FULKE, Lord Brooke, a poet and miscellaneous writer, was born in the year 1554, and descended from the noble families of Beauchamps of Powick and Willoughby de Brooke. In company with his cousin Sir Philip Sidney, he began his education at a school in Shrewsbury; whence he went to Oxford, where he remained for some time as a gentleman commoner, and then removed to Trinity College, Cambridge. Having left the university, he visited foreign courts, and thus to his knowledge of the ancient languages added an acquaintance with the modern. On his return to England he was introduced to Queen Elizabeth by his uncle Robert Greville, at that time in her majesty's service; and by means of Sir Henry Sidney, lord president of Wales, he was nominated to some lucrative employments in that principality.

On the accession of King James I. he was installed knight of the bath; and soon afterwards obtained a grant of the ruinous castle of Warwick, which he repaired at a considerable expense, and where he probably resided during the earlier part of this reign. In the year 1614, he was made under-treasurer and chancellor of the exchequer, a member of the privy-council, and gentleman of the bed-chamber; and in 1620 he was raised to the dignity of baron by the style and title of Lord Brooke of Beauchamp's Court. He was also privy-councillor to King Charles I., in the beginning of whose reign he founded an historical lecture in Cambridge. Having thus attained the age of seventy-four, through a life of continued prosperity, and being universally admired as a gentleman and a scholar, he fell by the hand of an assassin, one of his own domestics, who immediately stabbed himself with the same weapon with which he had murdered his master. Notwithstanding Lord Orford's flippant and depreciatory estimate of Lord Brooke's talents, he appears to have cherished a taste for polite learning, particularly for poetry and history. His principal works are, 1. The Life of the renowned Sir Philip Sidney, London, 1652, in 12mo; 2. Certaine Learned and Elegant Workes of the Right Hon. Fulke Lord Brooke, written in his youth and familiar exercise with Sir Philip Sidney, London, 1633; 3. The Remains of Sir Fulke Greville Lord Brooke, being Poems of Monarchy and Religion, never before printed, London, 1670, in 8vo. Lord Orford erroneously attributes to him "Five Years of King James, or the condition of the State of England, and the relation it hath to other Provinces," 1643; a work which was evidently written by one of the Presbyterians, and which was republished with additions in 1651, 4to.