Robert Blake

Robert Blake (27 September 1598 – 7 August 1657) was an English naval officer who served as General at sea and the Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports from 1656 to 1657. Blake served under Oliver Cromwell during the English Civil War and Anglo-Spanish War, and as the commanding Admiral of the Dutch navy during the First Anglo-Dutch War. Blake is recognized as the "chief founder of England's naval supremacy", a dominance subsequently inherited by the British Royal Navy well into the early 20th century Despite this, due to deliberate attempts to expunge the Parliamentarians from historical records following the Stuart Restoration, Blake's achievements tend to remain relatively unrecognized. Blake's successes, however, are considered to have "never been excelled, not even by Nelson" according to one biographer, while Blake is often compared with Nelson by others. Early life Robert Blake was the first son of thirteen children born to Humphrey Blake and Sarah Williams. He was baptized at the Church of Saint Mary the Virgin in Somerset on 27 September 1598. He attended Bridgwater Grammar School for Boys, then went up to Wadham College, Oxford. He had hoped to follow an academic career, but failed to secure a fellowship to Merton College, probably in consideration of his political and religious views, but also because the warden of Merton, Sir Henry Savile, had 'an eccentric distaste for men of low stature'. Blake, at tall, thus failed to meet Savile's 'standard of manly beauty'. When Blake's father died in 1625 he inherited the family estate of Knoll Hill. Here, taking on the responsibilities of the eldest son, he took committed much of his time in the duty of educating his many brothers and sisters, and preparing them for adulthood. Blake biographer and historian David Hannay (1853 – 1934) maintains that was a likely reason why Blake never married, while pointing out also that other biographers offer differing reasons. English historian Edward Hyde, who lived in Blake's day writes of Blake, "...he was well enough versed in books for a man who intended not to be of any profession, having sufficient of his own to maintain him in the plenty he affected, and having then no appearance of ambition to be a greater man than he was." The Blake family had a seat for several generations at (and were Lords of the Manor of) Tuxwell, in the parish of Bishops Lydeard, near Bridgwater, Somerset.