GROVE, Robert (c.1511-79/80), of Donhead St. Andrew, Wilts.

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

Constituency

Dates

Family and Education

b. c.1511, 2nd s. of Thomas Grove of Donhead St. Andrew by Isabel, da. of John Luyshe. m. by 1532, Joan, da. of John Combe of Cann, Dorset, 3s. inc. William 1da.2

Offices Held

Servant of Sir Thomas Arundell by 1540, steward and surveyor by 1545; receiver to Queen Catherine Parr, Dorset, 1543-8; steward, surveyor, and later comptroller of the household to 1st and 2nd Earls of Pembroke by 1554-d.; feodary, Wilts. by 1561.3

Biography

Robert Grove’s grandfather had been born in Buckinghamshire, but married into a Shaftesbury family and settled in Wiltshire. The first glimpse of Grove comes at the time of the Dissolution when he was bailiff of the manor of Iwerne in Dorset for Shaftesbury abbey and Sir Thomas Arundell its receiver-general. It was to Arundell that he owed much of his early advancement. In 1539 or 1540 he became Arundell’s steward for the manor of Sturminster Newton, Dorset; in the 1540s, while Arundell was chancellor to Queen Catherine Parr, Grove was receiver of her lands in Dorset; and by 1545 he was Arundell’s chief servant, steward and surveyor of his lands. It was undoubtedly as Arundell’s nominee that Grove was returned to the Parliament of 1545; the election indenture for Shaftesbury is lost, but on the sheriff’s schedule Grove’s name appears over an erasure.4

When Arundell was attainted in 1552, his lands escheated to the crown and Grove was replaced by the crown receiver John Aylworth. Almost immediately Grove was taken into the service of the 1st Earl of Pembroke, to whom much of Arundell’s property was granted, including the manor and borough of Shaftesbury and the site of the abbey. The rest of his life Grove spent in the Herberts’ service.5

Grove acquired a certain amount of property during his career. In 1545 he obtained leases of the manor of Minterne Magna, Dorset, from the court of augmentations, and of lands in Sturminster Newton from Queen Catherine Parr. The house at Donhead in which he lived was rented first from Shaftesbury abbey and then from Arundell. In 1553 the 1st Earl of Pembroke gave him a 21-year lease of a Wiltshire rectory and later that of a Somerset manor. He also had lands in Shaftesbury and, when he made his will, £200 in gold in a chest there. As his property increased, so did his status. In the general pardons of 1547 and 1554 he was described as gentleman or yeoman, in the pardon of 1559 as alias groom; but in 1560 he obtained a grant of arms. He died between 31 Dec. 1579 when he made his will and 21 June following when the will was proved.6

Ref Volumes: 1509-1558

Author: Helen Miller

Notes

  • 1. Did not serve for the full duration of the Parliament.
  • 2. Aged 60 or ‘thereabouts’ in 1571, E134/13-14 Eliz. Mich. 3; Hoare, Wilts. Dunworth, 57-58.
  • 3. LP Hen. VIII, xxi; Pembroke Survey (Roxburghe Club cliv), 501; SC6/Edw. VI, 148; CPR, 1560-3, p. 94.
  • 4. Hoare, 58; Pembroke Survey, passim; E134/13-14 Eliz. Mich. 3; LP Hen. VIII, xxi; C219/18C/36.
  • 5. HMC Foljambe, 8; Pembroke Survey, passim.
  • 6. LP Hen. VIII, xx; CPR, 1548-9, p. 144; 1554-5, p. 356; 1558-60, p. 213; 1560-3, p. 81; Hoare, 58 Pembroke Survey, passim; PCC 23 Arundell.