[1] Grenville was the maternal great-grandson of Charles Seymour, 6th Duke of Somerset and therefore a descendant of Lady Katherine Grey, a great-granddaughter of Henry VII and Elizabeth of York.

In September 1784 his cousin, William Pitt the Younger, informed Grenville that the King had asked him pointedly when he would he return from his Continental tour?

[3] When in office Pitt drew Grenville closer giving him a position and experience at debating for the administration in the Commons.

In the Speaker's chair Grenville would be a support to Pitt, who was attempting to stall legal proceedings for a Regency as long as he could.

[4] Grenville therefore served briefly as Speaker of the House of Commons before he entered the cabinet as Home Secretary, in place of Lord Spencer and resigned his other posts.

[2][5] He became Leader of the House of Lords when he was raised to the peerage the next year as Baron Grenville, of Wotton under Bernewood in the County of Buckingham.

Grenville's focus led him to dispatch agents such as William Wickham to the Continent to collect information and engage with Royalists to counter the Revolution.

The Secretary supported a vigorous war against the French and was not in favour of making peace on terms which he considered beneath Britain's honour.

Pitt was not happy with this arrangement when he saw that Grenville's despatches to the British diplomat in France, James Harris Earl Malmesbury were unnecessarily harsh and uncompromising.

Grenville left office with Pitt in 1801 over the issue of George III's refusal to assent to Catholic emancipation.

In 1819, when the Marquess of Lansdowne brought forward his motion for an inquiry into the causes of the distress and discontent in the manufacturing districts, Grenville delivered a speech advocating repressive measures.

There was a conflict between secular ideologies, the conscription of huge armies, the new role of the Russian Empire as a continental power, and especially the sheer length and cost of the multiple coalitions.

Grenville energetically worked to build and hold together the Allied coalitions and paid suitable attention to smaller members such as Denmark and the Kingdom of Sardinia.

Grenville knew the spot from rambles during his time at Eton College and prized its distant views of his old school and of Windsor Castle.