GREENE, ROBERT (1678?–1730), philosopher, the son of Robert Greene, a mercer of Tamworth, Staffordshire, by his wife Mary Pretty of Fazeley, was born about 1678. His father, who according to the son was a repository of all the Christian virtues, died while Greene was a boy, and it was through the generosity of his uncle, John Pretty, rector of Farley, Hampshire, that he was sent to Clare Hall, Cambridge. He graduated B.A. 1699, and M.A. 1703. He became a fellow and tutor of his college and took orders. In 1711 he published 'A Demonstration of the Truth and Divinity of the Christian Religion,' and in the following year 'The Principles of Natural Philosophy, in which is shown the insufficiency of the present systems to give us any just account of that science.' The latter work was ridiculed and parodied in 'A Taste of Philosophical Fanaticism ... by a gentleman of the University of Gratz.' Greene, while taking an active part in college and parochial work, was convinced that the whole field of knowledge was his proper province, and devoted many years' leisure to the production of his next work, a large folio volume of 980 pages, entitled 'The Principles of the Philosophy of the Expansive and Contractive Forces, or an Enquiry into the Principles of the Modern Philosophy, that is, into the several chief Rational Sciences which are extant,' 1727. In the preface Greene, after being at some pains to prove himself a whig, declared his intention of proposing a philosophy, English, Cantabrigian, and Clarensian, which he ventured to call the 'Greenian,' because his name was 'not much worse in the letters which belonged to it than those of Galileo and Descartes.' The book is a monument of ill-digested and misapplied learning. In 1727 Greene served as proctor at Cambridge, and in the next year he proceeded D.D. He died at Birmingham 16 Aug. 1730, and was buried at All Saints, Cambridge, where he had for three years officiated. In his will he named eight executors, five being heads of Cambridge colleges, and directed that his body should be dissected and the skeleton hung up in the library of King's College; monuments to his memory were to be placed in the chapels of Clare and King's colleges, in St. Mary's Church, and at Tamworth, for each of which he supplied a long and extravagant description of himself; finally, Clare Hall was to publish his posthumous works, and on condition of observing this and his other directions was to receive his estate, failing which it was to go to St. John's, Trinity, and Jesus colleges, and on refusal of each to Sidney Sussex. None of his wishes were complied with, and it was stated by a relative of Greene (Gent. Mag. 1783, ii. 657) that his effects remained with Sidney Sussex, but that college preserves no record of having received the benefactions.
[Cole's Athenæ Cantabr. MS.; Luard's Grad. Cantabr.; Gent. Mag. 1783 ii. 657 (where a copy of his will is given), 1791 ii. 725; prefaces to Greene's Works.]
GREENFIELD, JOHN. [See Groenvelt.]
GREENFIELD, WILLIAM of (d. 1315), archbishop of York and chancellor, was of good family and a kinsman of Archbishop Walter Giffard [q. v.] of York, and of Bishop Godfrey Giffard [q. v.] of Worcester. The statement that he was born in Cornwall (Fuller, Worthies, ed. 1811, i. 212) is probably due to a confusion of him with the Grenvilles. A more probable conjecture connects him with a hamlet which bears his name in Lincolnshire (Raine, Fasti Eboracenses, p. 361). He was educated at Oxford, and in 1269 Archbishop Giffard ordered his bailiff at Churchdown, near Gloucester, 'to pay to Roger the miller of Oxford twenty shillings, for our kinsman William of Greenfield while he is studying there, because it would be difficult for us to send the money to him on account of the perils of the ways' (ib. p. 311, from 'Reg. Giffard'). Greenfield also studied at Paris (Raine, Papers from Northern Registers, p. 193). He became a doctor of civil and canon law (Trivét, Annales, p. 404, Engl. Hist. Soc.) He was made by Archbishop Giffard prebendary of Southwell in 1269, and in 1272 exchanged that preferment for a prebend of Ripon. Before 1287 he was prebendary of York. He was in 1299 prebendary of St. Paul's and dean of Chichester, parson of Blockley between 1291 and 1294, rector of Stratford-on-Avon in 1294, and also chancellor of the diocese of Durham (Raine, p. 362). His stall at Ripon was for a time sequestrated, on account of non-residence, for he was mainly busied on affairs of state as a clerk and counsellor of Edward I (Fœdera, i. 741). In 1290 he was one of a legation of three sent to Rome to treat about the grant to Edward of the crusading tenth. In 1291 he was, with Henry of Lacy, earl of Lincoln, sent to Tarascon, to be present at the treaty made between Charles king of Sicily and Alfonso of Aragon (ib. i. 744). Next year he was present during the great inquest on the Scottish succession at Norham (ib. i. 767).
