Cornish Worthies: Sketches of Some Eminent Cornish Men and Families, Volume 2 (of 2) — John Shaqi
Cornish Worthies: Sketches of Some Eminent Cornish Men and Families, Volume 2 (of 2)Tregellas, Walter H. (Walter Hawken)
History
Cornish Worthies: Sketches of Some Eminent Cornish Men and Families, Volume 2 (of 2)
Tregellas, Walter H. (Walter Hawken)
Cornwall (England : County) -- Biography
'So at Stamford he fought, and at Lansdowne he fell,
But vain were the visions he cherished;
For the great Cornish heart that the King loved so well,
In the grave of the Grenville is perished.'
From Stow Bevill Grenville went to the famous old West-country college,
Exeter College, Oxford; where he was placed under Dr. Prideaux (one,
I fancy, of the worthy family of Prideaux Place, Padstow). He shortly
afterwards entered Parliament, and going to Scotland, in command of a
troop of horse, with the King, was knighted.[20]
The relations of Sir Bevill and Clarendon were peculiar. Clarendon
had quarrelled with Sir Bevill's fiery brother, Sir Richard (created,
according to Whitelocke, Baron of Lostwithiel in 1644), a man of high
spirit and of considerable bravery and military skill, but with an
unlucky facility for getting into scrapes and troubles of all sorts.
He begins with a squabble with his wife's brother-in-law, the powerful
Earl of Suffolk, which ends in Sir Richard's having to pay a fine of
£8,000, besides undergoing sixteen months' imprisonment in the Fleet.
He afterwards served in Ireland, and on his return to England, finding
it a matter of considerable difficulty to get his arrears of pay,
resorted to the following questionable artifice for the purpose. He
pretended to lend a not unwilling ear to the Parliament's suggestion,
that in return for being paid the money due to him, he should transfer
his sword from the King's cause to theirs. Indeed, he even went so far
as to take the command of a body of Roundhead horse, and marched upon
Basing. But on reaching Hounslow he, without much difficulty, persuaded
all his officers and men to proceed to Oxford instead, where he placed
the services of his whole party at the King's disposal, whereupon the
Parliamentarians righteously enough dubbed him 'skellum' (scoundrel)
and 'renegado.' He did yeoman's service for the King in Cornwall,
and Charles left the blockade of Plymouth in his charge--a blockade
which, as we know, was finally abandoned. The whole story is given in
Llewellyn Jewitt's 'History of Plymouth,' together with a scornful
letter to Sir Richard from the defenders. And I notice that in a letter
from Sir R. Grenville to his nephew, the Earl of Bath, then only about
sixteen years old, he is reported to have said, 'We have here made a
stand with our forces and the garrisons of Salt Ash, Milbrooke and
others considerable have come up and added to our former, and we hope
well.' The letter is dated 'Truro, 29 July, 1644.'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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