GREVILLE, Sir Fulke (1554-1628), of Brooke House, Holborn, London and Warwick Castle; formerly of Beauchamps Court, Alcester, Warws.

A cousin of Sir Edward Greville* of Milcote, Greville represented the junior, but more flourishing branch of this prominent Warwickshire gentry family. His grandfather, Sir Fulke Greville†, acquired Beauchamps Court and numerous other estates through marriage to a wealthy heiress, Elizabeth, de jure Baroness Willoughby de Broke. By 1606 Greville’s patrimony amounted to more than 30 manors in nine counties. On his mother’s side he was a grandson of the 4th earl of Westmorland, while his paternal grandmother’s legacy included distant kinship ties with other aristocratic families such as the Talbots and Dudleys. Vis. Warws. 9; ‘Genealogie, Life and Death of ... Robert Lorde Brooke’ ed. P. Styles, Dugdale Soc. xxxi. 166-7; C142/300/172; Rebholz, 5. Through the latter he could claim a tenuous connection with (Sir) Philip Sidney†, his classmate at Shrewsbury school and the major influence on his early career and literary endeavours. Although said to have been introduced at Court by his uncle, Robert Greville, it was Sir Henry Sidney†, Philip’s father, who in 1577 obtained for him the reversion of his lucrative offices in the Council of the Welsh Marches. Shrewsbury Sch. Regestum Scholarium, 15; Rebholz, 30-1, 50-1; Ath. Ox. ii. 429; HMC De L’Isle and Dudley, i. 355. At Court Greville attracted the patronage of another kinsman, (Sir) Francis Walsingham†, while it was probably Robert Dudley, earl of Leicester who arranged his return to Parliament for Southampton at a by-election in 1581. Like his friend Sidney, he nursed ambitions of foreign adventures in the Protestant cause, but these were largely frustrated by the queen, who enjoyed his company at Court, and probably recognized that his cautious and punctilious nature was ill-suited to military service. Instead, he had to settle for the financial rewards of royal favour, in the shape of numerous grants and leases, along with the local prestige which saw him elected to five consecutive parliaments for Warwickshire. HMC De L’Isle and Dudley, ii. 97; HP Commons, 1558-1603, i. 171; Rebholz, 47-9. As treasurer of the Navy from 1598 he strove to reduce waste and corruption, but his efforts were firmly resisted by his colleague (Sir) John Trevor I*, surveyor of the Navy and one of the principal offenders. HMC Cowper, i. 36, 39-40; M.B. Young, Servility and Service: the Life of Sir John Coke, 18-21, 23-4; Jacobean Comms. of Enquiry 1608 and 1618 ed. A.P. McGowan (Navy Recs. Soc. cxvi), 161. Following the deaths of his early patrons he attached himself closely to Leicester’s political heir, the 2nd earl of Essex, helping to manage his propaganda, and taking lodgings at Essex House. This connection ensured that he was viewed with suspicion by the earl’s principal rival at Court, (Sir) Robert Cecil†, with whom he had an intermittently strained relationship. HMC De L’Isle and Dudley, ii. 221; P.E.J. Hammer, ‘The Earl of Essex, Fulke Greville, and the Employment of Scholars’, Studies in Philology, xci. 173-4; HMC Hatfield, vi. 545; vii. 217-18, 369; viii. 347-8. Greville’s friendship with Essex cooled prior to the earl’s 1601 rising, which he helped to suppress. Indeed, he ended the reign high in the queen’s favour, and by December 1602 even nursed ambitions of becoming a privy councillor. Once Elizabeth died, however, his hopes of future advancement lay firmly in Cecil’s hands. Rebholz, 122, 145; HMC De L’Isle and Dudley, ii. 444, 448, 618; CSP Dom. 1601-3, p. 89; HMC Hatfield, xii. 439, 702.

Greville benefited from the general distribution of favours at the start of the new reign, becoming a knight of the Bath and a member of the council set up to administer Anne of Denmark’s estates. He was also granted free access to the privy chamber. However, it quickly became apparent that while Cecil was not actively seeking to ruin Greville, he could not be relied upon to help him. Greville retained his Welsh offices in July 1603 only by compounding with one of the new Scottish courtiers, Sir David Foulis, and worse was to follow. Harl. 6166, f. 68v; HMC Hatfield, xv. 179-80, 182, 202. In October he began actively pressing for naval reform, using his deputy, John Coke*, to lobby at Court on his behalf. However, his proposals were unworkable without the resignation of the corrupt Lord Admiral Nottingham (Charles Howard†), who declined to co-operate, and Cecil, though initially sympathetic, opted not to antagonize the powerful Howard clan by supporting Greville. In the following spring, he was pressured into resigning his Navy treasurership to Sir Robert Mansell*, Nottingham’s protégé, and was also penalized financially. As treasurer, he routinely had to authorize spending without official warrants, the Crown subsequently accepting responsibility for these sums when he presented his accounts. After his final audit, however, he was made to refund £878 of this expenditure himself. HMC Cowper, i. 53; CSP Dom. 1603-10, pp. 98, 192; SP46/67, f. 207; HMC Hatfield, xvi. 357; Young, 23-4, 26-32.

In terms of income the loss of the treasurership was not a severe blow, as the annual fees and allowances amounted to only about £300, and Greville had been too honest to boost his wages by peculation. Indeed, he was rather more aggrieved at a ‘change of instructions’ for his Welsh offices, which he claimed cost him £1,200 a year. When his father died in 1606 leaving him saddled with substantial debts, he bemoaned his fate to Cecil, now earl of Salisbury: ‘I assure myself my own end will come upon me before I shall see any end of these misfortunes which have constantly followed me since the death of my blessed mistress’. Rebholz, 160; HMC Hatfield, xviii. 348; xix. 96-7. In reality, Greville was now quite affluent. In 1607 he secured both a grant of additional fees within the Council of the Marches, and a joint lease of a new imposition on German wines, and when the latter proved less profitable than anticipated, he was compensated with a £200 pension. His annual income in 1609-10 stood at £13,214 13s. 7d., of which he re-invested over £7,500 in land. By now he was busy converting the formerly ruinous Warwick castle, which he had acquired from the Crown in 1604, into a luxurious country seat, while his extensive property purchases in the neighbouring town led to his appointment in 1610 as the borough’s recorder. C66/1742; 66/1776/11; HMC Cowper, i. 69-70; G. Tyack, Warws. Country Houses, 203; PROB 11/154, ff. 285-8. What really rankled was his effective exclusion from government. Year after year, Greville offered his services to Cecil, ran errands for him, commiserated with him over any setbacks, sent him gifts and thanked him for the slightest favours, all in vain. HMC Hatfield, xvii. 59, 214-5, 597; xviii. 138, 202; xx. 136; CSP Dom. 1603- 10, pp. 373, 628; 1611-18, p. 24. Increasingly out of sympathy with the direction and tone of public life, he poured out his bitterness and frustration in literary projects, most notably his Life of Sir Philip Sidney, written and revised in about 1610-12. The idealized portraits of his eponymous hero and Queen Elizabeth implicitly criticized current courtiers, ministers and indeed the king himself, and the Life in effect served as a manifesto for the qualities and experience that Greville still believed he could bring to affairs of state. Rebholz, 205-15.

Within weeks of Salisbury’s death, Greville was rumoured to be angling for one of his offices. By November 1612 he was actively chasing the post of secretary of state, openly courting both the Howards and the royal favourite, Viscount Rochester. At first the king offered him only the task of naval reform, but his persistence paid off, and in October 1614, evidently with Howard backing, he finally achieved the chancellorship of the Exchequer. A month later, his new partnership with lord treasurer Suffolk was cemented by a joint seven-year grant of fines for alienations. HMC Downshire, iii. 314-15; HMC Portland, ix. 39; HMC Cowper, i. 77; C66/2026/8. The appointment caused some surprise, and almost immediately rumours started that Greville would soon be made secretary instead. Certainly he enjoyed an uneasy relationship with Suffolk, though for at least two years he apparently buried any concern about the direction of policy under a grim determination to cling to the office for which he had waited so long. With the Crown as usual seeking to extract higher returns from its lands, he commissioned a new survey of properties in 1616, and supported the abortive project to enclose Knaresborough forest, but serious reforms were virtually impossible while Suffolk remained at the helm. Chamberlain Letters ed. N.E. McClure, i. 564; Rebholz, 243; R.W. Hoyle, ‘Shearing the Hog’, in Estates of the Eng. Crown ed. R.W. Hoyle, 211, 245-6; APC, 1615-16, p. 533. Only when it became clear in late 1616 that his position was under real threat did he begin to distance himself openly from the lord treasurer. It was reported in August 1617 that Greville would marry a niece of the new royal favourite, Buckingham, and although nothing came of this rumour, it was apparent that he was now looking to the future. HMC Downshire, vi. 17; Chamberlain Letters, ii. 49, 93.

In July 1618 Greville was appointed to the commission that precipitated Suffolk’s fall, and had the satisfaction of sitting in judgment on the former lord treasurer at the latter’s Star Chamber trial in the autumn of 1619, where he condemned his ‘irregular motions’ in the Exchequer. Greville’s own behaviour was vindicated by the revelation that he had refused to co-operate in the granting of an illegal contract for the alum farm. If he believed the frequent rumours that he would be appointed as Suffolk’s successor, then he was disappointed, but at least as a Treasury commissioner he now had the opportunity to promote genuine reforms. HMC Hatfield, xxii. 95, 109-10; T. Birch, Ct. and Times of Jas. I, ii. 91, 122; Chamberlain Letters, ii. 251, 272. In particular, he encouraged the work of a new commission of inquiry into the Navy, which, under the leadership of his former lieutenant John Coke, finally achieved significant improvements after years of neglect and corruption. However, the underlying weakness of the Crown’s finances necessitated exploring all fund-raising expedients, and Greville helped to approve several patents for monopolies in 1619-20, albeit sometimes with reluctance. As late as November 1620 it was believed that his ‘good purse’ would finally win him the treasurership. In the event he was outbid by Sir Henry Montagu*, though the blow was softened by the promise of a peerage. APC, 1618-19, p. 157; HMC Cowper, i. 96-7, 102-3; Rebholz, 248, 251; CSP Dom. 1619-23, p. 57; CD 1621, vii. 328, 345; Chamberlain Letters, ii. 328, 334-5.

In December 1620 Greville finally resumed the status of knight of the shire for Warwickshire, the previous two elections having broadly corresponded with the start and finish of his effective retirement from public life. Prince Charles’s Council also put him forward for a seat at Camelford, but this was probably just a precaution, and he was so confident of success that the Cornish nomination was withdrawn before the Warwickshire election took place. Greville was by now himself a parliamentary patron, as he controlled both burgess-ships at Warwick, handing one to his nephew Greville Verney, who had already sat there in 1614, and the other to John Coke. DCO, ‘Letters and Patents, 1620-1’, f. 39v; P.M. Hunneyball, ‘Prince Charles’ Council as Electoral Agent, 1620-24’, PH, xxiii. 319, 324. In the interval between the elections and the opening of Parliament, the patent for Greville’s peerage was prepared. However, the king wanted him in the Commons, and the grant was not passed until the following July, although the new Lord Brooke was allowed to date his ennoblement from 29 January. Chamberlain Letters, ii. 387; Rebholz, 255-6.

Despite being chancellor of the Exchequer, Greville kept a relatively low profile in the first sitting of the 1621 Parliament. He made barely 30 speeches, most of them brief, and over half of his 32 nominations to committees or conferences were ex officio as a privy councillor, including his appointment on 5 Feb. to the committee for privileges. His lack of recent parliamentary experience perhaps told against him in debate; although not unwilling to engage with controversial subjects, he normally limited himself to procedural observations or short statements of expert opinion, rather than major expositions of government policy. CJ, i. 507b. This was true even with regard to the subsidy bill. On 15 Feb. he twice reminded Members of the need to prepare this measure, and on the following day delivered James’s thanks for the offer of two subsidies, diplomatically emphasizing the likely fruits of this cooperation ‘between a noble king, and dutiful people’, rather than acknowledging the inadequacy of the proposed grant. Named to the committees for drafting and scrutinizing the bill, he called several times for more rapid progress (26 Feb. and 12 Mar.), finally securing a third reading on 17 March. Two days later, he was chosen in preference to the Speaker to deliver the bill to the Lords. Nicholas, Procs. 1621, i. 48, 192; CJ, i. 523b, 528b, 544a, 550b-1a, 560a; CD 1621, v. 308.

Apart from supply, Greville’s main preoccupation was with maintaining good relations between the king and Commons. On 22 Mar. he reminded the House that although James had allowed Members to decide when the forthcoming recess would end, it was advisable to notify him that they had settled on a later date than the one he had suggested. When the potentially explosive topic of the selection of j.p.s was broached on 25 Apr., Greville offered to speak to James about it, though in the event he was made to wait until the Commons had prepared detailed reform proposals. Within a few days, as he probably anticipated, the House was considering a ban on clerical magistrates, as well as discussing baronetcies. After the king called a halt to these debates, Greville was appointed on 1 May to help set the record straight, but this time he was unwilling to tackle more than the issue of magistrates: ‘I am your servant and to be commanded to do your appointed service, but ... for the matter of baronets, I desire you to consider that it is only in the king to create honours, and what he pleases’. CJ, i. 570a, 590b, 593b, 599a; CD 1621, iii. 113; vi. 116. This sensitivity to the royal prerogative was also apparent when the Commons considered banning Spanish tobacco imports. On 10 Apr. Greville warned that this would be possible only if it did not contravene the Treaty of London. Eight days later, he affirmed that a ban was indeed incompatible with the treaty, and that the subject should therefore be dropped: ‘these things that concern the sovereignty of Princes, in stirring one link the whole chain is stirred; and this trenches into their sovereignty so deeply as that they will touch us in another as great’. CD 1621, ii. 288; iii. 9; v. 77. With the Commons frequently straying into such territory during this Parliament, Greville found himself regularly acting as intermediary between House and monarch. On 30 Apr., after the king warned against investigating alleged Irish corruption, Greville diplomatically proposed that the Commons should request permission to continue their inquiries, but desist if James again objected; he ‘would not have a little matter be as a mist between us and the king’. CJ, i. 598b; Nicholas, i. 359. A month earlier the House considered another awkward issue, bills of conformity, which touched on the Crown’s power of granting immunity from prosecution. On 23 Mar. Greville announced that James was willing to work with members to reform any abuses in this aspect of his ‘regality’, and he was twice sent back to the king to thank him for the Proclamation introduced as a stop-gap solution (23 and 26 March). CJ, i. 571b, 575a; CD 1621, ii. 261. However, he also landed the less agreeable task on 2 May of delivering James’s biting response to the Commons’ bid to punish Edward Floyd for slandering the king and queen of Bohemia. In this instance Members had unquestionably exceeded their powers, and Greville had no scope for softening the message. He doubtless did not welcome the Commons’ decision to send him back to Whitehall later that day to request a further dialogue. CJ, i. 603b, 605a; CD 1621, ii. 337.

Greville’s virtual silence on the subject of monopolies is understandable. On 6 Mar. William Hakewill informed the House that Greville had helped approve (Sir) Giles Mompesson’s* patent for concealed lands. On the following day, however, Hakewill affirmed that Greville had been ‘cautionary and not offending’ in this instance, and he again defended him on 9 March. Nevertheless, by now the Commons had resolved that the concealed lands patent was a grievance. Moreover, on 19 Mar. the House heard that Greville had been joint referee for the concealed tithes patent, another grievance. Sir Edward Coke explained that the investigating committee had absolved Greville of any blame, ‘for what he did was unwilling, and with as much delay as lay in him to give that business’. Nevertheless, the chancellor felt obliged to offer a defence, the substance of which has gone unrecorded. Thereafter, he avoided the whole subject until 2 May, when he opined that Sir Edward Villiers should not be ejected from the Commons on account of his gold thread patent until the Lords had pronounced judgment on his case. CD 1621, iii. 133; v. 131, 274, 279, 284; CJ, i. 551a, 562a-b; Nicholas, i. 191-2.

Another potentially awkward issue surfaced on 26 Mar., when the House found fault with the excessive fees charged for pardons and alienations. Without apparently mentioning that he was himself a lessee of alienations fines, Greville insisted that he had opposed fee increases, and offered to convey the Commons’ views to the king. When other Members came under attack, however, he robustly insisted on fair treatment. On 20 Apr. he argued that the ecclesiastical judge Sir John Bennet should be allowed more time to answer allegations of corruption as even God had permitted Adam to defend himself after the Fall. He was nevertheless critical of Bennet, and was named to the committee that day to draft charges against him. Greville was dismissive of Sir James Perrot’s campaign to smear Sir Henry Spiller* over his dealings with recusants, indicating on 24 Feb. that the allegations had already been dismissed by the Privy Council. When it emerged on 12 Mar. that Perrot, on his own authority, had organized a search in the Exchequer for incriminating evidence, he urged the House to call a halt to this business and formally clear Spiller. Appropriately, he was named on 19 Apr. to the conference with the Lords on the bill against informers. CJ, i. 550b, 575b, 582b, 584a; CD 1621, iii. 30; v. 83; vi. 56, 267. Although Greville’s views on the threat posed by international Catholicism were probably familiar to other Members, he is not known to have spoken on the subject. On 13 Feb. he was appointed to ask the king to stay a shipment of ordnance to Spain. His remaining nominations concerning religion and the country’s readiness for war were conferred on him in his capacity as a privy councillor. CD 1621, ii. 26; vi. 288; CJ, i. 522b-3a, 543a, 626a, 639a.

Greville naturally took an interest in economic matters, particularly attempts to regulate the management and funding of lighthouses, which had implications for trade. Trinity House was seeking to take over privately run lighthouses, but Greville warned the Commons on 27 Feb. against inadvertently establishing a new monopoly by overthrowing existing private patents. Named to the committee stage of the first seamarks bill, which proved defective, he was additionally appointed to help draft its successor, and to notify Buckingham, the lord admiral, of this development (27 Feb. and 18 April). CJ, i. 529b, 581a. He also offered expert opinion on the exchange rate, which he blamed for the current shortage of coinage, and elucidated the workings of the French Company’s new patent (27 Feb. and 20 Mar.). He commented less frequently on legal issues, though on 10 Mar. he objected to the penalties proposed under the bill against unauthorized levying of fines, and was the first person named to the committee to scrutinize this measure. Nicholas, i. 106; CD 1621, vi. 17; CJ, i. 548b.

In the second sitting Greville took his place in the Lords, and he did not again appear in the Commons until 1626, when he was questioned about his conduct as a councillor of war. Procs. 1626, ii. 186-7. At Warwick he maintained his hold over one parliamentary burgess-ship throughout the 1620s, nominating his cousin Sir Edward Conway II in 1624, his friend and kinsman, Sir Francis Leigh, 1st bt. in 1625-6, and his distant cousin Robert Greville in 1628. CSP Dom. Addenda, 1625-49, p. 94; PROB 11/154, ff. 286-90. Although apparently well-versed in the arts of courtly love, he never married, and he adopted Robert Greville in about 1611 to guarantee the continued descent of his estates through his family’s male line. Wood, ii. 430; ‘Genealogie of Robert Lorde Brooke’ ed. Styles, 170. He died in London in September 1628, having been stabbed by a disaffected servant, and was buried in the magnificent tomb that he had prepared for himself in St. Mary’s church, Warwick. CSP Dom. 1628-9, p. 344; Addenda, 1625-49, p. 293; HMC Rutland, i. 487.