea-level, is a little hamlet of a few huts and cabins of refuge built by the fishermen of Jersey and Guernsey.
Granville is indeed a city of sturdy sailors and men of affairs. It is situated at the very tip of an abrupt promontory, picturesque in the extreme, known as the Rock of Granville. The upper town and the lower town each adds its own variety of life; and there is no city in Normandy where one may observe more contrasting features than here on this rock-cut town overlooking the blue waters of the Manche. ”