Devonshire Characters and Strange EventsBaring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
History
Devonshire Characters and Strange Events
Baring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
Devon (England) -- Biography; Devon (England) -- History
In 1652 Sir Richard Grenville, being in the Low Countries, seized goods
belonging to the Earl of Suffolk that were at Bruges, to the value of
£27,000, as some abatement of the debt he considered was due to him out
of Lady Howard’s estate.
In 1655 that lady’s son, George Howard, married Mistress Burnby, and
by her had a son George who died young, and he had no more children,
so that with this child died his grandmother’s hopes of a descendant
in the male line. If George Howard, the father, were born in 1634, he
would have been one-and-twenty when he married.
Sir Richard Grenville died at Ghent about 1659, attended by his
daughter Elizabeth, who shortly after married a privateer captain
named Lennard, who cruised the Channel stopping and plundering English
vessels, on the principle that all who did not fight for King Charles
were his enemies and the enemies of his country. He was taken prisoner
8 February, 1659-60, and only escaped being hanged by the Restoration.
He was set at liberty and given the post of captain of the Black Horse
at Tilbury; but he did not long enjoy the post, as he died in 1665.
Something must now be said about this daughter, Elizabeth Grenville,
concerning whom tradition has a good deal to say, but it is unsupported
by documentary evidence.
The story is that Lady Howard hated the child with a deadly hate as
the offspring of the plague of her life, Sir Richard Grenville. As she
was unkind to it, a lady carried it away, and without the knowledge
of the mother brought it up as her own. In after years this lady
introduced Elizabeth to her mother under a fictitious name, and Lady
Howard became quite attached to her. Seeing this, the lady revealed to
her who the young girl was. At this Lady Howard started to her feet,
her eyes flaming with rage, and drove Elizabeth from her presence.
A few years passed, and this Elizabeth Grenville made another attempt
to see and soften her mother. She went to her at Walreddon, but when
Lady Howard saw her she rushed from the room up the stairs pursued by
her daughter, who implored her to stay and hear and love her. Elizabeth
clung to her mother’s dress on the landing, as Lady Howard passed into
one of the upper rooms. The unnatural mother swung back the door with
such violence that it broke her daughter’s arm. If this took place at
all it was probably before Elizabeth departed for the Continent with
her father, when she was aged sixteen. She never after met her mother.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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