English 16th Century sea history;
Lord Howard of Effingham, Sir Richard Grenville, Drake and the Armada
This page picks up details of the parts played by the Revenge,
by Lord Howard
of Effingham
and by Sir Richard Grenville
in the Elizabethan campaigns of sea
expansion that culminated in the Armada,
as recounted in the excellent and most readable
Sir Francis Drake
by George Malcolm THOMPSON (Book Club Associates
1972).
Under headings for Revenge, Grenville, Howard and the Azores,
the following list extracts and summarises indexed items in the above publication
There are two mentions of Sir Richard Grenville's action in 1591 off the Azores,
leading to the surrender and foundering of the Revenge
(see Revenge, pp 256, 304
below)
Any further information, on-line or otherwise, about this naval action and the participants
would be most welcome
Please email me via my homepage or at:
ben.simpson@wolfson.ox.ac.uk
The Revenge
- p 232
- 'Drake in the Revenge led out of the Sound a line of thirty ships, three abreast, which
dipped their flags and fired a salute as they met the incoming ships. Howard flew the royal
standard, the Lord Admiral of England's flag and a rear admiral's flag. Drake hauled down the
admiral's flag he had been flying and hoisted in its place the rear-admiral's flag which Howard
sent him by pinnace.'
[Leaving Plymouth to meet the Armada, the initial sortie, May ?15th 15...]
,
- p239
- 'Once more into Plymouth Sound crowded the cream of the Queen's Navy, those well-found,
fighting galleons with their surprising turn of speed and their gratifying ability to sail a point or
two nearer the wind than any ship they were likely to meet. Children of John Hawkins' brain,
they were the themes of lyrical praise by Howard, Wynter and Seymour for their gallantry and
seaworthy qualities. Drake flew his flag in one of the best of them, the Revenge, and
dropped anchor under Nicholas Island' (Plymouth Sound)
[Returning to Plymouth after shadowing the Armada, now in sight of the Lizard, in unfavourable
conditions]
- p251
- Drake took the Revenge into action against the Spanish rearguard
-
pp252-253
-
[account of events leading to the capture of the Rosario (46 guns).]
- p255
-
[Drake distributes £100 among the crew of the Revenge, for capture of
Rosario]
-
p256
-
‘Seven years after the Armada, and in Drake's flagship, the Revenge, Sir Richard
Grenville fought a whole Spanish fleet for fifteen hours and had sixteen feet of water in the hold
before he surrendered. The Revenge sank days later in a full Atlantic gale.'
-
P265
-
[The Revenge leads the western squadron against the Duke of Medina Sidona's San
Martin and attendant galleons. 8 August.]
-
p268
-
[Drake writes to Lord Walsingham having dispersed the Armada to leeward]
-
p271
-
[Drake pursues the Armada as far as the Firth of Forth. Rumours spread in Europe that he is
defeated].
-
p273
-
[The Gran Grifon is finally wrecked on Fair Isle after her duel with the
Revenge]
-
p291
-
[Drake advances to the mouth of the Tagus, in an attack on Lisbon]
-
p294
-
[Revenge springs a leak in a storm and nearly sinks by the time she reaches
Plymouth]
-
p304
-
‘These were vivid, tumultuous and heroic years for England at sea: Grenville's mad immortal
fight
of 1591 in the Revenge which had been Drake's ship in the Armada battle.'
Grenville, Sir Richard
-
p99
-
‘.....Colonisation in South America....had been an idea of Sir Richard Grenvilles's, a member of
one of those West Country families of Protestant gentry and shipowners from which came so
much of the impulse of English expansion. Grenville, Gilbert, Raleigh, Champernowne, Drake,
Hawkins and the like - many of them were linked by family ties.'
-
p100
-
‘John Hawkins was by this time earmarked to rebuild the Queens navy. Sir Richard Grenville
was too notorious an anti-Spaniard. To choose him would ring the alarm bells in
Madrid.'
-
p167
-
‘He [Drake, now knighted] became a landed proprietor in Devon, buying Buckland Abbey, once
a Cistercian monastery, later the country home of Sir Richard Grenville. It is beautifully situated
in a fold of the hills above the Tavy just six miles south of the farmhouse in which Drake had
been born.'
-
p172
-
‘....and Sir Richard Grenville set out to establish a naval base on the American coast from which
attacks could be launched on the Spanish Indies.'
-
p304
Howard of Effingham, Lord
- p216
-
[quotation: Howard warns Queen Elizabeth of treasons]
-
p224
-
‘The Lord Admiral himself, Lord Howard of Effingham, who had the bulk of the Queen's ships
under his command, lay off Margate in the month of April, worried by bad weather and the short
commons which the Navy Board inflicted on his crews.'
-
p225
-
‘By keeping Drake's ships and Howard's short of provisions, the Council effectively pinned both
squadrons of the English fleet to home waters'.
-
p226
-
‘Lord Admiral Howard, weary of being a 'bear tied to a stake' seemed to have joined the partisans
of attack'.
-
p231
-
[Howard boards ship to join Drake at Plymouth] Howard was to be Commander in Chief of the
combined fleet with Drake as Second in Command.
-
p232-3
-
[Howard and Drake manoeuvre; ships provisioned while the Armada is already at sea]
-
p239
-
p247
-
‘The Spaniards did not know that Howard and Drake had united their fleet.'
-
P250
-
[Howard sends out the pinnace Disdain to fire a gun at the Spanish Duke]
-
p252
-
[Drake recounts the capture of the Rosario to Lord Howard in the Ark Royal]
1 August
-
p254
-
Howard leaves the line of battle himself, to secure a prize.
-
p255
-
[Howard saves Frobisher from an attack of Spanish galleasses - ships with oars as well as sails
-
bringing English galleons to the rescue]
-
p257
-
[The command is divided into four squadrons under the command of Howard, Frobisher,
Hawkins and Drake.]
-
p259
-
[Howard's fleet is joined by Henry Seymour's squadron of observation, and Parma's army, in
flat-bottomed boats, fails to join Medina Sidona's galleons.]
-
p262
-
[Sunday 7th August - a meeting is held in Howard's stately cabin in the Ark
Royal]
-
p265
-
[Howard, Drake and others attack the Spanish flagship, San Martin and the San
Lorenzo outside Calais harbour]
-
p272
-
[Howard meets the Commissioners who had been negotiating for peace with Parma, at
Canterbury]
-
p275
-
[Howard reports on a severe attack of ship fever or other infection, sweeping the ships and
ports]
-
p277
-
[Howard and Drake voice shortcomings and apologies regarding gunnery and other
factors]
Azores
The motto of the coat of arms of The Azores is
"Antes morrer livres que em paz sujeitos"
"Rather die free than in peace subjected"
-
p2
-
[The Papal Bull Inter Caetera of 25 September 1493, moves the line of demarcation of
the territories of Portugal and Spain to a point halfway between the Azores and West
Indies]
-
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