1660 p. 429, 1660-1 pp. 205, 354; Law Mag.
xxxviii. 223; Cobbett, State Trials, v. 986;
Vernon, Rep. i. 283).
Burnet (for many years his chaplain at the Rolls) descants at some length on Grimston's charity and piety, his judicial impartiality, his bitterness against popery, and his tenderness to the protestant dissenters (Own Time, fol. i. 381). Sir Henry Chauncy, also a contemporary, ascribes to him 'a nimble fancy, a quick apprehension, memory, an eloquent tongue, and a sound judgment.' He was 'of free access, sociable in company, sincere to his friend, hospitable in his house, charitable to the poor, and an excellent master to his servants' (Hertfordshire, p. 465). A curious case affecting Grimston is reported by Siderfin. One Nathaniel Bacon thought himself aggrieved by one of Grimston's decrees, and attempted to procure his assassination by a bribe of 100l. He was indicted for this offence in 1664, and punished by a fine of one hundred marks, with three months' imprisonment, and bound over to be of good behaviour during life (Siderfin, Rep. i. 230; Seventh Rep. of Dep.-Keeper of the Public Records, App. ii. 72).
By his wife, Mary, daughter of Sir George Croke [q. v.], Grimston had issue six sons and two daughters. This lady dying in his lifetime, he married Anne, daughter of Sir Nathaniel Bacon, a niece of Lord-chancellor Bacon, and relict of Sir Thomas Meautys, by whom he had issue one daughter only. Of his second wife Burnet says that 'she had all the high notions for the church and crown in which she had been bred, but was the humblest, the devoutest, and best tempered person I ever knew of that sort.' He adds that she made a practice of visiting the gaols and comforting the prisoners (Own Time, fol. i. 382). She had a life estate in the manor of Gorhambury, which Grimston made his principal seat, and of which he purchased the reversion. Only one son, Samuel [q. v.], survived him. His eldest daughter, Mary, married Sir Capel Luckyn, whose grandson, Sir William, was adopted by Sir Samuel Grimston as his heir, assumed the name of Grimston, and was raised to the peerage of Ireland as Viscount Grimston and Baron of Dunboyne in 1719 [see Grimston, William Luckyn]. His grandson, Sir James Bucknall, third Viscount Grimston, was created Baron Verulam of Gorhambury, Hertfordshire, on 6 July 1790, and his son, Sir James Walter, succeeded to the Scotch barony of Forrester in October 1808, was created Viscount Grimston and Earl of Verulam on 24 Nov. 1815
The first volume of Grimston's translation of Croke's reports, containing cases belonging to the reign of Charles I, was published, with a life of the author, in 1657, when the copyright was vested in Grimston by the House of Commons; a volume of cases decided in the reign of James I appeared in 1658, and the third part, covering the reign of Elizabeth, in 1661. A second edition of the whole appeared in 1669 in three volumes fol.; a third in 1683-5, also in three volumes fol.; the fourth and last, with marginal and other notes by Thomas Leach, in 1790-2, in four volumes royal 8vo. There is also a very inaccurate edition of early but uncertain date. The authentic reports are of high authority. Seven of Grimston's speeches in parliament, delivered in 1640-1-2, were published as separate pamphlets. Grimston was also author of Strena Christiana' (London, 1644,24mo), a religious work in Latin, which was reissued in 1645 and 1828, and appeared in English, Cambridge, 1644, 16mo, and with the Latin, London, 1872, 16mo.
A portrait of Grimston by Sir Peter Lely was presented to the National Portrait Gallery by the Earl of Verulam in 1873.
[Wood's Athenæ Oxon. (Bliss), iii. 27-8 (very inaccurate); Biog. Brit.; Croke's Hist. of the Croke Family, i. 606-13; Cussans's Hertfordshire, Hundred of Cashio, pp. 245, 247-8; Collins's Peerage (Brydges), viii. 218; Nicolas's Hist. Peerage (Courthope); Burke's Peerage; Foss's Lives of the Judges; Bridgman's Legal Bibliography.]
GRIMSTON, ROBERT (1816–1884), sportsman, fourth son of James Walter Grimston, first earl of Verulam, and his wife Charlotte, second daughter of the first Earl of Liverpool, was born at 42 Grosvenor Square, London, on 18 Sept, 1816. He was therefore a descendant of William Luckyn Grimston [q. v.] Grimston's early years were spent at Gorhambury, the family seat, and as a boy he was distinguished for his love of field sports. After some time spent at a preparatory school at Hatfield he went to Harrow in 1828. He was a youth of determined will, and among the anecdotes related of him is one to the effect that at the age of fifteen he hired a postchaise and pursued a burglar from Gorhambury to London, securing his arrest and transportation. While at Harrow 'he saved more fellows a licking than most boys in the school.' In 1834 Grimston was entered as a commoner at Christ Church, Oxford. Ruskin, who was a fellow-undergraduate, described him as 'a man of gentle birth and amiable manners, and of herculean strength, whose love of dogs and horses, and especially of boxing, was stupendous.' Cricket was one of his favourite pastimes. He was a bold rider, even to recklessness. He was an active member of the pugilistic club
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