Bevil Grenville


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.

Origins

Grenville was born near Withiel, west of Bodmin, Cornwall, the son of Sir Bernard Grenville 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, the heroic Elizabethan naval captain, explorer, and soldier. The Grenville family had for centuries been lords of the manors of Stowe in the parish of Kilkhampton in Cornwall, and of Bideford in Devon.

Education

Grenville was educated at Exeter College, Oxford.

Political career

Grenville was elected Member of Parliament for Cornwall in 1621 and remained so until 1625. 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. In parliament, Grenville supported Sir John Eliot and the opposition, and his intimacy with Eliot was lifelong. 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." 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. 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, 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. He then led his men on a victorious march through Devon into Somerset.

Death at Lansdowne

A month later, Hopton's attempt to unite with Prince Maurice and the Marquess of Hertford from Oxford led to the Battle of Lansdowne, which took place near Bath in Somerset. Grenville was killed during the battle on 5 July 1643, at the head of the Cornish infantry as it reached the top of Lansdown Hill. He received a blow to the head with a pole-axe and was taken to the rectory at nearby Cold Ashton where he died. According to the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica, "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."

Marriage and children

He married Grace Smith, a daughter by his second marriage of Sir George Smith of Madworthy, near Exeter, 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. Grace's half-sister Elizabeth Smythe was the wife of Sir Thomas Monk of Potheridge, Devon, MP for Camelford in 1626, and mother of the great general George Monck, 1st Duke of Albemarle, KG. 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 and was also granted the reversion of the Dukedom of Albemarle in the event of the failure of George Monck's male issue. 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. 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:

Sons

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 and 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, brought his body back to Kilkhampton in Cornwall, 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.

Monuments

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

Mural monument, Kilkhampton Church

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. The main inscription reads:
Underneath on a smaller tablet is the following inscription with verse by Martin Lluelyn, 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

was erected in 1720 also by his grandson George Granville, 1st Baron Lansdown. It is situated on top of Lansdown Hill to commemorate his heroism and that of his Cornish pikemen at the Battle of Lansdown.