Robert Greaves

[Robert Greaves]

Character Sheet Player Profile
    Name: Rob
    Email: nrg1989uk@gmail.com
    Age: 30
    How you found us: Links on other rpg boards
    What is your background and experience in roleplaying: Been historical rpging on other boards for a while now.
    What themes do you wish to explore in our game: Love the Stuart era and want to throw myself into a written community with writers who share the same!
    What makes you excited to do in our game: Enjoy Stuart England
    What are you NOT looking for in our game: Am very open so I wont say anything I actively dislike at present!
     
    Character Profile  
    Character Name: Robert Ambrose Fitzharding Greaves
    Title: Viscount Lowther
    Estate Name: Turnock Hall
    Nationality: English
    Age: 32
    Gender: Male
    Eye Colour: Blue
    Hair Colour: Brown, but he wears a periwig so his hair colour does appear to change
    Avatar: Fabian Marchal
     
    The First Impression & Physical Appearance 

Robert is not a stand-oy character. He is of middling height, around 5 foot 7, although with the occasional use of shoes with a generous heel he can appear taller. Fond of sport and exercise, he has a strong, slim body. Not overly muscular but still strapping and strong. He is well spoken, although he carries the burr of a Yorkshire accent. He wears his hair naturally, albeit in the older French style, not too contemporary. Many of the family's lands and their primary estate are in the rolling moorlands of North Yorkshire where, as a child, Robert was raised. He is confident - the sort of confidence that comes from being a titled aristocrat- but he does suffer from nerves to a degree. His "tell" when he is anxious is that he fiddles with the rings on his fingers and this can be quite distracting for others. His dress is not the most flashy or fashionable on occasion of the fact that he is not benefitted by a large supply of ready funds. Money is tighter than he lets on.

    Personality

Robert is a confidant gentleman. He is relatively refined and benefitted from a good education. He can speak French, although he does so with a thick Yorkshire accent which rather massacres the lilting French language. He enjoys jokes, especially practical ones and there is a large streak of untamed boyishness that runs through him. He is primarily interested in outdoor activities: hunting, riding, shooting, fishing and walking. He fences well enough and saw limited service on the Continent with the Dutch as an observer. However, that is not to say he is a soldier although he fancies he could be one if he was given the chance. He likes to gamble, but can rarely afford to lose the money. Currently unmarried, he is looking for a bride but, in the meantime, enjoys the chase and thrill of elicit and furtive love affairs with women of all stations. He is not boorish or a philistine but his knowledge of sciences and the arts is passing. He is keen to know more but he is no expert in them himself. He is good company if you like energy. If you are quiet, you might find him rather loud and obnoxious.

  
    Wealth Level :
    

Average. Unlike many lords, his annual revenue is not that large, in part due to bad estate management by his ancestors and various unlucky actions in the past. He gets by, but there is a lot on credit.
     
    Housing:
    The Red Lion.
     
    Benefits, Challenges

Benefits

Viscount +2

Challenges

In debt -1

Accent (rural Yorkshire) -1

Naïve about Court/Politics -1
     
    Origin/Background

Robert was born on 31 May 1646, the third son (at the time) of Henry Greaves, fifth Viscount Lowther, and his wife Catherine Baskerville-Fitzharding. The Greaves family traced its origins back to the Norman Conquest and, until the reign of the early Tudors, had contented themselves with being small time rural gentry with a patchwork quilt of small estates scattered across the North Riding of Yorkshire. None of the family achieved much in the way of renown and plodded generation through generation with the solid respectability of dependable, English gentry.

The first to come to any sort of prominence with Ambrose Greaves (1493 - 1558), who left the Yorkshire family lands and settled in London, becoming a successful lawyer and, having adopted the Reformed religion quickly in the 1530s, invested his capital (made from a successful career as a pleader before the Court of Chancery) in dissolved monastic estates. A supporter of the Seymour family, he was rewarded with an Viscounty in the closing years of the reign of Henry VIII. His grandson, Henry Greaves, became the fifth Viscount Lowther, succeeding his older brother (Ambrose) who had in turn succeeded their uncle, the third Viscount (also, confusingly, called Ambrose). Henry Greaves (1602 - 1662) was a most unfortunate man. Never expected to take the title, he had received little practical education and so, when he inherited the estate, he began (through good intentions) to run it into the ground. He married Catherine Baskerville-Fitzharding, the sole heiress of a wealthy local neighbor, in a marriage which was far from a love-match. The couple lived unhappily ever after. Despite personal incompatibility, they still managed to create six children:-

Ambrose (1638 -1639)

Catherine (1640- 1644)

Henry (1644 - 1673)

Robert (1646 - )

Elizabeth (1650 - )

Charles (1650 - )

A thorough Royalist, Henry was quick to join the King's forces in the Civil War and helped add further damage to the estate by mortgaging a large amount of land to raise a regiment for the royalist cause. This regiment did not fare particularly well and was destroyed at Naseby. In the wake of the royalist defeat, the victorious local Parliamentarians took revenge on many of their royalist neighbours, and large parts of the family lands were either used to billet troops on or else were heavily damaged or vandalized, significantly reducing their value.

Robert was born in the closing days of the Civil War and would grow up in the uncertainty caused by his father's allegiances. He was not able to be sent to the best of schools and had to make do with schooling in the local grammar school with the sons of the locality. He instead devoted himself to outdoor pursuits which would come to be his chief passion in later life. He enjoyed the hurly burly of rough and ready fun. With finances tight, he did not have the best clothes or the best horses and the like but learnt to get by. The Restoration of the monarchy did bring better times to the family in that they got back their local respect but the damage had been done as to their finances and it became clear that members of the family would need to shift as best they could to sort that themselves. Viscount Henry died in 1662 and Robert's elder brother, also a Henry, became the sixth Viscount. He immediately left for Court but failed to make much headway in securing an official post or official preferment. 

Whilst his brother headed to Court, Robert himself when he was 20 left Yorkshire and, after a brief stay in London with his brother, crossed to the Continent, ostensibly to become a gentleman volunteer with the Dutch Republic's armed forces. Although the Dutch, in the 1660s were the enemy of the English, the family leaning towards Protestantism had left a residual mark on Robert in that he could not bring himself to go and seek such a role with the much more fashionable French or Imperials. Being brutally honest, Robert did not much enjoy his time soldiering and was not called on to fight often, if at all. Much time was spent on the many marches and counter marches of observational warfare. He spent time both under fire whilst besieged and also in the lines of circumvallation whilst being a besieger. His proficiency with a firelock is perfectly competent and his skill with a sword passable, although he will never make a master fencer. Ironically, during all this time he learnt little, if any, Dutch and instead spoke almost completely French.

He returned to England in 1674 following the unexpected death of his elder brother. The title now passed to him as the seventh Viscount. The family had a habit of passing the title on quickly through early deaths, hence why only four generations had managed to clock up seven earls. This worries Robert and so he is eager to try the best he can to live, and do well, whilst he can. He is keen to marry and raise a family of his own. If his wife can be well dowered, so much the better! He is determined to try and improve the family situation and in order to do that needs money. How he can get that he doesn't know. His plan, formulated in 1677, was to do as his elder brother did: come to London and try to find someone who could help him get closer to the seat of power where gifts, favors and fortunes can often be caught like crumbs from a richly laden table.
     
    Goals

(1) To get married. He is keen to find a bride as soon as possible.

(2) In the meantime, find at least one mistress to keep things ticking along!

(3) Find some sort of employment or position that can be used to help try and improve his family's fortunes.

Edited March 24, 2020 by Robert Greaves

[Defiance]

Welcome to Age of Intrigue, your Character Sheet has been ACCEPTED!

 

Please make sure you check our timeline and note that your arrival will be in the EVENING on the newest day of IN THE THICK OF IT!