Greville, Sir Fulke, First Baron Brooke

(1554-1628)

   Born at Beauchamp Court, Warwickshire, the son of Sir Fulke Greville, he was educated at Jesus College, Cambridge. He had a lifelong friendship with Philip Sidney, with whom he was a courtier. Greville was courtier for Elizabeth, James I and Charles I, and so much in Elizabeth's favor was he that she forbade him to travel abroad or to put himself in danger; when he did, he incurred her displeasure. As a member of Parliament he held various positions of government and was made a Knight of the Bath by James I, and a peer in 1621. Mystery surrounds his death; he was stabbed by a servant who then committed suicide. His works, chiefly published after his death, consist of tragedies and sonnets, and poems on political and moral subjects, including (1586) Cælica-109 sonnets composed of love poems as well as verses on religious and philosophical themes-and The Life of the Rennowned Sir Philip Sidney (1652.) Some of his other poems: "A Treatise of Monarchy," "Epitaph on Sir Philip Sidney," "Mustapha," "Myra," "Of Human Learning," "Under a throne I saw a virgin sit."

   Sources: Dictionary of National Biography. Electronic Edition 1.1. Oxford University Press, 1997. Encyclopædia Britannica Ultimate Reference Suite DVD, 2006. English Poetry: Author Search. Chadwyck-Healey Ltd., 1995 (http://www.lib.utexas.edu:8080/search/epoetry/author.html). English Renaissance Poetry: A Collection of Shorter Poems from Skelton to Jonson. John Williams, ed. University of Arkansas, 1990. The Columbia Granger's Index to Poetry. 11th ed. The Columbia Granger's World of Poetry, Columbia University Press, 2005 (http://www.columbiagrangers.org). The Faber Book of Political Verse. Tom Paulin, ed. Faber and Faber, 1986. The National Portrait Gallery (www.npg.org.uk). The Oxford Companion to English Literature. 6th edition. Margaret Drabble, ed. Oxford University Press, 2000. The Penguin Book of Renaissance Verse 1509-1659. David Norbrook, ed. Penguin Books, 1992.