GREVILLE, Robert (1639-77)

By the fifteenth century the Greville family had settled in Warwickshire, where they acquired substantial estates. In 1605 Fulke Greville^†, who was created Baron Brooke by James I, acquired the family’s principal residence of Warwick Castle. Styles, 22-23. Following the death of Robert Greville, 2nd Baron Brooke, at the siege of Lichfield the peerage descended to the underage Francis Brooke^†, who died unmarried in 1658 and was succeeded by his brother Robert. CCSP, v. 7; Verney ms mic. M636/16, Col. H. to Sir R. Verney, 25 Nov. 1658.

Brooke inherited a considerable estate. A settlement of 1667 conveying his lands into the hands of trustees cited property in Warwickshire, Northamptonshire, Gloucestershire, Staffordshire and several other counties as well as lands in the City of London and Hackney. WCRO, CR 1886/2724. Brooke House in Hackney was assessed at 36 or 37 hearths in the period 1664 to 1674. Survey of London, xxviii. 60. The focus of Brooke’s activities appears to have been on his Warwickshire and Hackney estates, though he seems to have considered the former his real priority. WCRO, CR 1886/2789. With such local interest came an ability to secure advantageous matches for his offspring, though it was not until after his early death that his daughters were married: Anne to William Pierrepoint, 4th earl of Kingston in 1685 and Dodington to Charles Montagu, 4th earl (later duke) of Manchester in 1691. HMC Rutland, ii. 78; Historical and Genealogical Account of the Family of the Grevilles, (1750), 38-39; Morrice, Ent’ring Bk. ii. 327, v. 567.

The months leading up to the Restoration found Brooke working closely with his Warwickshire neighbours, Edward Conway, 3rd Viscount (later earl of) Conway, and Basil Feilding, 2nd earl of Denbigh, at the head of the county militia committee. A. Hughes, Politics, Society and Civil War in Warwickshire, 1620-60, p. 333. Brooke himself took command of the militia forces, and in March 1660 he advocated a meeting of the county gentry to select suitable candidates for the new Parliament. SCLA, DR 37/2/87/115. The same month he was noted in an assessment compiled by Philip Wharton, 4th Baron Wharton, as among those whose fathers had been in arms during the Civil War.

In spite of his considerable local political influence, Brooke was less active as a member of the House. Having taken his seat on 30 Apr. 1660, he attended approximately 53 per cent of all sitting days of the first session of the Convention. On 1 May he was named to the committee considering the letter of thanks to be sent to the king and the following day he was named to three further committees, including that for settling the militia. On 3 May Brooke was nominated one of those peers to present the House’s answer to the king. CCSP. v. 7; Bodl. Clarendon 72, f. 149. From 10 to 31 May he was absent from the chamber while acting as a courier for his neighbour, Conway, conveying information to James Butler, marquess (later duke) of Ormond in Ireland. Bodl. Carte 30, f. 647. Otherwise, Brooke made little impact on the Convention. He was named to two further committees prior to the adjournment but to none in the following session, of which he attended a mere three sittings.

In the autumn of 1660 Brooke was dropped as a deputy lieutenant in Warwickshire by the new lord lieutenant, James Compton, 3rd earl of Northampton, but in recognition of his part in bringing about the king’s return he was appointed lord lieutenant of Staffordshire instead. Hughes, 335; WCRO, CR 1886/2785. The support of men like Conway and Ormond was no doubt significant in securing him the appointment. The county was home to a considerable dissenting population, it being estimated in 1663 that some 1,128 men in the area had served against the king in the Civil War. Stater, Noble Govt. 96. Although he proved an effective, if remote, figurehead in a county which was at times difficult to control, there is some suggestion that the appointment of a non-resident lieutenant caused discontent. A list of the gentry of Stafford, probably compiled by one of the deputies, Colonel Edward Vernon, noted Brooke as one who professed ‘to be very loyal and orthodox’ and possessed ‘good abilities’ but emphasized that he was ‘very rich in money and lands elsewhere.’ R. Kidson, Gentry of Staffordshire 1662-3 (Staffs. Rec. Soc. 4th ser. ii), 39. As lord of the manor of Penkridge, Brooke possessed lands in the county valued at just £80 a year, far behind one of the county’s great magnates, Francis Talbot, 11th earl of Shrewsbury (a Catholic who was also non-resident), who possessed lands in excess of £1,000 p.a. WCRO, CR 1886/2792. Tensions arose in Staffordshire in November 1660 over competition for the position of muster master of the militia. Brooke’s eventual choice caused considerable discontent, though he excused himself arguing that, ‘there were so many competitors that it was impossible to satisfy any considerable part in any one of them.’ Brooke clearly understood the fears and prejudices of the gentry well. In 1661 he persuaded the king to allow the gentlemen of his lieutenancy to pay their taxes early rather than ask a loan of them, though six years later further demands for a loan found Brooke willingly working to raise the money in response to ‘his majesty’s reasonable desires.’ Stater, 86-87, 114.

Brooke was successful in overseeing uncontested elections in Staffordshire for the new Parliament. Ibid. 130. He took his seat at the opening of the session on 8 May but was then present for a mere 16 per cent of all sitting days during which he was again named to few committees. Local responsibilities may have been one of the reasons for his poor attendance of the House. The threat of Venner’s rising in the autumn of 1661 was treated with great seriousness by Brooke, who told his deputies ‘should the pulpit be allowed a sanctuary for sedition or treason, we must expect quickly to see the kingdom again in a flame.’ Staffs. RO, D(W) 1721/3/231 cited in Stater, 100. By the following year the pressures of office appear to have been taking their toll and purges of the corporations in 1662 found Brooke complaining that the task of overseeing Tamworth was ‘too great a burden for me to undertake.’ He insisted also that he should attend to affairs in Warwickshire first. WCRO, CR 1886/2789; Stater, 129. The death of Sir Thomas Leigh^‡ (one of the knights of the shire for Staffordshire) in April 1662 presented further difficulties with the prospect of a potentially divisive contest for his vacant seat. Brooke wrote to Edward Hyde, earl of Clarendon, explaining that on Sir Thomas’s death, ‘I heard of great contests like to be between the gentry… about the choice of another which … I did endeavour to settle and appease, which happened to have so good success that all the parties agreed in Sir Edward Littleton to be the man.’ CCSP, v. 279. Brooke’s hard work was almost undone when Littleton^‡ was proposed as sheriff for the county. After Brooke protested that he feared he would not be able to achieve unity among the gentry again, Littleton’s nomination as sheriff was scrapped. HP Commons 1660-90, ii. 748.

Brooke’s attendance of the House fell dramatically in the second session of February 1663 during which he was present on just eight sitting days (nine per cent of the whole). Absent for the whole of May and June he rallied to resume his seat for two days in July, his return presumably owing to interest in the outcome of the attempted impeachment of Clarendon, by George Digby, 2nd earl of Bristol. Brooke’s indifferent attendance in the House may again have been owing to concentration on his local interests as he was complimented by Sir Henry Bennet, (later earl of Arlington) for his actions in Staffordshire during the summer of 1663. WCRO, CR 1886/2793. Two years later Arlington conveyed the king’s thanks for Brooke’s ‘care and zeal in his service.’ WCRO, CR 1886/1805.

Although assiduous in overseeing his lieutenancy, Brooke continued half-heartedly in his attendance of Parliament. Besides responsibilities in his locality his frequent absences from the House may also have owed something to his partiality for gambling. On one occasion, ‘led on by cunning and companioned by fortune’, he was said to have won an astonishing £4,800 in a single night. Isham Diary, 111. Having taken his seat a month into the spring session of 1664 on 26 Apr, he sat for just six days (17 per cent of the whole) while his attendance collapsed to a mere two days of the fourth session at the end of that year. Absent for the entirety of the fifth session of October 1665, Brooke sat again for just two days of the sixth session in the autumn of the following year. Lieutenancy business may again have explained his unwillingness to linger in London. Fear of invasion in June 1666 had found the Staffordshire horse mobilized and stationed in Northampton ready to be moved into action but, following a summer of high activity, Brooke was content to cancel the regular autumn muster and concentrate instead on bringing his troops’ equipment up to scratch. Staffs. RO, D(W) 231 B (Bagot mss) cited in Stater, 115, 117.

Brooke failed to attend a single day of the brief session of July 1667 but he rallied a little to attend ten days of the eighth session (1667-9), just under nine per cent of the whole. Poor health may well have been the reason for his failure to attend on this occasion as it was reported in September 1668 that having been given over, he was now believed to be on the road to recovery. Verney ms mic. M636/22, Sir R. Burgoyne to Sir R. Verney, 29 Sept. 1668. Brooke’s convalescence seems to have been a long one. He was missing once more at the opening of the new session on 19 Oct. 1669 and on 9 Nov. he was absent without explanation at a call of the House for which he was fined £40. On 15 Nov. he managed to present himself in the chamber and was excused his fine. The experience clearly failed to alter his disposition and during the remainder of the session he sat on only 11 occasions, towards the end of which he was named to the committee considering a bill to prevent frauds in the exportation of wool. Brooke was absent again for the opening of the tenth session in February 1670, but he entrusted his proxy to his uncle-by-marriage Francis Newport, 2nd Baron Newport (later earl of Bradford), on 19 February. The proxy was vacated by Brooke’s return to the House on 31 Oct. after which he was absent for the remainder of the session.

Brooke was involved in a quarrel with Sir William Bromley in Warwick in the summer of 1671. The fracas appears to have been occasioned by the excesses of excise officers in Warwick and Coventry. The dispute was swiftly resolved but not without an exchange of blows. CSP Dom. 1671, p. 452. Such indecorous events (and Brooke’s sidelining in the county by Northampton) did not negate the continuing strength of the Greville interest in Warwick. P.C. Heap, ‘The Politics of Stuart Warwickshire: An Elite Study’ (Yale Univ. PhD thesis, 1975), 99. The return of Sir Francis Compton^‡, Northampton’s brother, as member for the borough in 1664 had certainly required Brooke’s support. HP Commons 1660-90, ii. 113. Brooke was also influential in other areas of the county, notably in Stratford-upon-Avon where the composition of a new charter in 1674 brought him into conflict with members of the corporation. Brooke was insistent that as high steward he should enjoy the same privilege of nominating a deputy as he did as recorder in Warwick, while emphasizing that he had ‘no designs to serve but those of your corporation’ and offered to make appointments annually so that unpopular officers could easily be removed. Brooke’s personal influence within the borough was further demonstrated by the compromise arrived at whereby he was granted the authority to nominate a steward of the borough court, as well as a handful of other local offices for his lifetime: powers that were to revert to the corporation on his death. VCH Warws. iii. 251-2.

Brooke returned to the House a month into the new session on 11 Mar. 1673 after which he was present on 16 occasions, though he was again named to only one committee. He sat for the last time on 28 Mar. 1673. Sickness again seems to have been the cause of his failure to attend and premature reports of Brooke’s demise spread in July 1674. Bodl. ms Film 293, Folger Lib. Newdigate mss, LC 62. To cover his absence Brooke ensured that his proxy was again registered with Newport for the two sessions in 1675. In September of that year Brooke pleaded sickness to excuse his attendance on the king about Staffordshire business. CSP Dom. 1675-6, p. 315. In November Newport wielded Brooke’s proxy in support of the motion for the House to address the king to dissolve Parliament. In December 1676, eager to secure the ailing Brooke’s support, Thomas Osborne, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds), deputed Conway to attempt to secure the proxy for the next session but Brooke died at Bath on 17 Feb. 1677 aged 38, just two days after the session opened. CSP Dom. 1676-7, p. 459; Verney ms mic. M636/30, J. to E. Verney, 19 Feb. 1677; Sir R. to E. Verney, 19 Feb. 1677. He was buried amid considerable pomp on 20 Mar. at the collegiate church of St Mary’s Warwick and succeeded in the peerage by his brother, Fulke Greville, as 5th Baron Brooke. Add. 38141, ff. 49-50. He seems to have been dubbed doubly worthy posthumously by Anthony Ashley Cooper, earl of Shaftesbury, in an analysis of the peers compiled in the spring of that year.