This family was founded by the wool-trade in the fourteenth century by William Grevel, "the flower of the wool merchants of the whole realm of England," who died and was buried at Campden, in Gloucestershire, in 1401. He it was who purchased Milcote, in this county, long the seat of the elder line of this family, who, after a succession of crimes, the particulars of which may be seen in Dugdale's Warwickshire, became extinct in the reign of James I. Fulke, second son of Sir Edward Greville of Milcote, who died in the 20th of Henry VIII., having married Elizabeth, one of the daughters and coheiress of Edward Willoughby, only son of Robert Willoughby, Lord Brooke, became possessed of Beauchamp's Court, in the parish of Alcester, inherited from her grandmother Elizabeth, the eldest of the daughters and coheirs of the last Lord Beauchamp of Powyke. This Fulke Greville was grandfather of the more celebrated Sir Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke, "servant to Queen Elizabeth, Counsellor to King James, and friend to Sir Philip Sidney," who died in 1628. "The fanatic Brooke," killed at Lichfield Close, was his cousin and successor, and ancestor of the present family. The Castle of Warwick was granted to Sir Fulke Greville by James I. in the second year of his reign.
Younger Branch. Greville of North Myms Place, in the county of Hertford, and of Westmeath, in Ireland, descended from Algernon, second son of Fulke 5th Lord Brooke.
See Leland's Itinerary, vol. iv. pt. i. fol. 16, vol. vi. fol. 19; Dugdale's Warwickshire, vol. ii. pp. 706, 766; Brydges's Collins, vol. iv. p. 330; and Edmondson's Account of the Greville Family, 8vo. 1766.
Arms.—Sable, on a cross engrailed or, five pellets within a border engrailed of the second. The present coat, with the addition of a mullet in the first quarter, was borne by William Grevil, of Campden, as appears by his brass, still in good preservation; his son John differenced his arms with ten annulets, in lieu of the five pellets; both were omitted by the Grevilles of Milcote.
Present Representative, George Guy Greville, 4th Earl of Warwick.
WESTMORLAND.
Knightly.
Lowther of Lowther-Castle, Earl of Lonsdale 1807; Baron 1797; Baronet 1764.