He was the eldest son and heir of Sir Bevil Grenville lord of the manors of Bideford in Devon and Stowe, Kilkhampton in Cornwall, a Royalist soldier killed in action in heroic circumstances at the Battle of Lansdowne in 1643 during the Civil War. Sir Bevil served as MP for Cornwall 1621–1625 and 1640–42, and for Launceston in 1625–1629 and 1640. John's mother was Grace Smythe, 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 or part manors. John had thirteen siblings, all by Royal Warrant of Precedence granted the rank and title of Earl's children by King Charles II on 20 August 1675, in recognition of their father's services. 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, Duke of Albemarle, KG, the main figure behind the Restoration of the Monarchy in 1660. It was largely due to his close kinship to his first cousin the Duke that Sir John Grenville was raised to the peerage in 1660 as Earl of Bath and was also granted the reversion of the Duchy of Albemarle in the event of the failure of George Monck's male issue.
Career
During the 1638 to 1651 Wars of the Three Kingdoms, Granville fought in the regiment raised by his father for Charles I. Created a knight after the capture of Bristol in 1643, he was appointed Gentleman of the Bedchamber to the future Charles II and accompanied him into exile. When the Second English Civil War began in 1648, Charles appointed him Governor of the Scilly Isles, which had rebelled against its Parliamentary garrison. As a base for Royalist privateers attacking English and Dutch vessels in the Western Approaches, this was a vital source of funding for the exiled Court; in May 1651, Parliamentary forces under Robert Blake retook the islands and Granville was captured. On his release, Granville remained in England and continued to be active in Royalist conspiracies. In 1660, he served as an intermediary in the negotiations between Charles and his distant relative George Monck that led to the Restoration. To his disappointment, the Duchy of Albemarle went to Monck, whom Charles also rewarded with the then enormous pension of £7,000 per year. Instead, he was created Baron Granville, Viscount Granville and Earl of Bath in 1661, and a Privy Councillor in 1663. In 1665, he was appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, although he never went there and spent large sums of time and money on rebuilding the family home of Stowe House in Cornwall. Widely admired, it was dismantled in 1739, although many of its ornamental features, including entire rooms, can be seen at the Guildhall in South Molton, Devon. Albemarle also expanded his own ancestral seat of Potheridge, about 18 miles to the east; unfinished on his death, it was badly damaged by fire and demolished in 1734. Granville was a signatory to “The Several Declarations of The Company of Royal Adventurers of England Trading into Africa.” This document was published in 1667 by the Royal African Company, a corporation which attempted to monopolize the slave trade in England starting in the late 1660s. There is a possibility that someone signed on Granville’s behalf; however, if that is not the case, then the signature is evidence that he both consciously supported and funded England’s slave industry. The Royal African Company was led by the Duke of York, James II of England, Charles II's brother. Due to Granville's close relationship with Charles II, it is likely that he was encouraged to invest in the Royal African Company to better the Duke of York's corporation. Under James II, Granville served as colonel of the Earl of Bath's Regiment, later 10th Foot, first during the June 1685 Monmouth Rebellion and again in 1688. During the November 1688 Glorious Revolution, he commanded the key ports of Exeter and Plymouth but defected to William III on 18 November. He was rewarded by being made Lord Lieutenant of Devon but again failed to gain the title of Albemarle and the legal dispute over the Albemarle estate almost bankrupted him. Two weeks after his death in August 1701, his son Charles shot himself, apparently overwhelmed by the debts he had inherited.
Marriage and progeny
In October 1652 at Kilkhampton John Granville married Jane Wyche, a daughter of Sir Peter Wyche, English ambassador to the Ottoman Empire. By his wife, he had five children:
Sons
Charles Granville, 2nd Earl of Bath, eldest son and heir. He died from a gunshot wound during the preparations for his father's funeral, possibly suicide. He was twice married, firstly to Lady Martha Osborne, daughter of Thomas Osborne, 1st Duke of Leeds, and secondly, on 10 March 1691, to Isabella van Nassau, sister of Henry Nassau d'Auverquerque, 1st Earl of Grantham. He had no children by his first wife, but by his second wife was the father of:
*William Henry Granville, 3rd Earl of Bath who died of smallpox aged 19 without progeny when the earldom became extinct.
John Granville, 1st Baron Granville of Potheridge. Potheridge in Devon was the ancient seat of the Monck family, where the 1st Earl of Bath's cousin, close friend and collaborator in the Restoration of the Monarchy, George Monck, 1st Duke of Albemarle had built a grand mansion. It was settled on the 1st Earl of Bath by the Duke's childless son Christopher Monck, 2nd Duke of Albemarle, and eventually passed to the Leveson-Gower family.
The armorials of the family of Granville / Grenville of Glamorgan, Devon and Cornwall is of certain form but uncertain blazon. The charges appear in the form of musical pipes of a wind-instrument, similar to pan-pipes. Authoritative sources on heraldry suggest the charges to be variously "clarions", the most usual blazon, which are however generally defined as a form of trumpet; "rests" is another common blazon, denoting lance-rests supposedly used by a mounted knight; "organ-rests" is also met with, a seemingly meaningless term. Other terms are "clavicymbal", "clarichord" and "sufflue", the latter being a device for blowing air into an organ., Guillim suggested the charge may be a rudder, but in which case it is shown upside down, when compared to that charge used for example on the tomb at Callington of Robert Willoughby, 1st Baron Willoughby de Broke. Certainly in the brasses on the chest tomb of Sir John Bassett in Atherington Church, Devon, the charges are engraved in tubular forms with vents or reeds as used in true organ pipes.
