#41: Revenge (1577): The Galleon That Defied the Spanish Armada
The Revenge was Sir Francis Drake's flagship during the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588, one of the most consequential naval engagements in Western history. This 500-ton race-built galleon helped pioneer the English naval strategy of standing off and pounding enemies with cannon fire rather than closing for boarding, fundamentally changing how sea battles were fought.
Three years after the Armada campaign, under Sir Richard Grenville, Revenge fought perhaps the most famous last stand in naval warfare. At the Battle of Flores in 1591, Grenville refused to flee from a Spanish fleet of 53 ships, engaging them single-handedly for 15 hours through the night. Revenge sank or disabled 15 Spanish vessels before being overwhelmed. Tennyson immortalized the action in his poem "The Revenge," and the ship became a lasting symbol of English defiance and military courage in the Age of Sail.
