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The Right HonourableJohn Granville, 1st Earl of BathPC
John Granville, 1st Earl of Bath
Lord Lieutenant of Devon
In office December 1685 – April 1696
Lord Warden of the Stannaries
In office October 1660 – August 1701
Lord Lieutenant of Cornwall
In office October 1660 – May 1696
Governor of the Scilly Isles
In office 1649–1651
Personal details
Born	John Grenville 29 August 1628 Kilkhampton, Cornwall
Died	22 August 1701(1701-08-22) (aged 72) St James's, London
Resting place	St James' church, Kilkhampton
Nationality	English
Spouse	Jane Wyche (1652–1692)
Children	Jane (c. 1653 – 1696); Charles (1661–1701); John (1665–1707); Catherine (1666–?); Grace (1667–1744)
Parent(s)	Sir Bevil Grenville (father); Grace Smythe (mother)
Occupation	Soldier, landowner and courtier
Military service
Rank	Colonel
Battles/wars	Wars of the Three Kingdoms Lostwithiel; Second Newbury; Torrington;

John Granville, 1st Earl of Bath PC (29 August 1628 – 22 August 1701) was an English landowner who served in the Royalist army during the First English Civil War and was rewarded for his services after the 1660 Stuart Restoration with a title and various appointments.

Personal details

John was born on 29 August 1628 at Kilkhampton in Cornwall, the third son of Sir Bevil Grenville (1596–1643) and Grace Smythe (died 1647). His aunt Elizabeth Smythe was the mother of George Monck who played a leading role in the 1660 Stuart Restoration and it was this connection that later resulted in Grenville being raised to the peerage as Earl of Bath.

One of thirteen children, John's two elder brothers died prematurely, making him heir to his father's considerable estates when Sir Bevil was killed at the Battle of Lansdowne in 1643.

Career

During the 1638 to 1651 Wars of the Three Kingdoms, Granville fought in the regiment raised by his father for Charles I (1625–1649). Created a knight after the Storming of Bristol in 1643, he was appointed Gentleman of the Bedchamber to the future Charles II and accompanied him into exile. When the Second English Civil War began in 1648, Charles appointed him Governor of the Scilly Isles, which had rebelled against its Parliamentary garrison. As a base for Royalist privateers attacking English and Dutch vessels in the Western Approaches, this was a vital source of funding for the exiled Court; in May 1651, Parliamentary forces under Robert Blake retook the islands and Granville was captured.

On his release, Granville remained in England and continued to be active in Royalist conspiracies. In 1660, he served as an intermediary in the negotiations between Charles and his distant relative George Monck that led to the Restoration. To his disappointment, the Dukedom of Albemarle went to Monck, whom Charles also rewarded with the then-enormous pension of £7,000 per year. Instead, he was created Baron Granville, Viscount Granville and Earl of Bath in 1661, and a Privy Councillor in 1663.

In 1665, he was appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, although he never went there and spent large sums of time and money on rebuilding the family home of Stowe House in Cornwall. Widely admired, it was dismantled in 1739, although many of its ornamental features, including entire rooms, can be seen at the Guildhall in South Molton, Devon. Albemarle also expanded his own ancestral seat of Potheridge, about 18 miles to the east; unfinished on his death, it was badly damaged by fire and demolished in 1734.

Granville was a signatory to The Several Declarations of The Company of Royal Adventurers of England Trading into Africa, a document published in 1667 which led to the creation of the Royal Africa Company. This is speculated to have been influenced by the fact that Granville was close friends with the Royal African Company's leader, the Duke of York (and future King James II), who was brother to Charles II.

Under James II, Granville served as colonel of the Earl of Bath's Regiment, later 10th Foot, first during the June 1685 Monmouth Rebellion and again in 1688. During the November 1688 Glorious Revolution, he commanded the key ports of Exeter and Plymouth but defected to William III on 18 November.

He was rewarded by being made Lord Lieutenant of Devon but again failed to gain the title of Albemarle and the legal dispute over the Albemarle estate almost bankrupted him. Two weeks after his death in August 1701, his son Charles shot himself, apparently overwhelmed by the debts he had inherited.

Marriage and progeny

In October 1652 at Kilkhampton John Granville married Jane Wyche, a daughter of Sir Peter Wyche, English ambassador to the Ottoman Empire. By his wife, he had five children:

Sons

• Charles Granville, 2nd Earl of Bath (1661-1701), eldest son and heir. He died from a gunshot wound during the preparations for his father's funeral, possibly suicide. He was twice married, firstly to Lady Martha Osborne, daughter of Thomas Osborne, 1st Duke of Leeds (d. 11 September 1689, aged 25), and secondly, on 10 March 1691, to Isabella van Nassau (bapt. 20 April 1668, d. in childbirth on 30 January 1692 at London), sister of Henry Nassau d'Auverquerque, 1st Earl of Grantham. He had no children by his first wife, but by his second wife was the father of:
  • William Henry Granville, 3rd Earl of Bath (30 January 1692 – 1711) who died of smallpox aged 19 without progeny when the earldom became extinct.
• John Granville, 1st Baron Granville of Potheridge (1665–1707). Potheridge in Devon was the ancient seat of the Monck family, where the 1st Earl of Bath's cousin, close friend and collaborator in the Restoration of the Monarchy, George Monck, 1st Duke of Albemarle (1608–1670) had built a grand mansion. It was settled on the 1st Earl of Bath by the Duke's childless son Christopher Monck, 2nd Duke of Albemarle (1653–1688), and eventually passed to the Leveson-Gower family (see below).

Daughters

• Lady Jane Granville (d. 27 February 1696), wife of Sir William Leveson-Gower, 4th Baronet and mother of John Leveson-Gower, 1st Baron Gower. The progeny of this marriage were co-heirs to the 3rd Earl of Bath. Her great-grandson was Granville Leveson-Gower, 1st Marquess of Stafford (1721–1803) one of whose younger sons was Granville Leveson-Gower, 1st Earl Granville (1773–1846).
• Lady Catherine Granville, wife of Craven Peyton, Member of Parliament for Boroughbridge 1705–1713. Without progeny.

• Lady Grace Granville, suo jure 1st Countess Granville (3 September 1654 – 18 October 1744), wife of George Carteret, 1st Baron Carteret of Haynes Park, Bedfordshire, and mother of John Carteret, 2nd Baron Carteret, 2nd Earl Granville. The progeny of this marriage, Barons Carteret, Earls Granville, and Marquesses of Bath (Thynne), were co-heirs to the 3rd Earl of Bath.

Death

He died in London in 1701, one week before his 73rd birthday.

Armorials

The armorials of the family of Granville / Grenville of Glamorgan, Devon and Cornwall are of certain form but uncertain blazon. The charges appear in the form of musical pipes of a wind instrument, similar to pan-pipes. Authoritative sources on heraldry suggest the charges to be variously "clarions" (used by Guillim (d. 1621)), the most usual blazon, which are, however, generally defined as a form of trumpet; "rests" is another common blazon, denoting lance-rests supposedly used by a mounted knight; "organ-rests" is also met with, a seemingly meaningless term (Gibbon (1682)). Other terms are "clavicymbal", "clarichord" and "sufflue" (used by Leigh in his Armory of 1562 and by Boswell, 1572), the latter being a device for blowing (French: souffler) air into an organ. Guillim suggested the charge may be a rudder, but in which case it is shown upside down, when compared to that charge used for example on the tomb at Callington of Robert Willoughby, 1st Baron Willoughby de Broke. Certainly in the brasses on the chest tomb of Sir John Bassett (d. 1529) in Atherington Church, Devon, the charges are engraved in tubular forms with vents or reeds as used in true organ pipes.

References

1. Surname sometimes spelled Grenville
2. Round 1930, p. 163.
3. Stater 2004.
4. ^ "Grenville, John" . Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.
5. "The Scilly Isles, 1651". BCW Project. Retrieved 15 June 2016.
6. Round, p.130
7. "Stowe House". Lost Heritage. Retrieved 27 July 2019.
8. "Great Potheridge". Lost Heritage. Retrieved 27 July 2019.
9. Davies, K. G. (Kenneth Gordon) (1999). The Royal African Company. London: Routledge/Thoemmes Press. ISBN 0-415-19072-X. OCLC 42746420.
10. Pettigrew, William A. (William Andrew), 1978-. Freedom's debt : the Royal African Company and the politics of the Atlantic slave trade, 1672-1752. Omohundro Institute of Early American History & Culture. Chapel Hill . ISBN 978-1-4696-1183-9. OCLC 879306121.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
11. Stater, Victor (3 January 2008). "Grenville, John, first earl of Bath". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/11492. ISBN 978-0-19-861412-8. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
12. Webb, Stephen Saunder (1995). Garrett, Jane (ed.). Lord Churchill's Coup: The Anglo-American Empire and the Glorious Revolution Reconsidered. Alfred a Knopf Inc. p. 343. ISBN 978-0394549804.
13. Stater, Victor (3 January 2008). "Grenville, John, first earl of Bath". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/11492. ISBN 978-0-19-861412-8. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
14. "Sir John Grenville, 1st Earl of Bath, 1628-1701". BCW Project. Retrieved 27 July 2019.
15. Risdon, Tristram (d.1640), Survey of Devon, 1811 edition, London, 1811, with 1810 Additions, p.419
16. Boswell, Armorie of 1572, vol. 2, p. 124
17. ^ "Clarion".

Sources

• Round, Horace (1930). Page, William (ed.). Family Origins and Other Studies. Constable & Co.
• Stater, Victor (2004). "Grenville, John, first earl of Bath". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/11492. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)

• 1628 births
• 1701 deaths
• 17th-century English nobility
• 18th-century English nobility
• Knights Bachelor
• English knights
• Military personnel from Cornwall
• Earls of Bath (1661 creation)
• Peers of England created by Charles II
• Lord-lieutenants of Cornwall
• Lord-lieutenants of Devon
• Members of the Privy Council of England
• People from Kilkhampton
• Royal Lincolnshire Regiment officers
• Granville family
• Grooms of the Stool
• Court of Charles II of England
• Royalist military personnel of the English Civil War
• Governors of the Isles of Scilly