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More than 5000 entries on the history, culture and life of Britain (published in 1993 by Macmillan, now out of print)
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Richard Grenville
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(1542–91, kt c.1573) Naval commander, cousin of Raleigh, who is remembered for a gallant death, commemorated by *Tennyson in The Revenge (1880). The poem's first line is sufficiently arresting to have stuck in the nation's mind: 'At Flores in the Azores Sir Richard Grenville lay.' He was in command of the Revenge (*Drake's flagship three years earlier at the Armada), on an expedition to capture Spanish treasure. When the English were forced to withdraw in the face of a larger Spanish fleet, the Revenge was becalmed in the lea of a galleon. His crew fought for 15 hours, often hand-to-hand, until most of them, including Grenville, were dead or dying.
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