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Grenville ‘was his appetite to those executions he had been used to in Ireland’ (ib. viii. 133, 141). He habitually abused his military position in order to satisfy his malice or his avarice. He threw many persons into prison in order to enforce disputed manorial rights, or simply to extort ransom (ib. ix. 24, 141). He seized and hanged the solicitor who had conducted his wife's case in the Star-chamber (ib. ix. 55). On first coming into the west the king had granted Grenville the sequestration of his wife's estate to his own use ; in Devonshire the king had also granted him the sequestration of the estates of the Earl of Bedford and Sir Francis Drake, and that of Lord Roberts in Cornwall. Moreover, he levied assessments and plundered on his own account. At the same time the commissioners of Devonshire loudly complained that he monopolised the contributions of their county, and did not maintain as large a force out of them as he was bound to do (ib. ix. 22, 53, 62). The prince and his council attempted to bring about an agreement; Grenville was to be removed from the command before Plymouth, and made major-general of the prince's field army. He accepted the post, but immediately commenced quarrelling with his commander, Lord Goring. He disputed his general's orders, encouraged the disinclination of the Cornish troops to move from their own county, attempted to prevent Goring's forces from entering Cornwall, and even proposed that the prince should treat with Fairfax for the neutrality of that county (ib. ix. 94, 103, 133). Finally, in January 1646, when Hopton succeeded Goring, Grenville declined to serve under him. ‘It plainly appeared now that his drift was to stay behind and command Cornwall, with which the prince thought he had no reason to trust him.’ Neither was it thought safe to leave him free to continue his intrigues, and on 19 Jan. 1646 he was arrested and sent prisoner first to Launceston and afterwards to St. Michael's Mount (ib. ix. 137). When Fairfax's army advanced into Cornwall, Grenville, on his petition that he might be allowed to leave the kingdom rather than fall into the hands of the enemy, ‘from whence he had no reason to expect the least degree of mercy,’ was allowed to embark for France (, Original Letters, i. 108). Grenville landed at Brest on 14 March 1646, and after a short stay in Brittany proceeded to Holland. One of his first cares was to vindicate his conduct as a soldier, by publishing a narrative of affairs in the west from 2 Sept. 1644 to 2 March 1646 (this narrative, originally printed in 1647, is reprinted by, Original Letters, 1739, i. 96-109; see also Clarendon MSS. 2139, 2676). In anticipation of some such attempted justification, Hyde had already completed (31 July 1646) an account of events from March 1645 to May 1646 from the point of view of the king's council, the greater part of which account he afterwards embodied in his history (Rebellion, ed. Macray, ix. 7, x. 12). On the publication of Clarendon's history, George Granville, lord Lansdowne, attempted to vindicate Sir Richard from Clarendon's charges, but without success (, Works, 1732, i. 503; see also Biographia Britannica, pp. 2308-9).

Nevertheless Grenville was still employed by Charles II. He states that in February 1650, while living in Holland, he received the king's commands to come to France ‘to attend his service,’ and in consequence returned to Brittany. ‘There I employed my own monies and great labours to advantage the king's service, as in supplying the Sorlinges with what was in my power, also in clothing and victualling the soldiers of Guernsey Castle when no man else would do it, they being almost naked and starved’ (ib. p. 549; cf. Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1665-6, p. 154). A letter from Charles II, dated 2 Oct. 1650, shows that there was some intention of employing his services in a proposed rising in the west of England (, Memoirs, ed. Wheatley, iv. 202; Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1650, pp. 47, 88). Grenville, probably with justice, attributed his non-employment to Hyde, and was bitterly incensed against him. ‘So fat a Hide ought to be well tanned,’ wrote Grenville to his friend Robert Long, and on the evidence of Long and some worthless gossip accused Hyde to the king (12 Aug. 1653) of treasonable correspondence with Cromwell. The charge was examined by the king and council, and Grenville forbidden to come into the king's presence or court (29 Nov. 1653), while Hyde's honesty was vindicated by a public declaration, 14 Jan. 1654 (Cal. Clarendon Papers, ii. 239, 259, 279, 299;, Life of Clarendon, iii. 69-83). Grenville at once published a pamphlet entitled ‘Sir Richard Grenville's Single Defence against all aspersions (in the power or aim) of all malignant persons, and to satisfy the contrary,’ containing an autobiographical account of his life, services, and sufferings (reprinted in Lansdowne's ‘Works,’ i. 544-56). Grenville died in 1658; of the last four years of his life Lord Lansdowne writes (with some exaggeration) : ‘He retired from all conversation with mankind, shut himself up from the world to prepare himself seriously for another, never so much as suffering his beard to be shaven from that moment to his dying day,