George Granville, 1st Baron Lansdowne PC (9 March 1666 – 29 January 1735) was an English poet, playwright, and politician who served as a Privy Counsellor from 1712.
Granville was the grandson of Sir Bevil Grenville, a Royalist commander in the English Civil War. His uncle was John Granville, 1st Earl of Bath, and George Monck, 1st Duke of Albemarle was another relative; these influences guaranteed that Granville began life as a staunch Tory and Jacobite.
Still, his early interests were as much literary as political. He entered Trinity College, Cambridge in 1677.[1] Among his productions while there were poems welcoming Mary of Modena when she visited the university. By the mid-1690s, after a period in Paris, and another, after the Glorious Revolution, in retirement in England, he had befriended John Dryden and begun to write plays. He wrote an undistignuished comedy of manners, The She Gallants, which was staged unsuccessfully in 1695. His adult plays bear the marks of Dryden's influence. The Heroick Love is taken from the first book of The Iliad. Granville also followed Dryden in adapting Shakespeare; The Jew of Venice (1701) was a successful updating of The Merchant of Venice. Perhaps his greatest success was The British Enchanters (1705), a pseudo-operatic extravaganza staged by Thomas Betterton's company.
In the opinion of Samuel Johnson, Granville's nondramatic poetry is slavishly imitative of Edmund Waller; some of it, however, was popular in its day. Perhaps Granville's most useful act as regards poetry was the encouragement he gave Alexander Pope, which Pope remembered with gratitude in the Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot.
The death of Granville's parents and uncle in 1701 placed Granville in a position of power which the accession of Queen Anne in 1702 allowed him to employ. With the help of his uncle's family, he was elected MP for Fowey in 1702, and made Governor of Pendennis Castle the following year. In Parliament, he operated in the sphere of Harley, who was an indifferent patron at first. The height of his fame during the Godolphin-Marlborough administration came from his spirited defence of Henry Sacheverell in 1710.
After the fall of the Godolphin government, Granville became MP for Cornwall, and on 28 September 1710 he was made Secretary of War.[2] In this capacity, he oversaw the passage of important bills on munitions and recruitment. However, his experience in the Tory government was marked by family and legal strife. He expended time and money in an ultimately futile effort to secure the title of Earl of Bath. Despite some success, his tenure in the War Office was marred by accusations of corruption and expensive contested elections. He was made a Privy Counsellor in 1712.
He was created Baron Lansdown (Lansdowne) on 1 January 1712 in the Peerage of Great Britain. The peerage became extinct on his death.
In 1714 Anne was succeeded by the Hanoverian George I, who notably favoured the Whigs. Almost all the Tories who held office under Anne were dismissed, including Lord Lansdown. Embittered, he began a secret correspondence with the Jacobite pretender "James III". This came to nothing, but on 3 November 1722, James created him "Duke of Albemarle", "Marquis Monck and Fitzhemmon", "Earl of Bath", "Viscount Bevil", and "Baron Lansdown of Bideford" in the Jacobite Peerage of England. He died in London on 29 January 1735, his wife having predeceased him by a few days, and was buried with her in St Clement Danes on 3 February.
| Parliament of England | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by John Williams John Hicks |
Member of Parliament for Fowey 1702–1707 With: John Hicks |
Succeeded by Parliament of Great Britain |
| Parliament of Great Britain | ||
| Preceded by Parliament of England |
Member of Parliament for Fowey 1707–1710 With: John Hicks 1707–1708 Henry Vincent 1708–1710 |
Succeeded by Henry Vincent Viscount Dupplin |
| Preceded by Sidney Godolphin Sir John Evelyn |
Member of Parliament for Helston 1710 With: Sidney Godolphin |
Succeeded by Sidney Godolphin Robert Child |
| Preceded by Hugh Boscawen James Buller |
Member of Parliament for Cornwall 1710–1712 With: John Trevanion |
Succeeded by John Trevanion Sir Richard Vyvyan, Bt |
| Military offices | ||
| Preceded by Sir Bevil Granville |
Governor of Pendennis Castle 1703–1714 |
Succeeded by Richard Munden |
| Political offices | ||
| Preceded by Robert Walpole |
Secretary at War 1710–1712 |
Succeeded by Sir William Wyndham, Bt |
| Preceded by Sir John Holland, Bt |
Comptroller of the Household 1711–1712 |
Succeeded by Sir John Stonhouse, Bt |
| Preceded by The 1st Earl of Cholmondeley |
Treasurer of the Household 1712–1714 |
Succeeded by The 1st Earl of Cholmondeley |
| Peerage of Great Britain | ||
| New creation | Baron Lansdowne 1712–1735 |
Extinct |