THE SIEGE OF PLYMOUTH. 285 
in Devon and Cornwall, with special charge of Plymouth. Accord- 
ing to Clarendon,* Grenville promised to take the town before 
Christmas ; and to that end to raise and pay an army of 6,000 foot 
and 1,200 horse. ‘That he might have the means to do this, there 
were allotted to him half the Royalist contributions of Devon, 
over £1,100 weekly ; the whole of those of Cornwall, about £700 ; 
and arrears of near £6,000. 
And here we must pause for a few words about Grenville, who 
of all the Royalist leaders in the West had the most to do with 
Plymouth. He was the brother of Sir Bevill Grenville, whom 
Kingsley calls the handsomest and most gallant of his generation, 
but a man of a very different stamp, not “kin to him in nature.” 
He was brave, and experienced in warfare. Clarendon credits him 
with enforcing strict discipline in the leaguer before Plymouth, and 
of thus standing well with the country people, Maurice’s men 
having been, in common parlance, a rough lot.t Beyond this, all 
that Clarendon has to say is in Sir Richard’s disfavour. There 
was no good-will between them. Grenville is described as treating 
his wife, the widow of a brother of the Duke of Suffolk, because 
her fortune did not come up to his desires, in such a manner that 
she was compelled to leave his house, and take legal proceedings to 
secure what she had brought him. When he was put in command 
in the West, his first act was to make war upon his wife by seizing 
the estate back. He is charged with misapplying the moneys 
granted him for the maintenance of his army, and with being 
chiefly diligent in seizing the estates of partisans of the Parliament 
for his own individual benefit. ‘Though he suffered not his 
soldiers to plunder, he was in truth himself the greatest plunderer 
of this war.”+ And so we are told that he was cruel, even malig- 
nant, in his disposition. He brought no good character from the 
Irish wars; and to keep his hand in, would now and then hang a 
constable ; while his minor acts of oppression were countless. He 
met four or five soldiers of Plymouth Garrison coming out of a 
wood with faggots, and made one hang the rest to save his own 
life, which, says the historian, “he was contented to do.”§ He 
caught the unfortunate solicitor—Francis Brabant, of Breage—who 
had acted for his wife in his lawsuit, and hung him as a spy. 
Moreover, he was, almost from beginning to end, either the subject 
* Vol. ii. p. 965. t+ Vol. ii. p. 1002. 
t CLARENDON, vol. ii. p. 1010. § Ibid, p. 805. 
