Grenville (Sir Richard), the commander of The Revenge, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. Out of his crew, ninety were sick on shore, and only a hundred able-bodied men remained on board. The Revenge was one of the six ships under the command of Lord Thomas Howard. While cruising near the Azores, a Spanish fleet of fifty-three ships made towards the English, and Lord Howard sheered off, saying, “My ships are out of gear, and how can six ships-of-the-line fight with fifty-three?” Sir Richard Grenville, however, resolved to stay and encounter the foe, and “ship after ship the whole night long drew back with her dead; some were sunk, more were shattered;” and the brave hundred still fought on. Sir Richard was wounded and his ship riddled, but his cry was still “Fight on!” When resistance was no longer possible, he cried, “Sink the ship, master gunner! sink her! Split her in twain, nor let her fall into the hands of the foe!” But the Spaniards boarded her and praised Sir Richard for his heroic daring. “I have done my duty for my queen and faith,” he said, and died. The Spaniards sent the prize home, but a tempest came on, and The Revenge, shot-shattered, “went down, to be lost evermore in the main.”—Tennyson, The Revenge, a ballad of the fleet (1878).
Froude has an essay on the subject. Canon Kingsley, in Westward Ho! has drawn Sir Richard Grenville, and alludes to the fight. Arber published three small volumes on Sir Richard’s noble exploit. Gervase Markham has a long poem on the subject. Sir Walter Raleigh says: “If Lord Howard had stood to his guns, the Spanish fleet would have been annihilated.” Probably Browning’s Hervé Riel was present to the mind of Tennyson when he wrote the ballad of The Revenge.
Gresham and the Pearl. When Queen Elizabeth visited the Exchange, Sir Thomas Gresham pledged her health in a cup of wine containing a precious stone crushed to atoms, and worth £15,000.
Here £15,000 at one clap goes
Instead of sugar; Gresham drinks the pearl
Unto his queen and mistress. Pledge it lords.
Heywood, If You Know not Me, You Know Nobody.
⁂ It is devoutly to be hoped that Sir Thomas was above such absurd vanity. Very well for Queen Cleopatra, but more than ridiculous in such an imitation.
Gresham and the Grasshopper. There is a vulgar tradition that Sir Thomas Gresham was a foundling, and that the old beldame who brought him up was attracted to the spot where she found him, by the loud chirping of a grasshopper.
⁂ This tale arose from the grasshopper, which forms the crest of Sir Thomas.