80 Sporting and Rural Records of the Cheveley Estate. 



Cheveley. 



The Marquis of 

 Granby. 



His Military 

 Career. 



and heiress of Robert Sutton, Lord Lexington. He was born 

 August 2, I 72 1, and was educated at Eton and Trinity College, 

 Cambridge. In 1741 he was returned to Parliament for the 

 borough of Grantham, and during the Jacobite rising of 1745 he 

 received his first military commission as colonel of a regiment of 

 foot raised by the Rutland interest at Leicester. After serving 

 through this campaign, Lord Granby's regiment was disbanded at 

 the end of the year 1 746, but he retained his rank and seniority as 

 colonel in the army. In the two following years he served with the 

 army in Flanders. He was returned M.P. for Cambridgeshire in 

 1754, and represented it in the succeeding Parliaments to the time 

 of his death. 



He became a Major-General, March 4, 1755, and Colonel of 

 the Royal Horse Guards (Blues), May 13, 1758. He had obtained 

 the rank of a Lieutenant-General in February, 1 759 ; was at the 

 head of the Horse Guards (Blues) at the battle of Minden, 

 August I, 1759, and had set his regiment in motion to follow the 

 retreating French when he was peremptorily halted by Lord George 

 Sackville. After this engagement the Marquis was specially 

 thanked by Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick. 



When Lord George Sackville resigned, the Marquis of Granby 

 became commander-in-chief of the British contingent from 

 August 14, 1759. In the ensuing campaigns he acquired a high 

 reputation. He was a great favourite with Prince Ferdinand, a 

 circumstance which his critics attributed to his pliant disposition 

 and hard drinking ; but the fact remains, that the troops under his 

 orders were always assigned the post of danger, and, with their 

 commander, always proved themselves worthy of the honour. At 

 Warburg, in Westphalia, when the French were defeated, with the 

 loss of 1500 men and 10 guns, on July 31, 1760, a brilliant charge 

 of the British cavalry, lead by the Marquis, in the words of 

 Prince Ferdinand, "contributed extremely to the success of the 

 day." The Prince testified to the " unbeschreibende Trapfer- 

 keit " with which the Marquis's corps defended the wooded heights 



