Bevil Grenville (23 March 1594 – 5 July 1643) was an English Cavalier general during the English Civil War who was killed at the Battle of Lansdowne in 1643.
Biography[]
Bevil Grenville was born in Withiel, Cornwall, England on 23 March 1594, the grandson of Richard Grenville. Having received an Oxford education, he served as MP for Cornwall from 1621 to 1625 and MP for Launceston from 1625 to 1629 and from 1640 to 1642. While he initially sided with John Eliot and the Parliamentarian opposition to King Charles I of England in the Parliament, he later loyally served King Charles during the Bishops' Wars and became the most generally loved man in Cornwall. At the start of the English Civil War in 1642, he sided with King Charles, serving under Ralph Hopton and distinguishing himself at the 1643 Battle of Stratton. In 1643, he fought at the Battle of Lansdowne in Somerset, and he received a blow to the head from a poleaxe as he led the Cornish assault on Lansdown Hill, dying of his wounds at Cold Ashton.