Robert Greville, 2nd Baron Brooke

Who was Robert Greville, 2nd Baron Brooke?

Robert Greville, 2nd Baron Brooke was an English Civil War Roundhead General.

Greville was the cousin and adopted son of Fulke Greville, 1st Baron Brooke, and thus became 2nd Lord Brooke, and owner of Warwick Castle. He was born in 1607, and entered parliament for Warwick in 1628 but his election was voided on succeeding to his kinsman's peerage that year, when he became able to sit in the House of Lords. He was involved in the foundation of Saybrooke in Connecticut.

During the Civil War, he commanded Parliament forces in Warwickshire and Staffordshire and was looked on by many as the Earl of Essex's eventual successor. In 1642 he gained the victory of Kineton. He took Stratford-upon-Avon in February, 1643 and was killed shortly afterwards besieging Lichfield Cathedral on 2 March.

Greville was reportedly shot by a sniper and many consider him to be the first recorded victim of sniper fire.

Brooke, eulogized as a friend of toleration by John Milton, wrote on philosophical, theological and current political topics. The Cambridge History of English and American Literature said of Greville,: