Richard Grenville - Early Life

Early Life

Grenville's birthplace is believed to have been at Bideford, but he spent much of his childhood at Clifton Arundell House after his mother remarried Thomas Arundell following the death of his father Sir Roger Grenville, who was Captain of the Mary Rose when it sank in Portsmouth Harbour in 1545. He was a cousin of Sir Walter Raleigh and the privateer Sir Francis Drake. At age 17, Grenville began law studies at the Inner Temple. On 19 November 1562, he was in an affray in the Strand in which he ran Robert Bannister through with his sword and left him to die. He was pardoned for this crime. At age 18 he inherited his estates at Stowe in Cornwall, and Bideford and Buckland Abbey in Devon, England. This year he was also made Member of Parliament for Launceston. In 1565 Grenville married Mary St Leger (who outlived Grenville, dying aged about 80 on 9 November 1623. She lies buried at St Mary's Church, Bideford.) The family initially lived at Buckland Abbey before moving to a newly built house at Bideford.