Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 23.djvu/129

Grenville him and his heirs for ever (ib. Treas. 1708-1714, p. 271). He failed, however, to get the keepership of the privy purse, although backed up in his application by his near kinsman, the Duke of Albemarle (ib. Dom. 1664-1665, p. 438). He was accused of ingratitude by one Edward Rymill, who in petitioning the council in 1666 for the twenty-seventh time stated that he had stood bound in 1,000l. for Bath in the time of his direst need, who had allowed him to be imprisoned for want of the money. On his family petitioning the earl they were threatened to be whipped out of court (ib. Dom. 1665-6 p. 162, 1666-7 p. 406).

Bath was busily engaged in trying disaffected people by offering them the new oath for military officers, and in settling the parliament of tinners, in which he recovered for the crown by 27 Feb. 1662-3 a revenue of 12,000l. lost during many years (ib. 1663-4, p. 57). In the Dutch invasions of 1666 and 1667 he displayed eminent skill in the work of organising the militia both in Devonshire and Cornwall ; while his abilities as a military engineer found full scope in strengthening and enlarging the fortifications of Plymouth (ib. 1665-6 pp. 541-2, 1666-7 p. 355, 1667 p. 219). Along with Lewis de Duras, earl of Feversham [q. v.], Bath was permitted to remain in the room when Charles received absolution on his deathbed (, Own Time, Oxford edit., ii. 457). James II dismissed him as a protestant, in March 1684-5, from the office of groom of the stole (, Historical Relation, i. 336, 339). He did his utmost, however, to secure members of parliament to the king's mind in Cornwall (, iii. 15-16). During the same year James discovered, or affected to discover, some irregularities in the stannaries, by which he was defrauded of part of his dues. Bath wrote a long letter to the lord treasurer on 2 Nov. 1686, stating that he was ready immediately to come to London, but asked for the king's permission (Cal. State Papers, Treas. 1556-1696, pp. 17-20). Ultimately he made his peace with the king, and in the middle of February 1687-8 was sent down into the west ‘to see how the gentlemen there stood affected to taking of the penall lawes and tests’ (, i. 432). Though he had been authorised to offer the removal of oppressive restrictions in the tin trade, all the justices and deputy-lieutenants of Devonshire and Cornwall declared that the protestant religion was dearer to them than either life or property, and Bath added that any successors would make the same answer (, Hist. of England, ch. viii.) On the landing of the Prince of Orange, Bath, who was then in command at Plymouth, was for some time undecided. He promised through Admiral Russel to join the prince at once, but afterwards excused himself on the pretence that the garrison needed managing (, iii. 311). William had reached Exeter before Bath deemed it safe to declare in the prince's favour (cf. Bath's letter to Lord Godolphin, dated 23 Oct. 1688, in Cal. State Papers, Treas. 1556-1696, pp. 30-1, with that to William, dated 18 Nov. 1688, in Memoirs). He pretended to have discovered a plot devised by Lord Huntingdon and the papists of the town to poison him and seize on the citadel; whereupon he secured and disarmed them (, i. 480). In December, having summoned the deputy-lieutenants, justices, and gentlemen of Cornwall to meet him at Saltash, he read the prince's declaration to them, and they subscribed the association (ib. i. 483). Bath was appointed a privy councillor in February 1688-9, and in the following March lord-lieutenant for Cornwall and Devonshire (ib. i. 502, 512). He took considerable interest in promoting the East India trade, for which purpose two ships were, in March 1691-2, in course of building by several Cornish gentlemen by virtue of a grant of Charles I, and with others subscribed to the amount of 70,000l. (ib. ii. 375). The next seven years of Bath's life were chiefly occupied in proving his title to the Albemarle estate, which he claimed under the will of the second duke, who died in 1688. The cost of the litigation was enormous, but he was successful in the actions brought by the Duchess of Albemarle and a Mr. Pride, the reputed heir-at-law, and to a great extent in those instituted by the Earl of Montague and a Mr. Monck. By 14 Jan. 1690-1 (, iii.77, says in April 1693) he had bought the rangership of St. James's Park of William Harbord, surveyor-general (Cal.State Papers, Treas. 1556-1696, p. 156). In January 1693-4, acting on a hint received from the king, he handed over the colonelcy of his regiment to his nephew, Sir Bevil Granville (d. 1706) [q. v.], and retired from the governorship of Plymouth (, iii. 254, 275). He ceased to be lord-lieutenant of Cornwall and Devonshire in April 1696 ; and in May was requested by William to sell his office of lord warden of the stannaries and those connected with St. James's Palace and park (ib. iv. 45, 62); the latter he disposed of in September 1697 to Thomas Foley (ib. iv. 280, 281). Bath doubtless hoped by this pliancy to obtain the dukedom of Albemarle (cf. ib. ii. 308-9), and was cruelly mortified when the king made Arnold van Keppel an earl by