Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 23.djvu/121

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Grenville
113
Grenville

midnight on 11 Dec. he fled to Carlisle, and a few days later was seized on the borders while hastening to Scotland, and was robbed of his horses and money. These were recovered by him when he had been brought back to Carlisle, and after a short stay at Durham he succeeded in escaping to Edinburgh and landing at Honfleur (19 March 1689). His wife was left destitute in England, and by an order of the chapter of Durham she received an allowance of ‘twenty pounds quarterly.’ His goods at Durham were distrained upon by the sheriff for debts when Sir George Wheler purchased for 221l. the dean's library, which was rich in bibles and common-prayer books. Through his brothers influence Grenville retained the revenues of his preferment for some time; but as he declined to take the oaths of allegiance to the new sovereigns he was deprived of them from 1 Feb. 1691. Except in February 1690, when he came incognito into England, but was recognised by ‘an impertinent and malitious postmaster’ at Canterbury and a second visit in April 1695, he remained in France. James nominated him for the archbishopric of York on the death of Lamplugh, and he was always kindly treated by the ex-king's wife. Sums of money were occasionally sent to him from England, especially by Sir George Wheler and Thomas Higgons his nephew who were threatened with prosecution in 1698 by Sir George's son-in-law, an attorney with whom he had quarrelled. Grenville was the chief ecclesiastic who accompanied James into exile, but was not allowed to perform the Anglican service. His conversion was vainly attempted, at one time by restraint, at another by argument. He lived first at Rouen, from 1698 to 1701 at Tremblet, and afterwards at Corbeil on the Seine. He sickened at Corbeil on the night of 12 April 1703, was taken to Paris, and died on 18 April. His body was buried privately at night at the lower end of the consecrated ground of the Holy Innocents churchyard in Paris. The funeral was at the cost of Mary, the widow of James II, who had often helped him from her scanty resources. His wife died in October 1691, and was buried in Durham Cathedral on 14 Oct.

Grenville when an undergraduate at Oxford contributed verses to the university collection of loyal poems printed in 1660, with the title of ‘Britannia Rediviva.’ On his appointment to the archdeaconry of Durham in 1662 he issued and reissued in the next year ‘Article of Enquiry concerning Matters Ecclesiastical’ for the officials of every parish in the diocese. In 1664 he printed a sermon and a letter, entitled ‘The Compleat Conformist, or Seasonable Advice concerning strict Conformity and frequent Celebration of the Holy Communion.’ He addressed to his nephew Thomas, son of his sister, Bridget Grenville, by Sir Thomas Higgons, in 1685, an anonymous volume of ‘Counsel and Directions, Divine and Moral, in Plain and Familiar Letters of Advice.’ When in exile at Rouen he printed twenty copies of ‘The Resigned and Resolved Christian and Faithful and Undaunted Royalist in two plain farewell Sermons and a loyal farewell Visitation Speech. Whereunto are added certaine letters to his relations and friends in England.’ A copy of this very scarce production is in the Bodleian Library, and another in the Grenville collection; both contain portraits of the dean after Beaupoille, engraved by Edelinck. Numerous letters from him are printed in Comber's ‘Life of Thomas Comber,’ pp. 139-334; many more remain imprinted among the Rawlinson MSS. at the Bodleian Library. Locke when in France in 1678 wrote three letters to Grenville. Two of them are in Addit. MS. 4290 at the British Museum, and are printed, together with the third, in Fox Bourne's ‘John Locke,’ i. 387-97. A narrative of his life was composed by a clergyman named Beaumont, residing in the diocese of Durham. Two collections of his remains have been distributed by the Surtees Society. The former (pt. i. of vol. xxxvii. of their ‘Transactions’) was taken from a book in the Durham Cathedral library, consisting of letters and other documents collected by Dr. Hunter, the well-known antiquary of that county. The latter (vol. xlvii. of the Surtees Society) was based on the papers at the Bodleian Library. Granville, lord Lansdowne, pronounced a high eulogy upon his apostolic virtues in an often-quoted passage.

[Lord Lansdowne's Works, ii. 283-5; Dugdale's Diary, pp. 428-32; Surtees's Durham, i. 12-13, 175, ii. 373-4, iii. 32-6; Maxwell Lyte's Eton College, pp. 269-70; Luttrell's Relation, iv. 369-71; Zouch's Sudbury and Sir George Wheler in Zouch's Works, ii. 80-1, 158-9, 167-171; Boase's Exeter College, p. xxxi; Gilling's Life of Trosse, pp. 123-5; Wood's Athenæ Oxon. (Bliss), iv. 497-8; Wood's Fasti, ii. 229, 326; Le Neve's Fasti, iii. 300-10; Boase and Courtney's Bibl. Cornub. i. 191-2, iii. 1206.]

W. P. C.

GRENVILLE, GEORGE (1712–1770) statesman, was the second son of Richard Grenville (1678-1728) of Wotton Hall, Buckinghamshire, by his wife Hester, second daughter of Sir Richard Temple, bart., of Stowe, near Buckingham, and sister and coheiress of Richard, viscount Cobham of Stowe. He was born on 14 Oct. 1712; was educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford (where he