GREVILLE, Hon. Robert Fulke (1751-1824).

Greville was returned for Warwick on his brother Lord Warwick’s interest. ‘Lord Warwick is a steady supporter’, George III wrote to Lord Barrington, 18 Mar. 1774, ‘his brother a very pretty young man and a Member of Parliament, and the oldest ensign [sic] only of 1769’, and should therefore be considered for promotion.Barrington mss. Greville consistently supported North’s Administration. There is no record of his having spoken in the House. In 1780 he stood again at Warwick, but was defeated. His brother Charles wrote to R. M. Keith, 15 Sept. 1780:Add. 35519, f. 236. ‘A banker’s purse has obtained a seat which my brother ought to have had and which it is but small consolation to see must be his again.’ In fact, Greville seems to have had no ambition for a political career, and was content with the court place which he obtained the year after his defeat. His diaries detail with obvious satisfaction his daily routine at court, and he describes his first attendance as an equerry as ‘the happiest month of my life’.Diary of R. F. Greville, ed. Bladon, 67. When in 1784 his two elder brothers quarrelled about politics and opposed each other at Warwick, he himself kept out of the contest. Fanny Burney, who always refers to him as ‘Colonel Wellbred’, and thought him ‘so elegant’ and ‘so pleasing’ that it was impossible not to ‘see him with approbation, and speak of him with praise’, wrote of his situation in the family:Diary Letters of Mme D’Arblay, ed. Dobson, iii. 385; iv. 357.

He loves them both, and with both keeps well; but while he has a place that devotes a fourth of the year to the King, his residence for the rest of it is with the brother who is in opposition to the Government. Not small must be the difficulties of such circumstances and his preferment is probably checked by this determined fraternal amity, though his moderation and uprightness secure him the esteem and force the good word of both parties, as well as both brothers.

Greville died 27 Apr. 1824.