GRENVILLE, Richard II (by 1524-77/78), of Stowe in Kilkhampton and Penheale, Cornw.

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1509-1558, ed. S.T. Bindoff, 1982
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Family and Education

b. by 1524, 1st s. of Digory Grenville of Penheale, by 1st w. Philippa, da. and h. of one Gough; half-bro. of George Grenville. m. by 1553, Florence, da. and coh. of John Kelloway of Broadwood Kelly, Devon, 2s. inc. George 3da. suc. fa. aft. 1564.1

Offices Held

Gen. subsidy collector, hundreds of Stratton and Lesnewth, Comw. 1559; j.p. 1569-77; commr. grain 1576.2

Biography

Richard Grenville was a nephew of Sir Richard Grenville. Although he was only the firstborn of a cadet branch, Grenville became a man of substance as his mother was sole heir to a small estate and his wife coheir to another. On 5 Jan. 1545 he voted at the election of the knights for Cornwall to the last Parliament of Henry VIII’s reign and nine months later he was returned to the same Parliament—its assembly having been postponed until the autumn on account of the French war—for one of the two constituencies at Launceston, some three miles from his father’s home. He owed the opportunity to sit on this occasion both to his family’s local influence and to his uncle, who was the sheriff and who as the returning officer worked closely with Sir Thomas Arundell. When after ten years Grenville was again returned to Parliament, this time for the other constituency at Launceston, the sheriff was Arundell’s elder brother Sir John. Grenville seems to have lived at the main residence of the family until his father’s death, for it was there in 1555 that his third daughter was baptized. He shared his uncle’s military interests, being one of two entrusted in 1555 with the appointment of a new captain for the royal fort at Tresco in the Scilly Isles, and three years later one of a group ordered to strengthen its garrison. Under Elizabeth he was active in local affairs and sat twice more in Parliament: he probably died in 1577 or early in 1578, his name being originally included in the commission of the peace for Cornwall in 1578 but later struck through.3

Ref Volumes: 1509-1558

Author: J. J. Goring

Notes

  • 1. Presumed to be of age on election. Vis. Cornw. ed. Vivian, 191, 194 (in error over order of Digory Grenville’s two wives); Vis. Cornw. (Harl. Soc. ix), 84-86.
  • 2. E179/87/218, m. 18.
  • 3. A. Carew, Survey Cornw. ed. Halliday, 185; C219/18C/19; APC, v. 24-25; vi. 116-17; C54/975.