Robert Greville, 2nd Baron Brooke

Greville was the cousin and adopted son of Fulke Greville, 1st Baron Brooke, and thus became the second Lord Brooke, and owner of Warwick Castle.[3] He was born in 1607, and entered parliament for Warwick in 1628. He attended parliament and took part in some debates, but an investigation took place into his election for Warwick, and it was voided on 31 May 1628. Before a by-election could take place, Greville's adopted father died, on 30 September 1628, and Robert succeeded to the peerage that year, and thereafter was able to sit in the House of Lords. He was involved in the foundation of Saybrooke in Connecticut.[4]

Kupperman noted that Greville, in 1634, as a Charter Member of the Providence Island Company, "signified his willingness to take on the entire burden of funding, provided direction of the enterprise was wholly entrusted to him." However, "John Pym led those who were unwilling to turn over their project entirely.",[5] and the Providence Island colony was eventually overrun by Spanish treasure fleet in May 1641.

Greville was imprisoned by Charles I at York in 1639 for refusing to take the oath to fight for the king, and soon became an active member of the parliamentary party; taking part in the Civil War he defeated the Royalists in a skirmish at Kineton in August 1642.[6]

During the Civil War, he commanded Parliament forces in Warwickshire and Staffordshire and was looked on by many as the Earl of Essex's eventual successor. In 1642 he gained the victory of Kineton. He took Stratford-upon-Avon in February, 1643 and was killed shortly afterwards besieging Lichfield Cathedral on 2 March.[7][8] Greville was reportedly shot by a sniper (a concealed person who fired at Greville with a rifle) named John Dyott, a Deaf Man,[9] and many consider him to be the first recorded victim of sniper fire.

Brooke was eulogized as a friend of toleration by John Milton.[10] He wrote on philosophical, theological and current political topics. The Cambridge History of English and American Literature said of Greville,:

He was an ardent puritan, and, in 1641, wrote A Discourse opening the nature of that Episcopacie which is exercised in England, aimed at the political power of the bishops. In the same year was published his philosophical work The Nature of Truth. In this work, he refuses to distinguish between philosophy and theology. "What is true philosophy but divinity?" he asks, "and if it be not true, it is not philosophy."

Greville married soon after he came of age Catharine, daughter of Francis Russell, 4th Earl of Bedford.[7] with whom he had five sons. The eldest, Francis, succeeded to the title, but dying unmarried was succeeded by his brother Robert, who dying without male issue the title devolved upon his younger brother Fulke.[11]

List of owners of Warwick Castle

• "Greville, Robert (GRVL629R)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
• "Chapter XII. Hobbes and Contemporary Philosophy: Robert Greville, lord Brooke". The Cambridge History of English and American Literature. Vol VII. Cavalier and Puritan (18 Volumes ed.). 1907–1921.
• Lundy, Darryl (3 September 2011). "Robert Greville, 2nd Baron Brooke of Beauchamps Court". The Peerage website. p. 5781 § 57807.