Sir Richard Grenville (15 June 1542 – 10 September 1591) (alias
Greynvile,
Greeneville,
Greenfield etc.) lord of the manors of
Stowe, Kilkhampton in Cornwall and of
Bideford in Devon, was an
English sailor who as captain of the
Revenge, died at the
Battle of Flores (1591), fighting heroically against overwhelming odds, and refusing to surrender his ship to the far more numerous Spanish. His ship, the Revenge, met 53 Spanish war ships near Flores in the Azores. He and his crew fought the fifty three in a three-day running battle. Many Spanish ships were sunk or so badly damaged that they had to retire from the battle. The Revenge was boarded three times and each time the boarders were seen off. He was also a soldier, an armed merchant fleet owner,
privateer, colonizer, and
explorer. He took part in the early English attempts to settle the New World, and also participated in the fight against the
Spanish Armada. His non-military offices included Member of Parliament for
Cornwall,
High Sheriff of County Cork from 1569–70 and
Sheriff of Cornwall in 1576–77. He was the grandfather of Sir
Bevil Grenville (1596-1643) of
English Civil War fame, whose son was
John Granville, 1st Earl of Bath (1628–1701).