'Amongst the trayne of valliant knights that with King William came,
Grenvile is great, a Norman borne, renowned by his fame,
His helmet rais'd and first unlac'd upon the Cambrian shore,
Where he, in honour to his God, this Abbey did decore
With costly buildings, ornaments, and gave us spatious lands,
As the first fruits which victory did give unto his hands.'

But the materials for the lives of the earlier Grenvilles are too scanty for our present purpose; and—with one exception—we must therefore be content to dismiss them with the passing notice which has already been accorded to the builder of Bideford Bridge; and with a reference to one of the family, William, who died in 1315, a distinguished statesman, and forty-first Archbishop of York. He was at Edward I.'s first Parliament at Carlisle; and, according to some authorities, crowned Edward II.; he also held several important councils at York relative to the dissolution of the Order of the Temple.[6]

'William de Grenefild' (says Carew), 'from the Deanery of Chichester stepped to the Chancellorship of England, and Archbishoprick of York, under King Edward the First. He was the son of Sir Theobald Grenvill, of Stow, and Jane Trewent, and was elected Archbishop of York in 1304, but not confirmed till 1306, at Lions in France, by Pope Clement the Fifth, who then held his Court in that city, subsisting chiefly by the money which he got of the Bishops for their confirmations. Of this Archbishop he squeezed out within one year 9,500 marks, besides his expenses whilst he lay there, which made him so poor that when he returned into England he was driven to gather money of the clergy within his province at two sundry times in one year; the first in the name of a benevolence, and the second by way of an aid. He much favoured the Templars, at that time oppresst by the Pope, and Philip, King of France, though more pitying them, says Fuller, as persons so stiffly opposed by the said Potentates, that there was more fear of his being suppressed by their foes, than hope of their being supported by his friendship. He was present in the Council of Vienna, where that Order was abolished, and his place assigned next to the Archbishop of Triers; which was very high, as only beneath the lowest Elector, and above Wurtzburg, or Herbipolis, and other German prelates, who were also temporal Princes. He died at Cawood (near Leeds, in Yorkshire), 1315, and was buried in the chapel of St. Nicholas[7] (in York Cathedral), leaving the reputation of an able statesman, and no ill scholar, behind him.' Tonkin also, in his notes to the 'De Dunstanville' edition of Carew, states, 'that the Archbishop was the son of Sir Theobald Grenville, of Stow, and Jane Trewent.'

But Dixon, in his 'Fasti Eboracenses,' says, 'that the birthplace and parentage of the Archbishop of York are uncertain—notwithstanding that both Carew and Fuller state that he was a Cornishman. He was undoubtedly, however, connected with several old and distinguished families, notably the Giffards. Now Richard de Grenville, the founder of the Grenville family, married a daughter of Walter Giffard Earl of Bucks, temp. William I.' Dixon speaks highly of the Archbishop's piety and zeal, and says that he was a most excellent and painstaking diocesan. As to the ruby ring removed from the Archbishop's skeleton in 1735, and deposited in the Treasury, Grotius says:

'Annule, qui thecam poteras habuisse sepulchrum
Hæc, natalis erit nunc tibi, theca, locus.'

In Carew's 'Survey of Cornwall' (pp. 111, 112), under Trematon Castle, is the following reference to Sir Richard Grenville, Sheriff of Devon and Marshal of Calais[8] (grandsire of the more celebrated Grenville of that name), a man who 'enterlaced his home magistracy with martiall employments abroad,' and was a great favourite with bluff King Hal:

'At the last Cornish commotion Sir Richard Greynuile the elder, with his Ladie and followers, put themselves into this Castle, and there for awhile indured the Rebels siege, incamped in three places against it, who wanting great Ordinance, could have wrought the besieged small scathe, had his friends, or enemies, kept faith and promise: but some of those within, slipping by night over the wals, with their bodies after their hearts, and those without, mingling humble intreatings with rude menaces, he was hereby wonne, to issue forth at a posterne gate for parley. The while, a part of those rakehels, not knowing what honestie, and farre lesse, how much the word of a souldier imported, stepped betweene him and home, laid hold on his aged unweyldie body and threatened to leaue it liuelesse, if the inclosed did not leaue their resistance. So prosecuting their first treacherie against the prince, with suteable actions towards his subjects, they seized on the Castle, and exercised the uttermost of their barbarous crueltie (death excepted) on the surprised prisoners. The seely (i.e. harmless) gentlewomen, without regard of sexe or shame, were stripped from their apparrell to their verie smockes, and some of their fingers broken, to plucke away their rings, & Sir Richard himself made an exchange from Trematon Castle, to that of Launceston, with the Gayle to boote.'

Sir Richard, who married Matilda Bevill, died in 1550; and I have been fortunate enough to find two of his poetical effusions—apparently in his own handwriting, now very indistinct in places—amongst the 'Additional MSS.' in the British Museum. They appear to me to be well worth inserting, notwithstanding their queer versification and grammar, and their odd orthography:

'IN PRAISE OF SEAFARINGE MEN IN HOPES OF GOOD FORTUNE.

'Whoe seekes the waie to win Renowne
Or flies with wyinges of ye Desarte
Whoe seekes to wear the Lawrell crowen
Or hath the mind that would espire
Tell him his native soyll eschew
Tell him go rainge and seke Anewe