The Lord Brooke | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Parliamentarian Commander Staffordshire and Warwickshire | |
| In office August 1642 – March 1643 | |
| Lord Lieutenant of Warwickshire | |
| In office April 1642 – March 1643 | |
| Member of Parliament for Warwick | |
| In office January 1628 – May 1628 | |
| Personal details | |
| Born | May 1607 Helpringham, Lincolnshire |
| Died | 2 March 1643 (aged 35) Lichfield |
| Resting place | Collegiate Church of St Mary, Warwick [1] |
| Political party | Parliamentarian |
| Spouse | Catherine Russell (1630–his death) |
| Children | Francis (1637–1658), Robert (1638–after 1680) and Fulke (1643–1710) |
| Alma mater | Cambridge University |
| Occupation | Puritan activist, author and politician |
| Military service | |
| Battles/wars | |
Robert Greville, 2nd Baron Brooke (May 1607 – 4 March 1643) was an English politician, military officer and peer. A leading opponent of Charles I of England, when the First English Civil War began in August 1642, he was appointed as the commander of Parliamentarian forces in Staffordshire and Warwickshire. He was killed by a Royalist sniper at the Siege of Lichfield on 2 March 1643.
Greville was adopted at the age of four by his childless distant cousin Fulke Greville, 1st Baron Brooke, inheriting both his title and Warwick Castle in 1628. A religious Independent, he was closely associated with other Puritan opponents of the Stuart regime, including John Pym, John Hampden and Arthur Haselrig. From 1640 to 1642, he and Lord Saye were central to securing support in the House of Lords for legislation passed by the House of Commons.
Although not as famous as Pym and Hampden, both of whom also died in 1643, Greville's death was viewed as a significant loss by his contemporaries. Many initially preferred him as commander of Parliamentarian forces to the Earl of Essex, while his conviction that "true religion" required belief in God, rather than a specific form of worship, prefigured later divisions between Presbyterians and Independents like Oliver Cromwell.