Richard Grenville, III

“He [Richard II] was succeeded by his eldest son, Richard, who held the manor of Bideford by half a knight’s fee of the honour of Gloucester in the reign of Henry the Second, and in the twelfth year of the same reign he is mentioned in the rolls as holding three knights fees and a half in Devon and Cornwall. In the second year of the reign of King John, 1200, he was knighted, being styled Lord of Bideford and Kilkhampton… In the year 1204 King John (by a charter dated the 14th September), granted and confirmed to him, by the name of Richard, eldest begotton son of Richard de Grenvil, the marriage of the daughter and heir of Thomas de Middleton, with all her inheritance, fees, etc.”[1]

“In Bennett’s History of Tewkesbury, pp. 340-344, we find that the living of Bideford had been given in the reign of Henry the First to Tewkesbury Abbey, the patronage being vested in Mabel, Countess of Gloucester. This Richard de Greinville had the misfortune to become involved in legal proceedings with the Abbot of Tewkesbury concerning the advowson of the Churches of Bideford and Kilkhampton; and in the second year of the reign of King John he paid forty marks and a palfry to have an assize against that prelate. The lawsuit lasted many years, but at last a compromise was effected in his grandson’s time, and we read in “Nevyll’s Registers,” fol. 7, that the advowson of St. Mary’s Church, Bideford, was annexed to the manor of Bideford. [2]

“He married, according to Austin’s pedigree, one Gundreda, by whom he left a young family, all under age at the time of his death, 1204. The king gave the land and wardship to Richard Fleminge… [3]

 Sources  1.↑ Roger Granville, The History of the Granville Family (1895), p. 31. 2.↑ Roger Granville, The History of the Granville Family (1895), pp. 31-32. 3.↑ Roger Granville, The History of the Granville Family (1895), p. 32.