General Lord Robert Greville
(1607-1643)

Died aged c. 36

Robert Greville, 2nd Baron Brooke (May 1607 – 4 March 1643) was a radical Puritan activist and leading member of the opposition to Charles I of England prior to the outbreak of the First English Civil War in August 1642. Appointed Parliamentarian commander in Staffordshire and Warwickshire, he was killed by a Royalist sniper at Lichfield on 2 March 1643. The son of a minor member of the Lincolnshire gentry, Greville was adopted at the age of four by his childless distant cousin Fulke Greville, 1st Baron Brooke, and inherited his title and Warwick Castle in 1628. A devout Calvinist, he was closely associated with Puritan activists and opponents of the 1629 to 1640 period of Personal Rule, 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 Commons. Although less well remembered than other leaders like Pym and Hampden, Greville's early death was viewed as a significant loss at the time. His energy and conviction Charles must be defeated militarily meant many preferred him as commander to the Earl of Essex. His conviction "true religion" required belief in God, rather than a specific form of worship prefigured later divisions between Presbyterian moderates and religious Independents like Oliver Cromwell.

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