The Stranding of the Revenge in 1579

Extract

It is a notable compliment to the captains and masters (particularly to the masters) who served Elizabeth I that she lost no important ship of her Royal Navy by stress of weather or by stranding throughout her long reign. She lost two ships to the enemy for both the Jesus of Lubeck and the Revenge surrendered to superior Spanish forces after hard fights. The Revenge was a moderate-sized ship or galleon of 450–500 tons, described by Monson as being ‘low and snug in the water, like a galliasse’. She was built at Deptford in 1575–7 and carried a ship's company of 250 men and an assorted armament of 38 guns, large and small. Although of middle size, she was Drake's flagship in the Armada campaign and again in the voyage to Lisbon in 1589. She was Frobisher's flagship in 1590 and Grenville's in 1591, when she was captured in epic circumstances and soon after capture overwhelmed in a hurricane with her prize crew. In August 1579, when she became the flagship of Sir John Perrot in a voyage to Ireland, she was a new ship. Her master was John Gray, who was still her master under Drake in 1588. The Revenge was considered an unlucky ship. Both Sir Richard Hawkins and Monson list the tale of her misfortunes and Hawkins writes of her : ‘The Revenge, which was ever the unfortunatist ship the late queen's majesty had during her reign; for coming out of Ireland, with Sir John Perrot, she was like to be cast away upon the Kentish coast’. He blames her name for this ill-luck, for revenge should rightly be taken by God alone and not by man.