Later Life
By the time we are first introduced to Sir Gregory, he is a rotund man in his early fifties. After he inherited a baronetcy from a cousin at the age of thirty-one, he took up a life of quiet dignity at Matchingham Hall, in the village of Much Matchingham, Shropshire. By the age of fifty-two, he has taken on the appearance of a Regency buck who has overindulged somewhat.
Like Professor Moriarty in the Sherlock Holmes books, Parsloe-Parsloe is the chief villain in Lord Emsworth's life, having first sustained a bitter rivalry in the raising of pumpkins for the Shrewsbury Show. After many victories for the dark side, Emsworth's prize pumpkin, "Hope of Blandings", finally managed to overturn Parsloe-Parsloe's previous dominance in this critical battle, as related in the short "The Custody of the Pumpkin".
In "Company for Gertrude", not long after Emsworth's pig Empress of Blandings has won the Fat Pigs Contest at the Shropshire Agricultural Show, Parsloe has lured away Emsworth's pig-tender, George Cyril Wellbeloved, in a sinister attempt to gain a crucial advantage for his own porker, Pride of Matchingham. This dark bit of treachery involved offering Wellbeloved a higher salary in order to switch allegiance, in violation of the old feudal ethic.
Emsworth was understandably shaken to his foundation by this act, to such a degree that, by the time of Summer Lightning, he is willing to believe (encouraged by his brother Galahad, who had not been on cordial terms with Parsloe since the Winter of the year 1906) that Parsloe would go as far as to kidnap the Empress.
At one time, Parsloe had to consult Percy Pilbeam on a matter of some compromising letters, and later does so again, offering him £500 to steal Galahad's manuscript, lest the revelations contained therein jeopardise his candidacy as a "Unionist" in a forthcoming by-election in the "Bridgeford and Shifley" Parliamentary Division of Shropshire. Inevitably, Parsloe-Parsloe is a good friend of Emsworth's domineering sister, Lady Constance Keeble, and the two form a syndicate acting through Pilbeam with the aim of destroying Galahad's book - their scheme continues into the events of Heavy Weather.
At the start of Pigs Have Wings, Parsloe has become engaged to Gloria Salt, a health-loving, athletic young girl who makes him diet. He is quite pleased when she jilts him for another, especially as soon afterwards he is reunited with his true love, Maudie.
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