GRENVILLE, Richard I (by 1524-c.78), of Penheale, Cornw.

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1558-1603, ed. P.W. Hasler, 1981
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Family and Education

b. by 1524 1st s. of Digory Grenville of Penheale by his 1st w. Philippa, da. and h. of one Gough; half-bro. of George I. m. Florence, da. and coh. of John Kelloway of Broadwood Kelly, Devon, 2s. inc. George Grenville II 3da. suc. fa. aft. 1564.

Offices Held

J.p. Cornw. 1569-77; commr. grain 1576.1

Biography

The surname only is known of the Member for Newport in 1559, but there is every reason to believe that he was Richard Grenville, who had sat for the same constituency in 1545, and in 1555 for the adjacent borough of Dunheved, which he again represented in 1563.2 True, his father, Digory Grenville, head of the Penheale family, was still alive and active in 1559, but he was evidently a man who had no desire to sit in Parliament. Apart from other arguments, this succession of seats disposes of any conjecture that it was Grenville’s young cousin, Richard Grenville II of the Revenge, who sat for Dunheved in 1563.

Grenville inherited property in Cornwall from his mother and acquired lands in Devon at his marriage, ‘which help’, as Carew wrote, ‘together with his own good husbandry, have endowed his son with an elder brother’s livelihood’, the suggestion being that he made the Penheale branch of the family equal in substance to the Grenvilles of Stowe. Grenville left no will, and the date of his death is uncertain. His name was deleted from the commission of the peace about 1578.3

Ref Volumes: 1558-1603

Author: N. M. Fuidge

Notes

  • 1. Vivian, Vis. Cornw. 191, 194; Vis. Cornw. (Harl. Soc. ix), 84-6; Lansd. 783, f. 60; CPR, 1569-72, p. 223.
  • 2. Browne Willis, Notitia Parliamentaria, iii(2), p. 62 guesses ‘Francis Greenfield’.
  • 3. D. Gilbert, Paroch. Hist. Cornw. i. 378; Anon. Paroch. Hist. Cornw. i. 323, 326; Carew’s Surv. Cornw. ed. Halliday, 185; C142/247/81; C54/975; Hatfield ms 223/7.