Moreton House - Sir Richard Grenville

Sir Richard Grenville

The college is named after Sir Richard Grenville (1541–1591) of the Revenge, British Naval commander, whose family had in later years owned the Moreton Estate. HMS Revenge was the pride of Queen Elizabeth I's navy and had been Sir Francis Drake's flagship in the battle of the Spanish Armada. Much has been said regarding the character and the foolishness of the action, however the fact remains that fifteen Spanish galleons were engaged with the Revenge in a battle in which the odds outweigh almost any other military action in the history of warfare.

The truth in its simple grandeur needed no exaggeration. What we have before us is the fact that 150 men, many from Bideford, during fifteen hours of hand-to-hand fighting, held out against a host of five thousand, and yielded only when not more than twenty were left alive, and those grievously wounded, the story, 'is memorable even beyond credit and to the height of some heroic fable'. The Spanish lost 400 to 500 men and two ships. The capture of the Revenge was significant in that she was the first British warship of Elizabeth's reign to be taken. The Spanish repaired her and intended to take her back as a prize, however this was not to be as a storm dashed her onto rocks and she sank with all her Spanish hands. Her crew were released and returned without harm or significant ransom. Sir Richard himself had died of his wounds two days after his capture and was buried with honour at sea.

A significant feature of this event was that the Spanish nation were struck with this tale of invincible valour and its enduring and inevitably exaggerated myth duly entered the Spanish psyche as fact.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson wrote a poem recording and immortilising the action, entitled 'The Revenge', a Ballad of the Fleet. Sir Richard was related to both Sir Walter Raleigh and Sir Francis Drake.

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