Family and Education

s. and h. of Ludovic Greville of Milcote by Thomasine, da. of Sir William Petre. m. Joan or Jane, da. of Sir Thomas Bromley, 1s. 5da. suc. fa. 1589. Kntd. by 1597.1

Offices Held

Gent. pens. by 1577; j.p. Warws. from c.1592, sheriff 1594-5, commr. musters 1595.2

Biography

Greville was a cousin of Fulke Greville and it appears that the family status was sufficient to effect his return as knight of the shire despite his father’s infamy and the hatred with which he himself was regarded by 1593. He is not mentioned by name in the journals of the House, but as knight of the shire he may have attended the subsidy committee (26 Feb.) and a legal committee (9 Mar.) in 1593.

Nothing is known of Greville’s upbringing and early life, except for an unsubstantiated story that he killed an elder brother accidentally. His father, coveting the property of a former servant, Richard Webb, had forged a will in his own favour, and then had Webb murdered. Later ‘one of the assassinates, being in his cups at Stratford, dropped out some words amongst his pot companions that it lay within his power to hang his master’. He, in turn, was hastily despatched but the crimes were discovered and Greville senior was tried on 6 Nov. 1589. To prevent the loss of his estates he remained mute, was pressed to death, and lands of great worth in both Gloucestershire and Warwickshire devolved upon Edward Greville. These he wasted utterly, and as his only son John died before him, this branch of the family became extinct.3

Greville was clearly detested by the corporation of his local borough of Stratford-upon-Avon. He revived a claim to control the election of the bailiff, and another to dispose of the offices of town crier and collector of market tolls. He asserted that the toll corn belonged to him as lord of the manor. The corporation, which normally behaved with moderation and courtesy, was goaded beyond endurance when Greville enclosed the town commons. Several of their members, armed with mattocks, shovels and spades, broke into an enclosure called Bankcroft, levelled the hedges and mounds, drove in horses, oxen, kine, swine and hoggerels, and, according to Greville, ‘did depasture, tread down and consume to the value of 40s.; and 40 willows did lop and the wood thereof carried ... away ... and other enormities to him did do’. They were arrested for riot, and the ensuing lawsuit dragged on for some time. On another occasion the Privy Council reproved him for making difficulties over certain service they required, and for not being present in Warwickshire to perform it. Greville is also remembered for the magnitude of his debts, which accumulated at least from the early years of the seventeenth century, when he began to sell his property. About 1609 he parted with the manor of Stratford. The greater part of his property, including Milcote, was bought by his son-in-law, Sir Arthur Ingram of Yorkshire, who sold it to Lionel Cranfield, Earl of Middlesex. It is not known where or when Greville died.4

Ref Volumes: 1558-1603

Author: N.M.S.

Notes

• 1. VCH Warws. Index, 52; Dugdale, Warws. ii. 706 seq.; Nash, Worcs. i. 594; Vis. Salop (Harl. Soc. xxviii), 78; E. I. Fripp, Richard Quyny, 117.
• 2. APC, xxv. 141; HMC Hatfield, vi. 552.
• 3. Rudder, Glos. 645; D’Ewes, 474, 496; Dugdale, ii. 710-11.
• 4. VCH Warws. iii. 237, 239, 248-9, 259, 285; v. 200; Lee, Stratford-upon-Avon, 259-60; Fripp, 167 seq.; APC, xxx. 37-38.