27th January: Sir Francis Drake

On this date in 1596 Sir Francis Drake, Elizabethan sea captain, privateer, navigator, slaver, and politician died off the coast of Panama; famous for leading the first English circumnavigation of the world.

1. His birth date isn't known. Records state that he took command of a ship called Judith at the age of 22 in 1566, and there are a couple of later portraits of him stating his age at the time, which date his birth to around 1544. He was the oldest of twelve children of Edmund Drake, a farmer, and Mary Mylwaye. Drake's godfather was Francis Russell, 2nd Earl of Bedford, after whom he was named.
2. Drake's sailing career started when he was apprenticed to a neighbour who was the master of a barque used for coastal trade transporting merchandise to France. The neighbour never married or had children, so when he died, Francis inherited the ship.
3. Drake first sailed to the Americas at the age of 23, with a cousin, Sir John Hawkins. By the age of 28, he was embarking on independent expeditions to the area. His first was to capture the town of Nombre de Dios on the Isthmus of Panama. This was the place where Spanish ships would pick up the treasure which had been brought out of Peru. Drake and his men captured the town, but withdrew, leaving the treasure behind, when Drake was injured.
4. In Britain, history paints Sir Francis Drake as a hero, but in Spain he was seen as no better than a pirate who raided their ports and stole their treasure. They called him El Draque, and any Spaniard who'd managed to kill him would have received a reward of 20,000 ducats, which would amount to about £4 million ($6.5 million) in today's money.
5. Even his famous circumnavigation of the world was motivated by making war with Spain and taking their stuff. In 1577 Elizabeth I of England sent Drake to start an expedition against the Spanish along the Pacific coast of the Americas. He set out from Plymouth on 15 November 1577 but had to turn back after bad weather damaged some of the ships. He set off again on 13 December aboard Pelican with four other ships and 164 men. As well as raiding Spanish ports and capturing their ships, on this trip Drake discovered Elizabeth Island near Cape Horn, fought with indigenous people in southern Patagonia, becoming the first Europeans to kill local people (and sadly not the last), and discovered a remedy for scurvy - Tea made from tree bark. The tree was later named Drimys winteri after Captain Wynter, who ordered the collection of lots of the bark. About three years after setting off, Drake returned to England with just the one ship and 59 men. He gave the queen half the treasure he had on board, which amounted to more than the rest of her income for the entire year. Drake himself had enough money left to buy himself a big house - Buckland Abbey, in Devon, now owned by the National Trust. Drake's famous ship, the Golden Hind, was called the Pelican at the start of the voyage. Drake re-named it when it was the only ship left, the others having been burned or scuttled as men were lost, to stop the Spanish from capturing them. The new name was chosen in honour of Sir Christopher Hatton, who had a golden hind on his coat of arms.
6. Drake was knighted on board his ship, the Golden Hind in 1581. While the knighthood was awarded by Elizabeth I, she didn't actually perform the ceremony. Drake was dubbed by a French diplomat, Monsieur de Marchaumont, who was visiting to try and negotiate a marriage between Elizabeth and the King of France's brother. This gesture was to help gain the support of France against Spain. The Victorians promoted the idea that Elizabeth did the dubbing herself in a spirit of nationalism.
7. The Spanish Armada, then, wasn't an unprovoked attack on England but an act of revenge by Philip II for all the pillaging and the skirmish in Cadiz where Drake "singed the beard of the King of Spain" by capturing the port and destroying some ships. The story of Drake being so confident he could beat the Armada that he insisted on finishing his game of bowls before sailing out to meet it may not be entirely true as there were no witnesses to this event and the first written accounts appeared several years later. It's possible it was bad weather, rather than a game of bowls, which delayed him.
8. Drake was a politician as well as a swashbuckler. He became Mayor of Plymouth in 1581 and also an MP for an unknown constituency the same year. He gained a seat in Parliament twice more, for Bossiney in 1584 and Plymouth in 1593.
9. Queen Elizabeth granted Drake a coat of arms. This may have been prompted by an argument in court between Drake and a sea captain called Sir Bernard Drake, to whom Francis claimed he was related and therefore entitled to use Bernard's coat of arms. Bernard disagreed and the resulting disagreement escalated to Bernard giving Francis "a box in the ear". The queen intervened to stop the fisticuffs by giving Drake his own arms, although they did include elements of Sir Bernard's. Sir Francis's included a ship being towed by hand emerging from the clouds and included the motto Sic Parvis Magna Auxilio Divino, meaning "Thus great things from small things (come) with divine help".
10. Drake carried on seafaring until his mid fifties, although towards the end of his life he lost a few battles. He died of dysentery while anchored off the coast of Portobelo, Panama, where some Spanish treasure ships had sought shelter. Following his death, the English fleet withdrew. Drake had requested that he be dressed in his full armour for his burial at sea. He was buried at sea in a Lead coffin somewhere near Portobelo. To this day, divers continue to search for his remains.

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