Richard Grenville

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Richard Grenville, 1571

Sir Richard Grenville (born June 6, 1542 in Clifton House in Devonshire , † September 10, 1591 on the high seas near the Azores ) was an English sailor, explorer and soldier of the Elizabethan era , known for his daring "last stand" against the Spaniards with the Revenge .

Life

Grenville grew up in Buckland Abbey in Devonshire. Sir Walter Raleigh and Francis Drake were his cousins. He also got to know Theodor Palaiologos , the last descendant of the Byzantine emperor, who spent his twilight years in Grenville's hometown of Clifton. At the age of 17 he studied law at the Inner Temple in London . In 1562 he killed a Robert Bannister with his sword in a fight on the beach , but was pardoned.

He embarked on a military career and fought against the Turks in Hungary in 1566 . In 1569 he went to Ireland, where he gave military support to various English nobles such as St. Leger in the occupation and colonization of land in the south of Ireland. This led to uprisings by the Irish under James Fitzmaurice Fitzgerald ( First Desmond Rebellions ), who brought down the English garrison at Tracton, robbed the city of Cork and besieged Waterford , in which the wives of Grenville and St. Leger were. Grenville, Sheriff of Cork at the time, remained in England where he made pacts with the Earl of Arundel and the Duke of Norfolk against the Queen's Secretary, Sir William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley . In Devonshire, he built the fishing village of Bideford into a trading port and planned sea voyages to distant lands. The plan to circumnavigate the world via the Strait of Magellan came from him - but Queen Elizabeth had it carried out by Francis Drake in 1577. In 1577 he was knighted as a Knight Bachelor . In 1585 Grenville was admiral of the fleet that brought English settlers to a colony on Roanoke Island off North Carolina . He killed an entire Indian village just because a native had stolen a small silver bowl. This approach was harshly criticized by the then governor of the colony, Ralph Lane, as one was dependent on a peaceful coexistence with the indigenous people. When Grenville returned to the colony in 1586, it had already been abandoned and the colonists sailed back with Drake. On the way back to England Grenville plundered several places in the Azores. Drake refused command in his successful raid on Cádiz in 1587. Instead Grenville was busy with defensive preparations in Cornwall and Devonshire in the face of an expected Spanish invasion. After the defeat of the Spanish Armada , in which Grenville was involved by patrols at sea off Ireland (together with Walter Raleigh), Grenville went back to Ireland, where he was involved in the suppression of the second Desmond Rebellion in 1583, where he owned large estates (approx. 97 square kilometers) at Kinalmeaky. His attempts at colonization (that is, the settlement of English farmers) were unsuccessful and he returned to England in 1590. He took back a sea command as Vice Admiral under Thomas Howard , with the order to ambush the Spanish silver fleet in the Azores.

The final battle of the Revenge

Its flagship was the Revenge . However, they were surprised at Flores by an overpowering Spanish fleet of 53 ships sent by Philip II . While Howard withdrew, Grenville surrendered to the Spanish, although its crew had already been reduced to 95 men due to illness. In the twelve-hour battle, he caused severe damage to 15 Spanish galleons . In the end he wanted to sink his ship himself in an explosion, but the crew did not follow him and surrendered. Grenville, wounded in the sea battle, died on September 10, 1591 in captivity on the flagship of the Spanish admiral Alonso de Bazán. Together with 16 Spanish ships, the Revenge, which was taken over by a prize squad , sank shortly afterwards in a storm.

Afterlife

Soon poems were being written in England on this “heroic deed”. Well known is a poem Revenge by Alfred Tennyson . The song Lord Grenville on the music album Year of the Cat by Al Stewart is also related to him.

literature

  • AL Rowse : Sir Richard Grenville of the Revenge, London 1937.
  • Peter Earle: The Last Fight of the Revenge, London 2004, ISBN 0-413-77484-8 .
  • Richard Bagwell: Ireland under the Tudors, 3 volumes, London 1885 to 1890.
  • Nicholas P. Canny: The Elizabethan Conquest of Ireland. A Pattern Established, 1565-76. London 1976, ISBN 0-85527-034-9 .
  • Cyril Falls: Elizabeth's Irish Wars. 1950, reprint, London 1996, ISBN 0-09-477220-7 .

References and comments

  1. ^ William Arthur Shaw: The Knights of England. Volume 2, Sherratt and Hughes, London 1906, p. 78.
  2. The heated nature of Grenville describes an anecdote of Spanish captains from this time, according to which Grenville used to bite the glasses when drinking at feasts as a sign of his courage, whereby he pretended that he did not care about the subsequent blood flow.
  3. Manuel Fernández Álvarez : Felipe II y su tiempo . Espasa, Madrid 1998, ISBN 84-239-9736-7 , p. 576.