Part 6

In the following month, however, he made another attempt--this time successfully--to reach Edinburgh; and after a long and tedious voyage, arrived at Honfleur on the 19th March--the very day after James had left Brest for Ireland, 'a great mortification and disappointment to mee,' adds Dean Grenville. Rouen was the place which he had fixed upon for his abode, and thither he removed a few days afterwards, forthwith setting about writing remonstrances to his Bishop, his brother, and his 'lapsed assistants,' his Curates; printing his sermons, to which reference has just been made, and also his 'Loyall farewell Visitation Speech,' delivered on 15th November, 1688.[38]

Little remains to be told of him, but that he was formally deprived on the appointed date of 1st February, 1690/1, and his goods and chattels were distrained by the Sheriff, in consequence of his continued pecuniary embarrassments; his library, also, which was very rich in Bibles and Prayer-books, was purchased by Sir George Wheeler; and the Chapter had to grant the unhappy Mrs. Grenville an allowance of £80 a year 'in compassion to her necessities.' She died twelve years before her husband, and was buried in Durham Cathedral.

Nor did James, to whose Court at St. Germains Dennis Grenville shortly afterwards repaired, by any means console his faithful servant for the troubles and trials he had undergone in his King's behalf. 'He was slighted,' says Surtees, in his 'History of Durham,' 'by the bigoted Prince, for whom he had forfeited every worldly possession, because he would not also abandon his religion.'[39] In fact, the Dean was at length compelled to retire from the Court to Corbeil, his ancestral home, about twenty miles from Paris, in consequence of the indignities heaped upon him there by his ecclesiastical opponents, and by their persistent, though vain, attempts to draw him into polemical discussions. Whilst in France, he sometimes went by the name of Corbeil--sometimes by the name of Stotherd; and here it may be added, that Mr. H. R. Fox Bourne, in his 'Life of John Locke,' mentions that the illustrious metaphysician and Dean Grenville were old friends, and that they corresponded in 1677-78 on the subjects of Recreation and Scrupulosity. Copies of the letters are in the British Museum, Additional MSS. 4290. Mr. Bourne states that James II. actually appointed Dean Grenville Roman Catholic Archbishop of York.[40]

Two furtive journeys did he make to England, in disguise--one in February, 1689-90, 'whereby he got a small sum of money to subsist while abroad ... tho' with much trouble and danger occasioned him by an impertinent and malitious post master, who discovered him in Canterbury;' and once again in 1695, probably with the same object. In 1702 he wrote an amusing letter to his nephew, Sir George Wheeler, acknowledging 'a seasonable supply' of £20, from which it may be gathered that he preserved to the last his unbroken and cheerful spirit. But, in the following year, on Wednesday, the 8th April, 1703, at six in the morning, the exiled, supplanted, and childless Dean of Durham died--as he asserts, himself, in the preamble of his will--a true son of the Church of England, at his lodgings at the Fossée St. Victoire, in Paris, in the sixty-seventh year of his age.

His portrait, admirably engraved by Edelinck, was painted by Beaupoille when Dean Grenville was fifty-four years of age; a print of it is prefixed to the copy of his 'Farewell Sermons' preserved in the Bodleian Library, and there is another copy in the British Museum. His character may almost be gathered from what we have seen of his life and works; and it should be added that he was not only of good natural abilities, but also no mean scholar. His kinsman, Lord Lansdowne, may have drawn a somewhat too eulogistic account of the Dean; but, overshadowed as his fame undoubtedly is by the greater names of his ancestors, Sir Richard and Sir Bevill, it should never be forgotten that he was an energetic reformer, in very difficult times, of the Church and the clergy;--though, as he says, '_his_ religion and loyalty were not of the new cutt, but of the old royall stamp;'--yet he was the friend of such men as Beveridge and Comber--and, above all, it should be remembered that, whatever we may think of his judgment, he undoubtedly performed that rare act of moral heroism, the sacrifice of his dignities and honours, his ample revenues, all the comforts of his native land, and, in fact, all his worldly interests, to his _conscience_.

Well might it have been said of Dennis Grenville that his

'Loyalty was still the same Whether it won or lost the game; True as the dial to the sun, Altho' it be not shone upon;'

and truly might he have exclaimed, whilst in exile and poverty paying the penalty of his loyal attachment to the House of Stuart, in the words of one of the Roxburgh Ballads:

'Then hang up sorrow and care, It never shall make me rue; What though my back goes bare? I'm ragged and torn and TRUE.'

He wrote to his elder brother--the Earl of Bath--a reproachful letter, in November, 1689, wherein he says, evidently hoping against hope, that nothing 'shall convince him that it is possible for one descended from his dear loyall father Sir Bevill Grenville to dye a rebell;' but I confess that the sentiment of Dean Grenville's which I prefer treasuring in my own memory, is the noble and tolerant one with which he concludes his 'Third Speech' to his clergy:

'My fourth and last counsell is, to be just to all men, both to the Romanist and Dissenter. That your aversion to the doctrine of any party (tho' never soe contrary to your owne) should not, in any manner, exceed youer love and concerne for the Religion you profess.'[41]

To one more only of the Grenvilles does it seem necessary to refer, as with him the connexion of that illustrious family with Cornwall ceases: viz., to George Baron Lansdowne, the poet, who was a nephew of the Dean and a grandson of Sir Bevill. His father's as well as his brother's name was Bernard. It is true that he did not live at Stow, which, as we have seen, was no longer the family mansion; but he comes within our scope: for, in a defence of his grand-uncle, Sir Richard ('Skellum') against some anonymous author who took the side of the Parliament, I find him writing thus: '_Like an old staunch Cornishman_ I tell you that we, who had before beaten two of your generals into the sea, might as well have beaten the third:' and again, in a letter, in 1718, to his 'dearest niece,' Mrs. Delany, he calls Cornwall 'his country.'

He was entered at Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1667, and was about the Court of James II., much smitten, it was said, with the charms of his Queen, Mary of Modena--the Myra, in all probability, of some of his amatory lines. He wrote both poems and plays, many passages in which are of a somewhat licentious character: amongst the plays are the 'British Enchanters' (for which Addison wrote the Epilogue); the 'She Gallants, or once a Lover always a Lover;' and the 'Jew of Venice,' imitated from Shakespeare. He was Member of Parliament successively for Fowey, Lostwithiel, Helston, and finally for the county of Cornwall itself; and was at length made by Queen Anne a Privy Councillor, and Treasurer of the Household, but, on some silly suspicion of plotting against the Government, was, in 1715, committed to the Tower, from which place of confinement, however, he was shortly released. In 1722, his affairs becoming embarrassed through his somewhat extravagant mode of life, he went abroad to retrench his expenses; and, returning to England, died at his house in Hanover Square on the 30th January, 1735. He had married the widow of Thomas Thynne,[42] and was celebrated for his tender devotion to his family.

A curious story about his remains is told in Lady Llanover's 'Life of Mrs. Delany.' No tomb or tablet of any kind marks (in St. Clement Danes Church) the site of their sepulchre; and when inquiries on this point were made in 1859, it was found that a short time previous to that date an order to close a vault under the Church had been put in force. The coffins in the vault were placed in the centre of the chamber, a quantity of quicklime was thrown in, and the whole then filled with rubbish. There were two bodies in the vault which had always been called 'My Lord and my Lady,' and which were in extraordinary preservation. They were not skeletons, although the skin was much dried, and they were very light; they were set upright against the wall, and it had always been the custom whenever a new clerk was appointed, to take him down into the vault and introduce him to 'My Lord and my Lady.' It seems not at all improbable that these were the corpses of Lord and Lady Lansdowne; and that their remarkable preservation was due to their having been embalmed. Lord Lansdowne's portrait may be seen in the 'Life of Mrs. Delany,' vol. i., p. 418. She says of him: 'No man had more the art of winning the affections where he wished to oblige ... he was magnificent in his nature, and valued no expense that would gratify it, which in the end hurt him and his family extremely.'

Of his character, as a man and as a poet, Anderson thus writes in his 'Poets of Great Britain:'

'The character of Granville seems to have been amiable and respectable. His good nature and politeness have been celebrated by Pope, and many other poets of the first eminence. The lustre of his rank no doubt procured him more incense than the force of his genius would otherwise have attracted; but he appears not to have been destitute of fine parts, which were, however, rather elegantly polished than great in themselves.

'There is perhaps nothing more interesting in his character than the veneration he had for some, and the tenderness he had for all of his family. Of the former his historical performances afford some pleasing proof; of the latter, there are extant two letters, one to his cousin, the last Earl of Bath, and the other to his cousin, Mr. Bevil Granville, on his entering into holy orders, written with a tenderness, a freedom, and an honesty which render them invaluable.

'The general character of his poetry is elegance, sprightliness and dignity. He is seldom tender, and very rarely sublime. In his smaller pieces he endeavours to be gay, in his larger to be great. Of his airy and light productions the chief source is gallantry, and the chief defect a superabundance of sentiment and illustrations from mythology. He seldom fetches an amorous sentiment from the depth of science. His thoughts are such as a liberal conversation and large acquaintance with life would easily supply. His diction is chaste and elegant, and his versification, which he borrowed from Waller, is rather smooth than strong.

'Mr. Granville,' says Dr. Felton, 'is the poetical son of Waller. We observe with pleasure, similitude of wit in the difference of years, and with Granville do meet at once the fire of his father's youth, and judgment of his age. He hath rivalled him in his finest address, and is as happy as ever he was in raising modern compliments upon ancient story, and setting off the British valour and the English beauty with the old gods and goddesses!'

'Granville,' says Lord Orford, 'imitated Waller, but as that poet has been much excelled since, a faint copy of a faint master must strike still less.'

The estimate of his poetical character, given by Dr. Johnson, is, in some respects, less favourable:

'Granville,' says the Doctor, 'was a man illustrious by his birth, and therefore attracted notice; since he is by Pope styled "the polite," he must be supposed elegant in his manner, and generally loved; he was in times of contest and turbulence steady to his party, and obtained that esteem which is always conferred upon firmness and consistency. With these advantages, having learned the art of versifying, he declared himself a poet, and his claim to the laurel was allowed.'

Pope, in a courtier-like passage in his 'Windsor Forest'--a poem which he dedicated to Lord Granville--says of him:

'Here his first lays majestic Denham sung; Here the last numbers flowed from Cowley's tongue. * * * * * * Since fate relentless stopped their heavenly voice No more the forest rings, or groves rejoice; Who now shall charm the shades where Cowley strung His living harp, and lofty Denham sung? But hark! the groves rejoice, the forest rings-- Are these reviv'd? or is it GRANVILLE sings?'

adding,

'The thoughts of gods let GRANVILLE'S verse recite, And bring the scenes of opening fate to light.'

With one more extract from the praises of his contemporaries, and this the weightiest and most poetic of them all, we will conclude.

Dryden said of him--à propos of his tragedy of 'Heroick Love'--

'Auspicious poet, wert thou not my friend, How could I envy what I must commend? But since 'tis Nature's law, in love and wit, That youth should reign, and with'ring age submit; With less regret these laurels I resign, Which, dying on my brow, revive on thine.'

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Camden says they had four other seats, viz., Wolstan, Stanbury, Clifton and Lanow.

[2] John Graynfylde was Vicar of Morwenstow, 1536; the church was granted to Sir Richard Grenville, one of the Church Commissioners for Cornwall, by Henry VIII.

[3] Harl. MSS. 1079; in which their shield has fifty-three quarterings and three crests.

[4] George Granville, Lord Lansdowne, says, in a note to one of his poems, that the arms of his family--'gules, three clarions or'--carved in stone, had stood for nine centuries over one of the gates of the town of Granville. They also appropriately appear (as the arms of John Grenville, first Earl of Bath) over the principal gateway of Plymouth Citadel.

[5] In the fortieth year of Henry III. (1256), I find the name of Richard de Grenvile amongst the 'nomina illorum qui teñ: quindecim libratas terræ, vel plus, et tenent per servitium militare, et milites non sunt;' and in 1297 Richard Grenevyle, of Stow, was amongst those who had £20 a year, or more, in land. In later times the Grenvilles held Swannacote, Bynnamy, Ilcombe, Albercombe, and other places, as well as Stow, in the Hundred of Stratton.

[6] Cf. the _Times_, 16th February, 1883.

[7] Drake figures the tomb (which represents him carrying the cross in his _left_ hand) in his 'Eboracum;' and it is also given in Waller's 'Sepulchral Brasses.' Cf. _Quarterly Review_, cii. 297; and Wright's 'Essays,' i. 134; Holinshed in 'Edward I.,' p. 315; and Le Neve's 'Fasti Eccl. Ang.,' vol. iii. p. 105.

[8] Pole says that 'S^r Rich^d. Grenvill, K^t., served under th'erle of Hartford before Hamble Tewe, with 200 soldiers, and at Bolleyne, anno 38 of Kinge Henry 8.'

[9] Cf. 'A briefe and true report of the new found land of Virginia,' 1571 (?), fol. Messrs. Boase and Courtney observe that a very limited number of this, the rarest and most precious book relating to America, has been executed in fac-simile by the photo-lithographic process, and that an edition of 150 copies of this work has also been printed by the Hercules Club.

[10] I hardly know which portrait Kingsley is describing. One of the finest that I have seen is a photograph of that now in the possession of the Thynne family. It represents Sir Richard at about thirty years of age, and with the most keen and determined expression imaginable. Another is engraved in Prince's 'Worthies of Devon;' and Crispin Pass engraved a likeness of him for his 'Heroologia,' probably from the same original as Prince's; it bears the motto--

'Neptuni proles, qui magni Martis alumnus Grenvilius patrias sanguine tinxit aquas.'

[11] An old Cornish song runs thus:

'Oh, where be those gay Spaniards Which make so great a boast O? Oh, they shall eat the grey goose-feather, And we shall eat the roast O!'

[12] 'Stow,' says Carew, 'is so singly called, _per eminentiam_, as a place of great and good mark and scope, and the ancient dwelling of the Grenvile's famous family.' An indifferent picture of the second Stow is preserved at Haynes, Middlesex; and another is said to be in the possession of Mrs. Martyn, of Harleston, Torquay. Fragments of it may be seen in the cottages and gardens of Coombe, under the hill on which Stow once stood, and it is said that the staircase is at Prideaux Place, Padstow; but it is believed that the greater portion of the materials were removed to South Molton, where the town-hall was erected with them; and, according to Polewhele, traces of them were also to be seen at Star Hill and other places in that neighbourhood.

In the MS. diary of Dr. Yonge, F.R.S., a distinguished physician of the latter part of the seventeenth century, the following entry occurs in the year 1685:

'I waited on my Lord of Bathe (then Governor of Plymouth) to his delicious house, Stowe. It lyeth on y^e ledge of y^e north sea of Devon, a most curious fabrick beyond all description.'

As regards the ruined mansion, well might Edward Moore exclaim:

'Ah! where is now its boasted beauty fled? Proud turrets that once glittered in the sky, And broken columns, in confusion spread, A rude misshapen heap of ruins lie.

'Where, too, is now the garden's beauty fled, Which every clime was ransacked to supply? O'er the drear spot see desolation spread, And the dismantled walls in ruins lie.

'Along the terrace-walks are straggling seen The prickly bramble and the noisome weed, Beneath whose covert crawls the toad obscene, And snakes and adders unmolested breed.

[13] _Old_ Stow House was pulled down in 1680, when it was rebuilt, and again destroyed in 1720, the materials being sold by auction. The carved cedar work in the chapel was executed by Michael Chuke, an artist little inferior to Gibbons. The wood came out of a Spanish prize, and the carving was re-erected at the Duke of Buckingham's residence, Stow.

[14] A modern American traveller has thus recorded his impressions of Flores as he passed the island: 'As we bore down upon it the sun came out and made it a beautiful picture--a mass of green farms and meadows that swelled up to a height of 1,500 feet, and mingled its upper outlines with the clouds. It was ribbed with sharp, steep ridges, and cloven with narrow cañons, and here and there, on the heights, rocky upheavals shaped themselves into mimic battlements and castles; and out of rifted clouds came broad shafts of sunlight that painted summit and slope and glen with bands of fire, and left belts of sombre shade between.'

[15] Thomas Philippes, in a letter of 31st Oct., 1591, to Thomas Barnes, says: 'They condemn the Lord Thomas for a coward, and some say he is for the King of Spain.' He supposes his friend Barnes 'has heard of the quarrel and offer of combat between the Lord Admiral and Sir Walter Raleigh.'

[16] Vice-Warden of the Stannaries, friend and contemporary of Richard Carew.

[17] Probably the brother of Sir Henry Killigrew, Kt., Queen Elizabeth's ambassador to France, the Low Countries, etc.

[18] In 1595 Gervase Markham wrote a poem entitled 'The most Honorable Tragedie of Sir Richard Grinuile, Knight. Bramo assai, poco spero, nulla chieggio:' a very rare book, only two copies of it being known, but it has been reprinted by Arber. It is a rather fantastic and lengthy production, containing little that is quotable; but perhaps this verse may pass--

'Neuer fell hayle thicker then bullets flew, Neuer showr'd drops faster then show'ring blowes, Liu'd all the _Woorthies_, all yet neuer knew So great resolue in so great certaine woes; Had _Fame_ told _Cæsar_ what of this was true, His Senate-murdred spirite would haue rose And with faire honors enuie wondred then Cursing mortalitie in mighty men.'

[19] It commands a view of Lundy Island, which belonged to the Grenvilles.

[20] He is said to have been the first who attempted to smelt tin with pit-coal.

[21] This is his designation inscribed on his tomb at Ghent.

[22] In November, 1645, according to Lysons, Launceston was fortified by Sir Richard Grenville, who, being at variance with Lord Goring (another of the King's generals), caused proclamation to be made in all the churches in Cornwall, that if any of Lord Goring's forces should come into the county the bells should ring, and the people rise and drive them out.

[23] He is said to have conceived the notable project of defending Cornwall against the enemy by cutting a trench from Barnstaple to the south coast, and filling it with sea-water.

[24] M.P. for Cornwall, 18 and 21 James I., and 16 Charles I.; and for Launceston, 1, 3, and 15 Charles I.

[25] In 1643, according to a very curious old tract (E102/107 Brit. Mus.), the Cornish forces lay at Liskeard, Saltash, Launceston, Bridgerule and Stratton. Lord Mohun was at Liskeard, Slanning at Saltash, Trevanion at Launceston; Sir Bevill Grenville was at Stratton, with 1,200 men. Sir Bevill was described as colonel of one foot regiment, Basset of another, Trevanion, the elder, of a third--he had Arundell for a lieutenant-colonel, and Trelawny for his sergeant-major, two of his captains were Burlacy and Boskoyne (? Borlase and Boscawen)--Trevanion, the younger, of a fourth, with Edgecombe as his lieutenant-colonel, and Carew as his sergeant-major; and Godolphin colonel of a fifth. The Cornish gave out that they were 10,000 to 12,000 strong--but 'of fighting men in pay,' says the writer of this interesting tract, 'we know for certaine not full 6,000.'

[26] She was the daughter of Sir George Smith, of Maydford, Heavitree, near Exeter, was born in 1598, and married Sir Bevill in 1620. Her portrait is said to be preserved at Haynes, Middlesex, 'Ætatis suæ 36--1634.' And there was another (in a red dress) belonging to the late Rev. Lord John Thynne, dated two years later; in this the likeness to her son is very striking. Her sister, Lady Elizabeth Monk, was the mother of George Monk, Duke of Albemarle.

[27] In Boconnoc Park, near the gate of Rookwood Grove, was an ancient oak, under which, according to tradition, an attempt was made to assassinate the King whilst receiving the sacrament. A hole, (made by woodpeckers) used to be shown in support of the tradition. Polwhele fancies the story must have arisen from the King's having really been shot at whilst in the Hall walk, Fowey, when a fisherman, who was gazing at his Majesty, was killed. On this occasion it is said that on 8th Aug., 1644, King Charles 'lay in the field all night in his coach' on Boconnoc Down, having been 'affrighted by the Militia' out of Lord Mohun's house at Boconnoc.

[28] An interesting illustration of a fact, sometimes apt to be overlooked, that reliance on the 'God of Battles' was not confined to the Puritan side in this memorable struggle.

[29] It will be remembered how the eagerness of the Grenville, Godolphin, Basset, and Trevanion troops of Cornishmen at the siege of Bristol precipitated the attack on 26th July, 1643, and greatly contributed to the capture of that city for the King. Here, and at Lansdowne, fell the flower of the Cornish chivalry.

[30] Sir John Hinton, M.D., in his 'Memorial to Charles II.,' writes: 'In his extremity I was the last man that had him by the hand before he dyed.' His body was brought to Stow, and deposited in the family vault in Kilkhampton Church, July 26th, 1643; and the remains of his 'deare love and best friend,' the Lady Grace, were laid by his side four years afterwards.

[31] A writer in 'Notes and Queries' says that Sir Bevill did not die on the spot, but that he expired next day at Cold Aston (Ashton) Parsonage, some four or five miles to the north of the battle-field.

Green, in his 'History of the English People,' thus refers to the event: