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"The Most Arrogant Man in the World"
by John
Barratt
Despite his fame, Grenville is in some respects an enigmatic
character, with large gaps in our knowledge of his life and
activities. He was born in about 1542, three years before his
father, Roger, died as captain of the ill-fated Mary Rose. Grenville gained early military experience fighting in Hungary
against the Turks, and possibly in Ireland, but for almost twenty
years afterwards he seems to have followed the life of a West
Country gentleman. During this time, involved in enforcing
government legislation, he was noted for his severity against
English Catholics.
Like many of his contemporaries, Grenville became engaged in
colonial ventures, and in 1585-6, at the age of 42 in probably his
first experience of command at sea, led two expeditions to
Virginia. Already contemporaries were noting certain marked
features of Grenville’s character. A Spaniard who met him
described Grenville as “the most arrogant man in the world”,
whilst another wrote of his “intolerable pride and insatiable
ambition.” Grenville’s cruelty, which alienated the Native
Americans of Roanoke, was remarked upon, whilst some of the
possibly apocryphal stories circulating about him suggested an
instability bordering at times on madness. Another Spanish account
claimed that “He would carouse three or four glasses of wine, and
in a braverie take the glasses between his teeth and crush them in
pieces and swallowe them downe, so that often times the blood ran
out of his mouth without any harme at all done to him.”
By the late 1580’s Grenville was one of the English “corsairs”
most feared by the Spaniards, according to them hated even by his
own men for his “fierceness”. In English ruling circles Grenville
was regarded with some disquiet. He was not sent with Drake on the
famous Cadiz expedition of 1587, because it was felt that he would
be unwilling to obey orders, and during the Armada campaign was
relegated to co-ordinating the land defences of Devon and
Cornwall. In mid-March 1591when he was recalled to unexpected
command in the Azores Squadron, Grenville, almost 50 years of age,
may have seen it as a last chance to make his reputation.
Copyright 2001 by
John Barratt.
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