The North Devon CoastHarper, Charles G. (Charles George)
History
The North Devon Coast
Harper, Charles G. (Charles George)
Devon (England) -- Description and travel
But the crew, brought to this pass entirely by Grenville’s hot-headed
bravery, rightly considered something was due to them. After all, a
Spanish fighting man had also some sense of chivalry, and knew how to
respect a brave enemy, conquered by superior force. So the _Revenge_
was surrendered on honourable terms, and Grenville himself taken aboard
the _San Pablo_, the Admiral’s ship, to die, three days later, of his
wounds. It was no craven surrender, and the battered _Revenge_ almost
immediately emphasised that, by sinking, with numbers of Spanish
wounded aboard.
Grenville died with, as it were, a confession of patriotic faith.
He spake it in the Spanish tongue, that all might hear: “Here die
I, Richard Grenville, with a joyful and quiet mind for that I have
ended my life as a true soldier ought to do, that hath fought for his
country, queen, religion, and honour. Whereby my soul most joyfully
departeth out of this body, and shall always leave behind it an
everlasting fame of a valiant and true soldier, that hath done his duty
as he was bound to do.”
Sir Bevil Grenville, grandson of this hero, was born in 1596, and after
upholding the King’s standard with success in the West, and winning the
Battle of Stratton, May 16th, 1643, was killed on July 5th, following,
at the Battle of Lansdowne, on the heights above Bath. There are now no
representatives of the Grenvilles left in the neighbourhood of Bideford.
They were not all loyalists in the West. We have seen the Puritan
spirit, militant, at Barnstaple; and Bideford stood out against the
King’s men; the fort erected on the hill-top at East-the-Water by
Major-General Chudleigh still remaining, and indeed restored, as a
witness to historic times.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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