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Early life Grenville was born at Clifton House and brought up at Buckland Abbey in Devon, England . He was a cousin of both Sir Walter Raleigh and Sir Francis Drake , and was present when Theodore Palaeologus , last descendant of the Byzantine Emperor s, retired to Clifton. He went on to attend at the Inner Temple, aged seventeen years. In 1562, he was in an affray in the Strand in which he ran Robert Bannister through with his sword and left him for dead, a crime for which he was pardoned. Career In pursuit of his military career, Grenville fought against the Turks in Hungary in 1566. In 1569, he arrived in Ireland with Sir Warham St Leger to arrange for the settlement of lands in the barony of Kerricurrihy, which had been mortgaged to St Leger by the Earl Of Desmond . At about this time, Grenville also seized lands at Tracton, to the west of Cork harbour, for colonisation, after Sir Peter Carew had asserted his claim to lands in south Leinster. St Leger settled nearby, and Humphrey Gilbert pushed westward from Idrone along the Blackwater. All of these efforts to take land in the south of Ireland led to bitter disputes, which escalated into the first of the Desmond Rebelllions , led by James Fitzmaurice Fitzgerald . Grenville had been made sheriff of Cork, and had to stand by as Fitzmaurice, along with the Earl of Clancar, the Seneschal Of Imokilly , the White Knight and others, appeared at Tracton and undermined the defences with pickaxes and killed the entire garrison, saving 3 English soldiers who were hanged the following day. Fitzmaurice was threatening the arrival of Spanish forces and swore on a book that it was imminent; having robbed the citizens of Cork, he boasted that he could also take the artillery of the city of Youghal. Grenville had just sailed for England, when in June 1569 - around the same time as the detention of the Spanish treasure ships in England - Fitzmaurice camped outside the walls of Waterford and demanded that Grenville's wife and Lady St Leger be handed to him, as well as all the English and all prisoners; the citizens refused. Local English farmers were put to the sword, and while Cork was running low on provisions Youghal expected an attack at any minute. The rebellion continued, but Grenville remained in England. Grenville sided with the Earl of Arundel and the Duke of Norfolk, against the queen's secretary, Sir William Cecil in 1569, but was "''undeviatingly protestant''" and went on to arrest the priest, Cuthbert Mayne , at the home of the Tregians in 1577, in consequence of which Mayne was martyred. After the suppression of the second of the Desmond rebellions in 1583, Grenville bought land in Munster and brought settlors over. He, with Fane Beecher, had the whole barony of Kinalmeaky - 24,000 acres - but at the end of 1589 there were only 6 Englishmen there. He planted many more of them with St Leger to the south of Cork. In 1588, Grenville was commissioned, with Sir Walter Raleigh , to keep watch at sea on the approaches to Ireland in case the Spanish Armada returned. New World Grenville had once planned to enter the Pacific by the Magellan Straits , rather than by Labrador, a plan that was eventually executed by Sir Francis Drake in 1577, when he completed the circumnavigation of the world. In 1585, he was admiral of the seven-strong fleet that brought the English settlors to establish the plantation at Roanoke Island , off the coast of modern North Carolina in North America, but was heavily criticised by the governor of the plantation, Ralph Lane . The natives he encountered were hospitable; but when one stole a small silver cup, Grenville sacked and burned the whole native village. Grenville was made vice-admiral of the fleet under Thomas Howard , and was charged with maintaining a squadron at the Azores to waylay the treasure fleets of the Spanish. At Flores the English fleet was surprised by a larger squadron, sent by Philip II Of Spain ; Howard retreated, but Grenville faced the fifty three ships with a crew depleted in number by 95, owing to sickness on shore; he may have had an opportunity of escape, but chose to confront the far superior force. For 12 hours the The Revenge fought off the Spanish, causing heavy damage to fifteen galleons; ultimately, Grenville wished to blow up the ship, but the crew surrendered, and he died when the Revenge and 16 Spanish ships went down in a cyclone. Legacy Grenville was grandfather of Sir Richard Grenville , of English Civil War notoriety. Trivia
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