Weep, weep for the days that were, the days that are no more!
The rise of Bideford as a port in the reign of Queen Elizabeth was largely due to the Grenville family, then all-powerful in the neighbourhood. The town was incorporated at that time: the borough seal bearing date 1577. Shipbuilding then became a most important industry. But never at any time did Bideford approach the importance of Barnstaple.
The Grenvilles, who bulked so largely here and in Cornwall, were of Norman ancestry, and their ancestor, who came over at the Conquest, called cousins with the Conqueror. They numbered a long line of gallant and distinguished men, which came to greatest distinction in the reigns of Elizabeth and Charles the First. Since that time they have split up into many distinct families, and even write their names in four different ways: Grenville, Granville, Grenfell, and Greenfield; but, although branches have acquired peerages, none of the race has won to the fame attained by those who flourished in the long ago.
BIDEFORD BRIDGE.
Intolerably proud, they at any rate had the driving-force of pride, which kept them at a high level of conduct and made them gallant gentlemen, who would have thought it shame to yield in fight, even though the odds were overwhelming. If a Grenville might not always conquer (for even to the brave victory is not assured), at least he might, and did, fight grimly to the end, as it was the tradition of his kind to do.
Two Grenvilles stand out prominently from that long line, for heroic valour. They were grandfather and grandson. The elder was that Sir Richard Grenville (or “Greynvile,” as he wrote his name), who was Drake’s right-hand man in the defeat of the Armada in 1588. Three years later, we find him, with his Admiral, Lord Thomas Howard, at Flores, off the Azores Islands, lying in wait for a number of Spanish treasure-ships due to pass that way. I do not think that enterprise was a very heroic errand, for Howard had sixteen ships, with a fighting force, and the treasure-laden galleons were ill-protected. I figure it on a par with a footpad with a bludgeon, lurking behind a hedge in wait for some plethoric old gentleman and his gold repeater. The result of an encounter, in both instances, would be a foregone conclusion. But, unhappily, Howard’s force had not fallen in with those great treasure-laden three-deckers before word came of a numerous and well-equipped squadron of Spanish fighting-ships on the way. It was a most unfortunate pass. Howard’s ships were small and ill-found, and his men suffering from scurvy. They were re-fitting on the islands at the time, and hurriedly completed and stood out to sea, with the intention of evading the superior force, said to have numbered fifty-three vessels, and ten thousand men. This evasion may not sound heroic, but it was prudence, and Howard was an admiral who could have been counted upon to fight, had he seen a chance. Grenville, with his “intolerable pride and insatiable ambition,” disobeyed the orders of his superior, and instead of evading the Spaniards, made, “with wilful rashness,” as those who saw him wrote, to dash through their line, and cannonade them as he went. His little Revenge was, however, becalmed in their midst and surrounded, and there, against tremendous odds, was fought out that long fifteen hours’ battle which inspired one of Tennyson’s finest lyrics. The heroism of that long tragedy in which the Revenge, Grenville, and his crew of one hundred and fifty men bore their unflinching part has been made the subject of accumulated legends. The entire hostile force of fifty-three ships and ten thousand men is said to have been employed, but the facts seem to be that a large number of the Spanish vessels were supply ships, and that of the twenty ships of war they had, some fifteen, with five thousand men, were engaged in battering the English ship.
That is heroism sufficient, without needing exaggeration; one against fifteen, to return shot for shot in a fifteen hours’ battle. Tennyson, however, accepts the still more marvellous story:
“He had only a hundred seamen to work the ship and to fight,
And he sailed away from Flores till the Spaniard came in sight,
With his huge sea-castles heaving upon the weather-bow.
‘Shall we fight, or shall we fly?
Good Sir Richard, let us know;
For to fight is but to die!
There’ll be little of us left by the time this sun be set.’
And Sir Richard said again, ‘We be all good Englishmen;
Let us bang these dogs of Seville, the children of the devil,
For I never turned my back on Don or devil yet.’
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