Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 23.djvu/38



at Wimborne, Dorsetshire, entitled ‘A Modest Vindication of the Doctrine of Conditions in the Covenant of Grace and the Defenders thereof from the Aspersions of Arminianism and Popery which Mr. W. Eyre cast on them,’ London, 1655. The preface (dated 15 Sept, 1654) says that the book had been delivered to Eyre in the author's lifetime. Grayle died, aged 40, early in 1654, after a lingering illness. He was buried in Tidworth Church, and a neighbouring minister, Dr. Humphry Chambers, preached his funeral sermon ‘before the brethren, who were present in great numbers.’ It is published with the ‘Modest Vindication.’

A son of the same names, educated at Exeter College, Oxford, was rector of Blickling, Norfolk, and published many sermons.

 GRAYSTANES, ROBERT (d. 1336?), a fourteenth-century chronicler of the church of Durham, describes himself as 'Doctor Theologicus.' He had been sub-prior of St. Mary's for twenty-six years or more when Louis de Beaumont, bishop of Durham [q. v.], died, 24 Sept. 1333 (Hist. Dun. pp. 119-20;, i. Pref. p. xlix). On 15 Oct. he was elected to the vacant see, after the king's permission had been obtained. William Melton, the archbishop of York, promised to confirm the election; but in the meanwhile (31 Oct.) Robert, who had visited Edward III at 'Lutogersale' (Ludgershall in Wiltshire or Buckinghamshire?), had been told that the pope had given the see 'by provision' to Richard de Bury, 'the king's clerk' [q. v.] The archbishop, however, after consulting his canons and lawyers, consecrated Robert (Sunday, 14 Nov.), with the assistance of the bishops of Carlisle and Armagh. The new bishop was installed at Durham on 18 Nov., and then, returning to the king to claim the temporalities of his see, was refused an audience and referred to the next parliament for an answer. Meanwhile (14 Oct.) the temporalities had been granted to Richard de Bury, who, having the archbishop now on his side, received the oath of the Durham clergy (10 Jan. 1334). Robert, knowing that his convent was too poor to oppose the king and the pope (Hist. Dun. pp. 120-3), refused to continue the struggle. He seems to have resumed his old office, and to have died about 1336 (, Pref. p. xlix;, p. 340; Hist. Dun. p. 121). Surtees says that he 'survived his resignation scarcely a year' (Hist. of Durh. p. 46), and died of disappointment (ib.; cf., p. xlix). Richard de Bury, upon hearing of his death, apologised for the grief he showed by declaring that Graystanes was better fitted to be pope than he was to hold the least office in the church (, p. 129). Graystanes was buried in the chapter-house. Hutchinson has preserved his epitaph : De Graystanes natus jacet hic Robertus humatus, Legibus armatus, rogo sit Sanctis sociatus. His birthplace was perhaps Greystanes three miles south-west of Sheffield.

Graystanes continued the history of the church of Durham, which had been begun by Simeon of Durham, an anonymous continuator, and Geoffrey de Coldingham [q. v.] He takes up Coldingham's narrative with the election of King John's brother Morgan (1213), and carries it down to his own resignation. According to Wharton, however, he has copied his history as far as 1285 (1283?) A.D. from the manuscript now called Cotton Julius, D. 4 (, p. xlix; cf., p. 15). His work is of considerable value, especially as it nears the writer's own time. The 'Historiæ Dunelmensis Scriptores Tres' —including Galford, Graystanes, and William de Chambre— was first printed with excisions by Wharton in 1691. The best edition is that of Raine for the Surtees Society (1839). The chief manuscripts are (1) that in the York Cathedral Library (xvi. 1-12), which belongs to the fourteenth century; (2) the Bodleian MS. (Laud 700, which Hardy assigns to the same century), and the Cotton. MS. (Titus A. ii.) Leland had seen another manuscript in the Carmelite Library at Oxford (Collectanea, iii. 57). Wharton followed the Cotton and Laud MSS.

 GREATHEAD, HENRY (1757–1816), lifeboat inventor, was a twin child, born at Richmond, Yorkshire, on 27 Jan. 1757. His father, who was in the civil service, removed to Shields in 1763. Greathead was at first apprenticed to a boatbuilder, and subsequently went to sea as a ship's carpenter. In 1785 he returned to South Shields, and set up in business on his own account as a boatbuilder, marrying in the following year. The ship Adventure of Newcastle stranded in 1789 on the Herd Sands, a shoal off Tynemouth Haven, not far from Greathead's home. The crew were all lost in sight of many spectators, and 