Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 23.djvu/180

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
Grey
172
Grey

secretary, William Davison [q. v.], in the year following he delivered a forcible and courageous speech—'religionis ardore inflammatus,' says Camden—in his defence. In anticipation of the Spanish invasion he was in October 1587 commissioned to muster and arm the tenants of Wilton and Brampton in Hertfordshire, and was one of those to whom the task of placing the kingdom in a state of defence was entrusted in the following year (Cal. State Papers, Dom., ii. 433; Addenda, iii. 248). The rest of his life was uneventful, and he died on 14 Oct. 1593, aged 57, and was buried at Whaddon, where a monument was erected to his memory (Lipscombe, Buckinghamshire, iii. 502).

Grey married: first, Dorothy, natural daughter of Richard, lord Zouche of Haryngworth, by whom he had an only daughter, Elizabeth, who married Sir Francis Gardiner of Winchester; secondly, Jane Sibylla, daughter of Sir Richard Morison of Cashiobury in Hertfordshire, and widow of Francis, second earl of Bedford, by whom he had Thomas, his heir [q. v.]; William, who died in 1605, aged 13, and was buried in Magdalen College Chapel, Oxford; and a daughter Bridget, who married Sir Rowland Egerton of Egerton and Oulton, Cheshire.

[Banks's Dormant and Extinct Baronage; Lipscombe's Buckinghamshire; Lysons's Magna Britannia; Nichols's Progresses of Queen Elizabeth; Haynes's Burghley Papers; Murdin's Burghley Papers; Calendars of State Papers, Foreign, Domestic, and Irish; Calendar Carew MSS.; Calendar Hatfield MSS.; Lansdowne MSS.; Spenser's Present State of Ireland, and Faerie Queene,bk.v., containing the well-known defence of Grey's Irish policy, 'the champion of true justice, Artegall,' of great poetic beauty and personal interest, but of slight historic value; Camden's Annales; Liber Hiberniæ; Cox's Hibernia Anglicana; O'Sullevan's Historiæ Ibernise Compendium; Leycester Correspondence (Camd. Soc.); A Commentary of the Services and Charges of William, lord Grey of Wilton. K.G., by his son Arthur, lord Grey of Wilton, K.G. (Camd. Soc.); Froude's Hist. of England; Bagwell's Ireland under the Tudors; Church's Spenser.]

R. D.

GREY, Lady CATHERINE. [See Seymour.]

GREY, CHARLES, first Earl Grey (1729–1807), general, was second surviving son of Sir Henry Grey, first baronet of Howick, Northumberland. The father was high sheriff of that county in 1738,was created a baronet in 1746, and died in 1749, having married in 1720 Hannah, daughter of Thomas Wood of Falloden, near Ainwick. By her, who died in 1764, he had, with other issue, two sons—Henry, second baronet (died unmarried in 1808), and Charles, who became the first earl Grey. Charles was born at Howick in 1729, and at the age of nineteen obtained an ensigncy of foot. He was a lieutenant from 23 Dec. 1752, in 6th foot (Guise's), then at Gibraltar. His name appears in the 'Annual Army List' for 1754, the first published officially. Having raised men for an independent company he became captain 21 March 1755, and on 31 May was brought into the 20th foot, of which Wolfe was lieutenant-colonel. He served with the regiment in the Rochefort expedition of 1757, and went with it to Germany the year after, where his regiment won great fame at Minden 1 Aug. 1759, on which occasion Grey was wounded while acting as aide-de-camp to Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick. He was again wounded in command of the light company of the regiment at Campen, 14 Oct. 1760. On 21 Jan. 1761 he was promoted to lieutenant-colonel-commandant of the newly raised 98th foot, the earliest of several regiments so numbered in succession. He is said to have served with it at the siege of Belle Isle. The regiment, which was formed at Chichester, served at the siege of Belle Isle in 1761 and the capture of Havana in 1762, and was disbanded at the peace of 1763, when Grey was placed on half-pay. He became colonel in the army and king's aide-de-camp in 1772.

In 1776 he went out with the reinforcements under General Howe, and received the local rank of major-general in America, which was made substantive two years later. He displayed a vigour and activity in which many other English leaders were conspicuously wanting. On 21 Sept. 1777 he surprised a force under the American general Anthony Wayne, and routed it with great loss, a success bitterly resented by the Americans. Grey had taken the precaution to have the flints removed from his men's muskets, to prevent any possible betrayal of their advance, from which incident he acquired the nickname of 'No-flint Grey.' He commanded the third brigade of the army at the battle of Germantown, Philadelphia, 4 Oct. 1777. In the autumn of 1778 he inflicted heavy loss on the enemy by the capture and destruction of stores at New Bedford and Martha's Vineyard. Soon after his return thence he surprised Bayler's corps of Virginian dragoons near New Tappan, and, according to American accounts, annihilated the entire regiment (Appleton, Dict.) On his return home in 1782 Grey, who had been appointed major-general and colonel of the 28th foot in 1778, was promoted to lieutenant-general and made K.B. He was also appointed commander-in-chief in America, but the war having come