Battle of Flores (1591)

Battle of Flores Part of the Anglo–Spanish War Revenge in action against the Spanish fleet 31 August – 1 September 1591 (Charles Dixon) Date 30 August – 1 September 1591 Location Off Flores, Azores Coordinates: 39°30′43″N 31°10′55″W / 39.51194°N 31.18194°W / 39.51194; -31.18194 Result Spanish victory Belligerents  Spain England Commanders and leaders Alonso de Bazán Martín de Bertendona Marcos de Aramburu Earl of Suffolk Richard Grenville  † Strength 55 warships[1] 22 warships[2] Casualties and losses 2 ships sunk[3] ~100 killed or drowned[4] Revenge captured 250 killed or prisoner[4]

Anglo-Spanish War (1585-1604) Spanish Main San Juan de Ulúa São Vicente Santo Domingo Cartagena St. Augustine Spanish West Indies Havana 1st Puerto Caballos San Mateo Recife Trinidad • Orinoco La Guaira • Caracas • Coro Guadalupe 1st San Juan Pinos 2nd San Juan Tabasco Portobello 2nd Puerto Caballos Santiago de Cuba Atlantic Ponta Delgada Terceira Newfoundland Santiago 1st Azores 1st Flores 2nd Flores Faial Las Palmas 2nd Azores European waters Scheldt Pantelleria 1st Cádiz 1st Calais • Gravelines Corunna • Lisbon Bayona 1st Gibraltar Strait 2nd Gibraltar Strait Berlengas Gulf of Almería Barbary Coast Bay of Biscay Gironde 1st Cornwall 2nd Cádiz Cape Finisterre 2nd Cornwall • West Wales Sesimbra Dover Strait Gulf of Cádiz Low Countries and Germany Mons Goes Middelburg Haarlem 1st Geertruidenberg Leiden Delft Valkenburg Schoonhoven Gembloux Rijmenam Borgerhout Mechelen 1st Steenwijk Kollum Noordhorn Niezijl Lochem Lier Eindhoven Steenbergen Aalst Antwerp Arnhem 1st Grave Venlo Axel 1st Rheinberg 1st Zutphen 1st Sluis Bergen op Zoom 2nd Geertruidenberg Breda 2nd Zutphen Deventer Delfzijl Knodsenburg 1st Hulst Nijmegen 2nd Steenwijk Coevorden 3rd Geertruidenberg Huy 1st Groenlo Lippe 2nd Hulst Turnhout 2nd Rheinberg Meurs 2nd Groenlo Bredevoort Enschede Ootmarsum Oldenzaal Lingen Schenckenschans Zaltbommel Rees • 3rd Rheinberg Nieuwpoort 4th Rheinberg • 2nd Meurs Ostend 's-Hertogenbosch 2nd Grave Hoogstraten Ardenburg • Oostberg • 2nd Sluis France Arques Ivry Paris Rouen Caudebec Craon Blaye Morlaix Crozon 2nd Calais Amiens Ireland Carrigafoyle Smerwick Irish West Coast Kinsale Castlehaven

The Battle of Flores was a naval engagement of the Anglo-Spanish War of 1585 fought off the Island of Flores between an English fleet of 22 ships under Lord Thomas Howard^[2] and a Spanish fleet of 55 ships under Alonso de Bazán.^[1] Sent to the Azores to capture the annual Spanish treasure convoy, when a stronger Spanish fleet appeared off Flores, Howard ordered his ships to flee to the north,^[5] saving all of them except the galleon Revenge commanded by Admiral Sir Richard Grenville.

After transferring his ill crew men onshore back to his ship, he led the Revenge in a rear guard action against 55 Spanish ships. Allowing the British fleet to retire to safety. The crew of the Revenge sank and damaged several Spanish ships during a day and night running battle. The Revenge was boarded many times by different Spanish ships and repelled each attack successfully. When Admiral Sir Richard Grenville was badly wounded, his surviving crew surrendered. Lord Alfred Tennyson wrote a poem about the battle entitled The Revenge: a Ballad of the Fleet.

Background

In order to impede a Spanish naval recovery after the Armada, Sir John Hawkins proposed a blockade of the supply of treasure being acquired from the Spanish Empire in the Americas by a constant naval patrol designed to intercept Spanish ships. Revenge was on such a patrol in the summer of 1591 under the command of Sir Richard Grenville. The Spanish, meanwhile, had dispatched a fleet of some 55 ships under Alonso de Bazán, having under his orders Generals Martín de Bertendona and Marcos de Aramburu.^[6] Bazán learned that the English were patrolling around the northern Azores. In late August 1591, having been joined by 8 Portuguese flyboats under Luis Coutinho,^[2] the Spanish fleet came upon the English. Howard's fleet was caught while undergoing repairs and when the crews, many of whom were suffering an epidemic of fever, were resting ashore.

Battle

19th-century view of the action

Map of the engagement

The last fight of the Revenge (James Cundee)

Bazán tried to surprise the English fleet at anchor, but Sancho Pardo's Vice-flagship lost their bowsprit, forcing the attack to be delayed.^[2] It was not until 5 PM when Bazán's ships bore down the channel which separated Flores and Corvo islands.^[2] Howard, alerted to the arrival of the Spanish, managed to slip away to sea.^[3] An exchange of fire took place between both fleets before they became separated.^[2] Grenville, however, preferred to fight and went straight through the Spaniards, who were approaching from the eastward.^[5]

Meanwhile, Defiance, Howard's flagship, received heavy gunfire from Aramburu's San Cristóbal before withdrawing from the battle. Revenge was left behind and directly engaged by Claudio de Viamonte's San Felipe. Viamonte boarded the English galleon, suffering the misfortune of the grappling hook parting after having only passed 10 men aboard her.^[2] Shortly after Martín de Bertendona's San Bernabé did the same, this time successfully, and managed to rescue seven survivors of San Felipe´s boarding party. San Bernabé´s grappling was decisive to the fate of Revenge, because the English warship lost the advantage of her long-range naval guns. Conversely, the heavy musketry fire of the Spanish infantry forced the English gunners to abandon their post in order to repulse the attack.^[7]

At dusk, having dispersed the bulk of the English fleet, San Cristobal rammed Revenge underneath its aft-castle, putting on board of the English ship a second boarding party which captured her colours. The Spanish soldiers got as far forward as far as the mainmast before being forced to retreat due to the heavy musketry fire made from the aftcastle.^[2] San Cristóbal's bow had been shattered by the ramming and she had to ask for reinforcements.^[2] Antonio Manrique's Asunción and Luis Coutinho's flyboat La Serena attacked then at the same time, increasing the number of ships beating the Revenge to five, which was still grappled by the galleons San Bernabé and the damaged San Cristóbal.^[2] Grenville held them back with cannon and musket fire until, being himself badly injured and Revenge severely damaged, completely dis-masted and with 150 men killed or unable to fight, surrendered.^[4] During the night Manrique's and Coutinho's ships sank after they collided with each other.^[5]

Aftermath

Despite the damage Grenville had inflicted, the Spanish treated Revenge's survivors honourably.^[8] Grenville, who had been taken aboard Bazán's flagship, died two days later.^[4] The Spanish Treasure Fleet rendezvoused with Bazán soon after, and the combined fleet sailed to Spain.^[5] They were overtaken by a week-long storm during which Revenge and 15 Spanish warships and merchant vessels were lost.^[5] Revenge sank with her mixed prize-crew of 70 Spaniards and English prisoners near the island of Terceira, at the approximate position 38°46′9″N 27°22′42″W / 38.76917°N 27.37833°W / 38.76917; -27.37833.^[9]

The battle, however, marked the resurgence of Spanish naval power^[7] and proved that the English chances of catching and defeating a well-defended treasure fleet were remote.^[8] It also hinted at what might have happened in Gravelines in 1588 if Medina Sidonia had succeeded in luring the English ships within grappling range of the Armada, and if the cannonballs had actually fit the Spanish cannon (they'd been manufactured in different areas of the Spanish Habsburg Empire and so were not all designed in the same way, shape or size).^[7]

See also

• Spanish treasure fleet
• Islands Voyage

References

Bibliography

• Earle, Pearl (2004). The last fight of the Revenge. Methuen. ISBN 0-413-77484-8. 
• Fernández Duro, Cesáreo (1898). Armada Española desde la unión de los reinos de Castilla y Aragón (in Spanish). III. Madrid, Spain: Est. tipográfico "Sucesores de Rivadeneyra". 
• Hammer, Paul E. J. (2003). Elizabeth's wars: war, government, and society in Tudor England, 1544–1604. Hampshire, USA: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-0-333-91942-2. 
• Konstam, Anguas; MacBride, Angus (2000). Armada Elizabethan Sea Dogs 1560–1605. Oxford, UK: Osprey Publishing. ISBN 978-1-84176-015-5. 
• Paine, Lincoln P. (2003). Elizabeth's Warships of the world to 1900. New York, USA: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. ISBN 978-0-395-98414-7. 
• Simpson, Wallis (2001). The reign of Elizabeth. Oxford, UK: Heinemann. ISBN 978-0-435-32735-4.