Richard (Grenville) de Greynville

Descendants

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Disputed Parents

The old Grenville genealogy claims that Richard de Grenville was the younger brother of Robert Fitz Hamon and the son of Hamon of Normandy, Count of Corbeil. This lineage has never been accepted by modern scholars.

Biography

In 1091, Richard de Grenville participated in Robert Fitz Hamon's conquest of Glamorgan in Wales. "In an old deed he [Richard's brother Robert] is described as 'by the grace of God Prince of Glamorganshire, Earl of Corboile, Thorigny, and Granville; Lord of Gloucester, Bristol, and Tewkesbury and Cardiff; Governor of Wales; near kinsman unto the King and General of all his Highness's army in France." Robert Fitz Hamon had only daughters, so his English lands and titles passed to other families.^[1] But his Norman possessions passed to his brother Richard, who had his own English and Welsh estates:

“All Fitz Hamon’s titles, according to Norman Law, descended to his brother, Richard de Granville, and were born by him and his posterity until Normandy was lost to the crown of England. Richard had received the lordship of Neath as his share of the Welsh conquest, including a large tract of rich fertile land…. Some manuscripts in the possession of Lady Llanover (maternally descended from the Granvilles) contain extracts from old records of the history of Glamorgan, which mention that ‘Sir Richard Grenvile, brother of Robert Fitzhamon, went to the Holy Land, and on his return had a dream which impressed him so deeply that he returned to Jerusalem, and there recorded a vow on the Holy Sepulchre to the effect that he would faithfully perform what he had been told to do in his dream; namely to restore to the Welsh, as far as he could ascertain the rights of owners, all the possessions of which they had been so cruelly dispossessed by fraud and violence, and which were in his hands, and to dedicate the remainder to the service of God only. This he did, and with the remainder built the magnificent Abbey of Neath.” ^[2]

“Having finished and settled the foundation of Neath Abbey, Richard de Granville, who must now have been some fourscore years old, returned to his patrimony at Bideford in North Devon, where he lived in great honour and reputation the remainder of his days, though according to an old pedigree of the family, bearing date 1639, it is stated that in his old age, he took upon himself the sign of the Cross, according to the devotion of those times, and went towards Jerusalem, in which journey he died. “He was twice married. According to Odericus Vitalis his first wife was Isabel, the only daughter of Walter Giffard, Earl of Buckingham in England, and of Longueville in Normandy, who was co-heiress along with her aunt Rohesia (wife of Richard Fitz Gilbert, Lord of Clare), of the great possessions and lordships pertaining to that family. His second wife, the Constance mentioned in the Neath Abbey Charter, is said to have been the daughter of Caradoc ap Arthur, the lord of Glyn Nedd. “By his first wife he had issue five sons…” ^[3]

Sources

WikiTree profile De Grenville-17 created through the import of SRW 7th July 2011.ged on Jul 7, 2011 by Stephen Wilkinson. See the Grenville-17 Changes page for the details of edits by Stephen and others.

1. ↑ Roger Granville, The History of the Granville Family (1895), pp. 17-21.
2. ↑ Roger Granville, The History of the Granville Family (1895), pp. 22-23.
3. ↑ Roger Granville, The History of the Granville Family (1895), p. 26.