Snippets of Glanville information

Family Gossip (Tittle-Tattle)

Don't, I say Do Not ask me to prove any of this...

Rainald Glanville Le Sir de Glanville, Lord of Glanville, (possibly named on The Falaise Roll), near Pont Eveque, Normandy, ("Witnessed a Charter in favor of Roger de Mowbray Area 1060"), father of Randulph de Glanville also Lord of Glanville in Normandy and Baron de Bronholm in Norfolk. He entered England at the Conquest (Battle of Hastings) in 1066. He married Flandrina, daughter of Sackville who produced 3 sons Robert, Walter & William. William married Beatrix de Sackville (granddaughter of Hertrand de Sackville who came to England 1066) - they produced 7 children one of whom was the illustrious Ranulph de Glanville (below).
Ranulf de Glanville was Chief Justiciar in England in 1172, being responsible for the Glanville Writs - the first compilation of English Law, and he ruled England on behalf of Henry II when Henry was away looking after his holdings in France. Ranulf joined the Crusades to the Holy Land and died before the Walls of Acre in 1191.
Ranulf was also:-
- Sheriff of Warwick and Leicester to Henry II in 1164
- Sheriff of York in 1164
- Keeper of Eleanor, Queen of England, Governor of Winchester Castle
- He captured William the Lion King of Scotland at Antwick 1174
- Earl of Suffolk, Baron of Bronholm and Benhall
- Dapifer (I wonder what that was!)
- He founded and endowed Butley Priory in 1171 and Leiston Abbey in 1182
In the 12^th Century, a Strongbow, Earl of Clare and a Norman was despatched by King Henry II of England to Ireland to support Dermot McMurrough. Amongst his knights, Strongbow numbered a Glanville, or more likely a de Glanville.
It is believed that Bartholemeus Anglicus the monk and author of De Proprietatibus Rerum - probably the first encyclopedia written (in the 13^th or 14^th century) was a Glanville.
A Gilbert Glanvill was Bishop of Rochester in the year 1185
Hervey de Glanville led the Anglo-Norman arm of the Crusaders who were victorious in the Conquest of Lisbon in 1147, defeating the occupying Moors. A priest, Raoul, wrote an account of it in Portugal 1147-48, and included an apparent transcript of Sir Hervey's rallying speech to his waning troops.
Extract from the Conquest of Lisbon, written by Priest Raoul
[from The Normans in Europe, ed. Transl. Elizabeth van Houst]
"For the glorious deeds of the ancients kept in memory by posterity are the marks of both affection and honour. If you show yourself [sic] worthy emulators of the ancients, honour and glory be yours, but if unworthy, then the disgraceful reproaches. Who does not know that the race of the Normans declines no labour in the practice of continuous valour? - the Normans, that is to say, whose military spirit, ever tempered by experience of the greatest hardships, is not quickly subverted in adversity, and in prosperity, which is beset by so many difficulties, cannot be overcome by slothful idleness. But because, by I know not what manner of perverseness - as it were through lust of honour or glory - envy has crept in among us as a handmaid, while she cannot infect the men of alien race who are here with us, she pours out the largest part of her poison among our very selves. Brothers, take heed, and attend to the reform of your morals. Take an example from your neighbours for your own confusion. The men of Cologne are not at cross-purposes with their fellows of Cologne, the Flemings to not look askance at Flemings. Who indeed would deny that the Scots are barbarians? Yet, among us in this enterprise they have never overstepped bounds of due friendship. And what else can be said except that something abnormal appears in you, since we are all sons of one mother - as if the tongue should deny to the palate, or the mouth to the stomach, or one foot to the other, or one hand to its mate, to the office of mutual service? You wish to depart hence, and well may it be with you. But we are certainly remaining here, as has already been decided by common consent, with the exception only of your smaller number, a thing which I am compelled to say without sorrow. You do no injury to God by this conduct, but only to yourselves. For, if you should remain here, God's power is not augmented by your presence; if you should depart, it is not diminished. If this city should be taken by us, what will you say to that? Even though I remain silent concerning the sin of a violated association you will become the objects of universal infamy and shame. Through fear of a glorious death you have withdrawn your support from your associates. The mere desire for booty yet to be acquired, you have bought at the cost of eternal dishonour. The race of your innocent colleagues will be held responsible for this your crime; and it is certainly a shame that Normandy, the mother of our race, must bear, and that undeservedly, in the eyes of so many peoples who are here represented the everlasting opprobrium of you outrageous reaction."
[The priest Raoul continues. . . ] . . . Thereupon the men of Cologne and Flemings, when they saw so many temptations to greed in the city, observed not the bond of their oath or plighted faith. They rushed about hither and thither; they pillaged; they broke open doors; they tore upon the innermost parts of every house; they drove out the citizens and treated them with insults, against right and justice; they scattered utensils and clothing; they secretly snatched away all those things which ought to have been made the common property of all the forces. They even slew the aged bishop of the city, against all right and decency, by cutting his throat. They seized the alcayde [mayor] himself and carried everything out of his house. And his mare, above mentioned, the count of Aerschot seized with his own hands, and at the demand of the king and of all our men that he give her up, he held on to her so obstinately that, because with an emission of blood she had lost her foal, the alcayde himself spoke out and branded the abominable action as digusting. But the Normans and the English, for whom good faith and scruples of conscience were matters of the highest import, remained quietly at the posts to which they had been assigned, while they wondered what such an event might portend, preferring to keep their hands from all rapine rather than violate their engagements and the ordinances of the earth-bound association - an episode which covered the count of Aerschot and Christian and their principal followers with shame, since through the disregarding of their oath their unmixed greed now stood openly revealed to us.
This book also suggests that the history of the early Glanvills is in the book by Henry, Archdeacon of Huntingdon: Historia Anglorum ed. by Diana Greenway, (Oxford, 1996).
Shelfmark WP.3189/72 at the British Library.
Thanks to Rick Glanvill for the above.
It is believed that one branch of the Glanville family married into the Earl Grey's of Tea repute.
This may well be Sir John de Grey who married Emma de Glanville.
Emma de Glanville was daughter of Sir Jeffry de Glanville and Margaret de la Haye, grand daughter of Bartholomea de Glanville, (brother of Ranulph de Glanville), "Baron of Bronholm. Sheriff of Norfolk and Suffolk 1169 - 1175. Built the Castle of Orford, confirmed his father's grants to Bronholm".
Sir John de Grey was Sheriff of Bucks and Bedford in 1239; Constable of Gannock Castle in 1246; Chief Justice of Chester; Govenor of Dover Castle. He died in 1266.
Sir John Glanville born 1542 was an attorney. He entered Lincoln's Inn, May 1567. He was called to the Bar in 1574 and was a Reader in 1589.
He was a member of Parliament in 1585, 1586 and 1592. He was the first attorney who is recorded to have reached the bench. He was Judge of the Court of Common Pleas in 1598. He built the mansion of Kilworthy near Tavistock in Devon, England. He died in 1600 and is buried in the Tavistock Church where there is an elaborate tomb with a recumbent statue of him in his robes. In 1589 he was made Sargent.
Sir John Glanville born 1586 at Kilworthy, Tavistock was the youngest son of Sir John Glanville (above) and Alice Skerret. He was elected Speaker of the Short Parliament, 1640. He took part in the impeachment of Buckingham, 1626. He and Winifred Boucher had three daughters and four sons. He was elected a member of Parliment from Oxford University during the commonwealth. He had extensive estates, having bought Laverstoke, in Hampshire, in 1637; Highway in 1640, which cost him 4700 pounds, and was patron of the livings at Broad Hinton, Wiltshire, and Lamerton in Devonshire. Fuller calls him one of the biggest stars of the law. He was knighted in 1641.
Exerpts from "A History and Guide to St. Peter ad Vincula", Broad Hinton, Wiltshire, under the heading "Tombs and Monuments" the following pertains to the Glanvilles:
"Broad Hinton had strong Royalist sympathies in the Civil War. The register records that Sir John Glanville was "Speaker in ye days of that blessed martyr King Charles ye first, that glorious defender of ye Church of England against the Presbytery" and, later, that "Oliver Cromwell died September ye 3rd, 1658. Impia Memoriam. A great and wicked man as Lord Clarendon justly calls him."
There is a memorial tablet to SIR JOHN GLANVILLE (1589-1661) on the north wall of the chancel. He came from Kilworthy near Tavistock, and bought Broad Hinton from Sir Giles Wroughton in 1640, the same year that Sir John became Speaker of the House of Commons. He was Sergeant-at-Law to Charles I and II and was descended from Sir Ranulf Glanvil, a Lord Chief Justice in the reign of Henry II, who wrote the earliest work on the 'Common Law of England". (The spelling of the name Glanvil changed to Glanville sometime in the middle of the 17th Century.) Sir John married Winifred Bouchier of Barnsley, Gloucestershire, in about 1615.
For his part in the Illegal Assizes, Sir John was impeached for high treason by the Commons and imprisoned in the Tower of London for nearly 3 years. He was released in 1648 because Whitelock interceded for him and he agreed to pay 1/5 of his rents each year to make up a fine of 2,320 pounds sterling. From John Evelyn we learn that Sir John burnt down the Manor House rather than let it be used by Cromwell's troops. In his diary for 16 July, 1654, Evelyn wrote: " We went to another uncle and relative of my wife's, Sir John Glanville, a famous lawyer, formerly speaker of the House of Commons: his seat is at Broad Hinton where he now lives but in the Gatehouse, his very fair dwelling house having been burnt by his own hands, to prevent the rebels making a garrison of it."
The oldest Parish book of Registers, which covers the years from 1612 - 1682, has 3 entries about Sir John Glanville. One tells the story of how his elder brother, Francis, had been passed over in their father's Will because he was such a "vicious" young man, and how Sir John, noticing the change that had come about in his brother since their father's death, arranged a feast and after the food had been served, had a dish set before Francis. When the lid was taken off, it revealed papers which freely restored him to the whole estate. According to Bishop Burnett in his "Life of Judge Hale", Sir John was a man of a "generous and just disposition" who was instrumental in bringing about the happy change both in his brother and in Sir Matthew Hale.
The Register also describes Sir John as "a person fully acquainted with Parliamentary Proceedings, of a ready conception and a voluble expression, dextrous in ye way of disposing ye House, and acceptable both to them and to His Majesty Charles ye first. It goes on to quote Laurence Echard's "History of England" which describes him as "a famous orator and a person who bravely stood in the Gap in ye late Reign, both when the Prerogative was carried too high, and when it was too much depressed and for both which he was a remarkable sufferer".
Also on the north wall of the chancel is a memorial tablet to WILLIAM GLANVILLE, the eldest son of Sir John, who succeeded him at Broad Hinton. He married Frances, daughter of Sir Henry Gibbs, and she later married John Stone. Memorial on the south wall of the chancel sets out her many virtues. In 1677, the "worshipful and religious" William Glanville gave two large flaggons, a patten and bason, and a chalice with a cover to the Church. The old chest they ere kept in no longer exists but we still have the key. The life-size alabaster figure is of Lt.-Colonel Francis Glanville, second son of Sir John, who was killed at the siege of Bridgewater in 1645. It was the same year that Edward St. John died after being wounded at the battle of Newbury whilst fighting for the King. The golden cavalier at Lydiard Tregoz, which was set up as a monument to him, bears a striking resemblance to that of Francis Glanville. Francis had fought for 6 years in the army of Charles I in the Netherlands, Wales, and the north of England. He died at the age of 28 and it is not certain where he is buried. The end of the Latin inscription round the niche reads, in translation:
A greater hero England never saw Ah happy did she oft produce his equal.
In his hand is a banner with his coat of arms, three golden satires upon a blue shield, and over the niche hang his helmet, gauntlets, and a replica of his sword: the original one is on loan to the Tower of London. Pevsner praises the alabaster reliefs of victories in the sides of the niche, and includes a photograph in his book of the small reclining figure of a woman in her shroud at the foot, of whom he says, "Her agonized features are not easily forgotten".
Extract from "Wiltshire Collections" by Aubrey and Jackson
(The text was written by John Aubrey in the 1660s, the notes by John Jackson, in the 1860s.)
(Chancel. South Wall.)
Sir John Glanville, Knt., Serjeant at Lawe, lies buried in this Chancell; only a penon hangs over him with his coate, (No. 446).
"Memoriae Sacrum Johis Glanville Militis, Servientis ad Legem Caroli primi et Caroli secundi, filii Johis Glanville de Tavistoke in Com: Devon: tempore Reginae Elizabethae unius Justiciariorum de Communi Banco natu secundi: Communium in Parliamento Proloquutoris, hujus Manerii Glanvillorum primi emptoris et proprietarii. Obiit 2d. die Octobris A.D. 1661
Hoc monumentum propriis sumptibus posuit Winifreda Glanville ipsius Johis dum vixit uxor amantissima, nunc vidua maestissima, 29 die Sept. A.D. 1673."
In the N. wall of the Chancell is a statue of alabaster, and about the niche of this monument is a tedious Latin Inscription: but this is the substance of it.
"Erected to the memory of Francis Glanville, eldest sonne of the Serjeant, who was a Lieutenant- Colonel in the service of King Charles the First, obijt xxi day July, AEtat. 28, 1645, at the siege of Bridgwater, in Com. Somerset."
* Notes
I. That part of the parish which is in Selkley Hundred, was held of the Castle Combe Barony by the Wase family (see "Blountesdon") in 1392: afterwards by Wm. Wrofton, Worston, or Wroughton, by whose descendants it was held for about 200 years. The house was built by Sir William Wroughton in A.D. 1540. (For their Pedigree see Wilts Visit. 1565 and 1623.) About A.D. 1640 the estate was bought from Sir Giles Wroughton by Sir John Glanville (second son of John Glanville, Judge of C.P.), a very celebrated Sergeant-at-Law, and Speaker of the House of Commons. (See Chalmer's Biog. Dict.) The purchase is mentioned in his epitaph, added to Aubrey's Text. He is said (but quoere) to have burned Broad Hinton House, in order to prevent its being garrisoned by the Parliament. John Evelyn visited here. (Diary, 1654.)
Mr Bernard Burke in his "Romantic Records of distinguished Families" (volume i.p.1) has worked up a story of "The Glanvilles," the facts of which he states to have been "gleaned with much labour and almost grain by grain," but his authorities are not given. The outline of it is, that Sir John Glanville, the Judge, disinherited Francis his eldest son for his wildness, and gave certain estates to his younger son John the Serjeant: that a Mr William Crymes of Killworthy near Tavistock, having been saved from assassins by Francis in the streets of London interceded for him with Sir John the father on his death bed, but too late: that Francis afterwards adopting a steady life and following with diligence the study of the Law, married Elizabeth Crymes the daughter: that John Glanville upon hearing of this event and being satisfied of his brother's entire reformation invited him to dinner, placed him at the head of his table and desired him to raise the cover of the dish before him. Its contents, though dry, were not unsavoury to Francis; being a bundle of parchments, which which the estates were transferred to himself. There are some monuments of the Glanville family at Tavistock, co. Devon.
A correspondent of the Devizes Gazette, March, 1858, who claims to speak upon authority, states that "The descendants of Sir John Glanville became reduced, and in the early part of the 17th century sold the estate to Thomas Benett Esq.": (A Subsidy Roll of A.D. 1639-40 gives the names of William, Julius, and the Lady Glanville, as separate contributors at Broad-Hinton in that year.) "From Mr. Benett this estate, as well as that of the Norbornes, and also the Salthrop estate, passed to his daughter, Mrs. Pye Bennett, formerly of Salthrop. On her death the estates passed to her daughter Mrs. Calley, the wife of Thomas Calley, Esq. of Burderop, and on her death to her son, the late John James Calley Esq. He sold them to John Parkinson Esq., of Lincoln's-inn-fields, who, however - as it turned out upon his death, a few years ago - purchased, and held them as trustee, for the great Duke of Wellington." The Broad-Hinton and Salthrop estates have been since bought (about 1860) from the second Duke of Wellington by Anthony M. S. Maskelyne Esq. of Basset's Down.
A Translation of Glanville
is being offered for sale by a company in Florida, USA. Reprinted in 1999 with ISBN:1-56169-531-9
This appears to be a book written in 1812 by John Beames, who I am informed by one of his descendents was a translator, philologist, linguist and civil magistrate for the East India Company during the Raj.
The translation is of the Latin and French writings of Ranulf de Glanville 1130-1190
Ghosts of the South West
By TONY ELLIS
The ghost of Kilworthy House is thought to be that of Elizabeth Glanville, daughter of Judge John Glanville, who owned the house in the late-16th and early-17th centuries.
Elizabeth Glanville was very much in love with George Stanwich, a local Tavistock man, who was a Naval officer. Her father strongly disapproved of the association between Elizabeth and George and forced her to marry a much-older goldsmith from Plymouth, by the name of Page, who was regarded as a miser. It is said that he married Elizabeth in order that he might have an heir to disappoint his relations, who had assumed until that time that they would inherit his wealth.
Elizabeth took her maidservant with her to her new home in Plymouth and, upon realising the amount of money he could save on servants' wages, Page dismissed his own staff and made Elizabeth and her maidservant perform all the household duties.
After a short while, quickly disillusioned with the thought of being married to an old miser, Elizabeth met George Stanwich and together with her maidservant, they plotted to murder her husband. Page was found dead a week later, having been strangled by the maid. All three were arrested for the murder of the old miser. Elizabeth's father was the judge and all three were sentenced to death.
It is only in recent years that the ghost of Elizabeth Glanville has been seen at Kilworthy House. Her outline, wearing a cloak and hood, but without a face, has been seen by the school staff, workmen and other people, but never by the children. She has been seen standing at the top of the stairs, in a bedroom, and also walking in the grounds. There have also been reports of poltergeist activity at the house, mainly the banging of doors. On several occasions, the rustle of silk has been heard on the stairs.
The conscience-stricken ghost of Judge John Glanville has also been seen walking in Kilworthy House, ever repentant for sentencing his daughter to death.
John Glanvill
He was born circa 1664 at Broad Hinton, Wilts.; died 1735; the third of five children of Julius Glanvill (1631/2-1710), of Lincoln's Inn, and Anne Bagnall (c.1637-1702).
He attended Marlborough School and became a commoner of Trinity College, Oxford in 1678. In 1680 he was elected scholar and awarded a BA (Bachelor of Arts) in 1682 and MA (Master of Arts) in 1685. During 1683 he had competed for a fellowship at All Souls, but the fellowship was awarded to the translator Thomas Creech, and in a fit of pique Glanvill declaimed in the Schools "Contra translatores".
It was alleged he was expelled from Trinity College; he entered Lincoln's Inn, and was called to the Bar. He inherited the family estates at Kingston-on-Thames and around 1728 acquired a large estate at Catchfrench, near St. Germans, in Cornwall. He died there a wealthy bachelor in 1735, and his will was proved by his nephew and heir, John Glanvill, citizen and apothecary of London on 16 June 1735.
He was a poet and translator, but proclaiming a dislike of translations, much of his work took such a form. He translated parts of Seneca's Agamemnon for Miscellany Poems and Translations by Oxford Hands (1685). He also translated, from the French of Fontenelle, A Plurality of Worlds (1688), an influential popularization of current scientific thinking. His work also included numerous pieces of panegyric, such as Some Odes of Horace imitated with Relation to his Majesty and The Times (1690), and a Poem... Lamenting the Death of her Late Sacred Majesty from the Small-pox (1695). Other panegyric verse to members of the royal family were written. It is also possible that he was the "J.G." who wrote Damon (1696), a pastoral lamenting the death of Henry Purcell. His "Poems", consisting of Originals and Translations (1725) includes most of his surviving work. Francis Gregor's edition of Fortescue's De Laudibus Legum Angliae (1737) includes two letters written to Gregor by him in 1730.
Two of his poems published 1725 in "Poems" were "Near the Banks of a Stream, in the Gloom of a Grove" and "The Drinker's Plea"
Granville William alias Glanville, age 15, transported for Devonport theft
Found in the Bridgwater & Somerset Advertiser 3rd August 1831

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