In 1577, a new design of warship slid down the ways at Her Majesty’s Royal Dockyard at Chatham, England.  The ship, the 400 ton Revenge, carried 46 guns and a crew of 121, was the first of the new race-built galleons that would revolutionize naval warfare for the next three hundred years.

Narrower than her predecessors, with the towering poop and foc'sle of the older galleons cut down, the Revenge was fast and highly maneuverable.  Her builder, Master Shipright Matthew Baker as a man of uncommon ability who, unlike most of his contemporaries, was also a skilled draftsman - in an era when most ships were built by eye and the skill of the builder and drawings of ships were mostly fanciful or at best rudimentary.  His new design ship was so fast and weatherly that soon after, all galleons in the British fleet were built to the same lines.

In early 1588, after circumnavigating the globe, Sir Francis Drake moved his flag from Elizabeth Bonaventura to the Revenge which was considered to be the best by far of the new ships.
On July 29 1588, at the Battle of Graveline, Revenge proved worthy of her reputation.  She led the English fleet to the glorious victory, resulting in thirty enemy ships sunk and their flagship captured. Revenge's hull was pierced by more than 40 cannon-shot in this fiercest and most decisive battle  between the kingdoms of England and Spain during these years.

HMS Revenge's greatest fame rests with the action at the Azores in 1591.  Fearful that Spain would organize another attack, Queen Elizabeth gave support to a venture which would intercept the Spanish fleet as it was about to return home from Havana heavily laden with treasure. The attack was to be led by two of the finest galleons in the Elizabethan Navy, the Revenge, captained by Sir Richard Granville, and the Defiance.

Part of a small English fleet lying in wait off the islands for the returning Spanish Treasure fleet, Revenge was separated from the rest of the fleet when her captain paused to pick up some of his men who had been on shore, recovering from a fever. As a result, the Revenge was caught by a Spanish fleet, out gunned 53 to 1.

Even still, the English flagship fought on, blasting away any ships that tried to board her. The San Felipe, a vessel three times her size, tried to come along side to board her was also beaten off. The battle continued all night into the following day and the Revenge sank two enemy ships.

The Revenge itself was battered and broken, with half the crew dead. "Out-gunned, out-fought, and out-numbered 53 to 1", when the end looked certain, desperate Sir Richard, gravely wounded himself, ordered the ship blown up. Finally, saner heads prevailed and the ship, on assurances of good treatment, was surrendered, making it the only English ship so lost during the Elizabethan wars.

Sir Richard died of wounds two days later onboard of the Spanish flagship. The captured ship never reached port. She was cast up against a cliff in a vicious gale, bringing down with her 200 Spaniards.

Even after 400 years, the last fight of the Revenge remains one of the most heroic naval actions during the era of fighting sail and may have been the most famous sea battle in English history. Tennyson immortalized it in his evocative poem "The Revenge: A Battle of the Fleet" in which he wrote "And the sun went down, and the stars came out far over the summer sea, But never a moment ceased the fight of the one and fifty three."

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