Francis Drake

Portrait miniature by Nicholas Hilliard, 1581, inscribed Aetatis suae 42, An(n)o D(omi)ni 1581 ("42 years of his age, 1581 AD")

Francis Drake was born at Crowndale Farm in Tavistock, Devon, England. Although his birth date is not formally recorded, it is known that he was born while the Six Articles of 1539 were in force. His birth date is estimated from the wording of texts in contemporary sources such as: "Drake was two and twenty when he obtained the command of the Judith"[4] (1566). This would date his birth to 1544. A date of c. 1540 is suggested from two portraits: one a miniature painted by Nicholas Hilliard in 1581 when he was allegedly 42, which would place his birth c. 1539, while the other, painted in 1594 when he was said to be 52,[5] would give a birth year of c. 1541. Lady Elliott-Drake, the collateral descendant, and final holder of the Drake Baronetcy, argued in her book on 'The Family and Heirs of Sir Francis Drake' that Drake's birth year was 1541.[6]

He was the eldest of the twelve sons[7] of Edmund Drake (1518–1585), a Protestant farmer, and his wife, Mary Mylwaye. The first son was alleged to have been named after his godfather Francis Russell, 2nd Earl of Bedford.[8]

Due to religious persecution during the Prayer Book Rebellion in 1549, the Drake family fled from Devon to Kent. There Drake's father obtained an appointment to minister to the men in the King's Navy. He was ordained deacon and was made vicar of Upnor Church on the Medway.[9]

At an early age Drake was placed into the household of a relative, sea-captain William Hawkins of Plymouth, and began his seagoing training as an apprentice on Hawkins' boats.[10] By 18, he was a purser,[11] and in the 1550s, Drake's father found the young man a position with the owner and master of a small barque, one of the small traders plying between the Medway River and the Dutch coast. Drake likely engaged in commerce along the coast of England, the Low Countries and France.[12] The ship's master was so satisfied with the young Drake's conduct that, being unmarried and childless at his death, he bequeathed the barque to Drake.[9]

Sir John Hawkins (left) with Sir Francis Drake (centre) and Sir Thomas Cavendish

Historical sources on Drake's early life are scarce, tend to be brief and are often confusing.[13][14][15] Two common scholarly traditions concerning his life and contributions have resulted.[16] The older tradition can be found in Julian Corbett's biography, Drake and the Tudor Navy (1898) which identifies Drake as the single most important figure in the founding and triumph of the British navy.[17] The alternative approach locates Drake squarely within privateering. The first has tended to laud only his successes, while Sugden writes that the second approach, which emphasises his flaws and failures, has sometimes been less than just.[18] Drake left behind no words of his own, only his actions and their interpretation which, as Peter Whitfield says, "is open to deep disagreement". According to Whitfield, scholarship on Drake has moved "from the hero worship of the Victorians to the cold iconoclasm" of the twenty-first century.[19]

This is evident in the discussion of Drake's role in the slaving expeditions of his second cousin John Hawkins. The West African slave trade was at this time a Portuguese and Spanish monopoly, but Hawkins devised a plan to break into that trade, and in 1562, enlisted the aid of colleagues and family to finance his first slave voyage. Drake was not part of that group of financiers.[20] Drake's presence as one of hundreds of seamen on Hawkins's first two slaving voyages has been assumed.[21] There is some anecdotal evidence to support Drake serving as a common seaman on the first two voyages, and good evidence of his presence for the last two of four slaving voyages made by Hawkins' ships between 1562 and 1569.[22][10][23]

The Jesus of Lübeck

In 1562, Hawkins sailed to the coast of the Sierra Leone, seized Portuguese slave ships, and sold the Africans in the Spanish Indies.[24] It was highly profitable, so for his second slave voyage in 1564, Hawkins gained Queen Elizabeth I's support. She allowed him to charter one of her ships, the Jesus of Lübeck. Hawkins attacked an African native town and sold many of its inhabitants in Spanish ports on the Caribbean mainland making another large profit for himself, the Queen and the consortium of investors from her court.[21][24] Drake was twenty years old,[25][26] and not a member of that consortium, but the crew would have received a small share of the profits.[27][28] Based on this association, scholar Kris Lane lists Drake as one of the first English slave traders.[29]

The Spanish and Portuguese were aggrieved that the English had entered into the slave trade and were selling slaves to their colonies despite being forbidden from doing so. Queen Elizabeth I, under pressure to avoid an armed conflict, forbade Hawkins from going to sea for a third slave voyage. In response, he set up a slave voyage with a relative, John Lovell, in command in 1566.[21] Drake accompanied Lovell on this voyage.[21] The voyage was unsuccessful, as more than 90 enslaved Africans were released without payment.[30]

In 1567, Drake accompanied Hawkins on their next and last joint voyage.[31] The crew attempted to capture slaves around Cape Verde, but failed. Hawkins allied himself with two local kings in Sierra Leone who asked for help against their enemies in exchange for half of any captives they took. Attacking from both sides, several hundred prisoners were taken, though Kelsey says the kings kept "the larger share of slaves and dared Hawkins to do anything about it".[32] [33]

Events worsened: storms, Spanish hostility, armed conflict, and finally a hurricane separated one ship from the fleet, and it had to find its own way home.[34] The remaining ships were forced into the port of Vera Cruz in San Jan de Ulúa so they could make repairs. Soon after, the newly appointed viceroy of New Spain arrived with a fleet of ships. While still negotiating to resupply and repair, Hawkins' ships were attacked by the Spanish ships in what became known as the Battle of San Juan de Ulúa.[35][36] The battle ended in an English defeat with all but two of the English ships lost. The Jesus de Lubeck was set on fire. Drake, by this time the captain of Judith, fled leaving Hawkins behind. Hawkins escaped on Minion and limped back to England arriving with a crew of just 15. Hundreds of English seamen were abandoned.[37]

After arriving back in England, Hawkins accused Drake of desertion and of stealing the treasure they had accumulated. Drake denied both accusations asserting he had distributed all profits among the crew and that he had believed Hawkins was lost when he left.[28][38] Other eyewitness accounts seem to exonerate Drake.[39] The bitter end of the fourth voyage turned Drake's life in a different direction: thereafter he would not pursue trading and slaving but would, instead, dedicate himself to attacking Spanish possessions wherever he found them.[40] Drake's hostility towards the Spanish is said to have started with the battle and its aftermath.[37]

The voyage of 1567-1569 was Drake's last association with slaving.[33] In total, 1,200 Africans were enslaved on these 4 voyages, and an estimated 3 times as many would have been killed (according to the accounts of slavers at the time).[23] Sugden writes that "Drake was in his twenties, and did not question what his elders accepted" but must still share some culpability for his participation.[41]

In 1572, Drake embarked on his first major independent enterprise. He planned an attack on the Isthmus of Panama, known to the Spanish as Tierra Firme and to the English as the Spanish Main. This was the point at which the silver and gold treasure of Peru had to be brought ashore and transported overland to the Caribbean Sea, where galleons from Spain would take it aboard at the town of Nombre de Dios. Drake left Plymouth on 24 May 1572, with a crew of 73 men in two small vessels, Pascha (70 tons) and Swan (25 tons), to capture Nombre de Dios.[42]

Drake's first raid was late in July 1572. Drake captured Nombre de Dios, but he was badly wounded when the Spanish arrived from Panama, and his forces had to retreat without the gold, silver, pearls and jewels stored in the royal treasury. Rather than sacking Nombre de Dios again, Drake raided Spanish galleons along the coast[43] and with his Cimarrón (Maroon) allies looted the mule trains that transported gold, silver and trade goods from Panama City.[44]

The most celebrated of Drake's adventures along the Spanish Main was his capture of the Spanish silver train at Nombre de Dios in March 1573. He raided the waters around Darien (in modern Panama) with a crew including many French privateers including Guillaume Le Testu, a French buccaneer, and Maroons, enslaved Africans who had escaped from their Spanish slave-owners. One of these men was Diego, who under Drake became a free man; Diego was also a capable ship builder.[45] Drake tracked the Silver Train to the nearby port of Nombre de Dios. After their attack on the richly laden mule train, Drake and his party found that they had captured around 20 tons of silver and gold. They buried much of the treasure, as it was too much for their party to carry, and made off with a fortune in gold.[46][47] (An account of this may have given rise to subsequent stories of pirates and buried treasure). Wounded, Le Testu was captured and later beheaded. The small band of adventurers dragged as much gold and silver as they could carry back across some 18 miles of jungle-covered mountains to where they had left the raiding boats. When they got to the coast, the boats were gone. Drake and his men, downhearted, exhausted and hungry, had nowhere to go and the Spanish were not far behind.

At this point, Drake rallied his men, buried the treasure on the beach, and built a raft to sail with two volunteers ten miles along the surf-lashed coast to where they had left the flagship. When Drake finally reached its deck, his men were alarmed at his bedraggled appearance. Fearing the worst, they asked him how the raid had gone. Drake could not resist a joke and teased them by looking downhearted. Then he laughed, pulled a necklace of Spanish gold from around his neck and said "Our voyage is made." By the second week of August 1573, he had returned to Plymouth.[48]

It was during this expedition that Drake climbed a high tree in the central mountains of the Isthmus of Panama and thus became the first Englishman to see the Pacific Ocean, mirroring the achievement of the Spaniard Vasco Núñez de Balboa in 1513. Drake remarked as he saw the Pacific Ocean that he hoped one day an Englishman would be able to sail it – which he would do years later as part of his circumnavigation of the world.[49]

When Drake returned to Plymouth after the raids, the government signed a temporary truce with King Philip II of Spain and so was unable to acknowledge Drake's accomplishment officially. Drake was considered a hero in England and a pirate in Spain for his raids.[50]

Drake was present at the 1575 Rathlin Island massacre in Ireland. Acting on the instructions of Sir Henry Sidney and the Earl of Essex, Sir John Norreys and Drake laid siege to Rathlin Castle. Despite their surrender, Norreys' troops killed all the 200 defenders and several hundred more civilian men, women and children of Clan MacDonnell.[51] Meanwhile, Drake was given the task of preventing any Gaelic Irish or Scottish reinforcements reaching the island. Therefore, the remaining leader of the Gaelic defence against English power, Sorley Boy MacDonnell, was forced to stay on the mainland. Essex wrote in his letter to Queen Elizabeth's secretary that following the attack Sorley Boy "was likely to have run mad for sorrow, tearing and tormenting himself and saying that he there lost all that he ever had."[52]

A map of Drake's route around the world. The northern limit of Drake's exploration of the Pacific coast of North America is still in dispute. Drake's Bay is south of Cape Mendocino.

With the success of the Panama isthmus raid, in 1577 Elizabeth I of England sent Drake to start an expedition against the Spanish along the Pacific coast of the Americas. Drake acted on the plan authored by Sir Richard Grenville, who had received a royal patent for it in 1574. Just a year later the patent was rescinded after protests from Philip of Spain.

Diego was once again employed under Drake; his fluency in Spanish and English would make him a useful interpreter when Spaniards or Spanish-speaking Portuguese were captured. He was employed as Drake's servant and was paid wages like the rest of the crew.[45] Drake and the fleet set out from Plymouth on 15 November 1577, but bad weather threatened him and his fleet. They were forced to take refuge in Falmouth, Cornwall, from where they returned to Plymouth for repair.[53]

After this major setback, Drake set sail again on 13 December aboard Pelican with four other ships and 164 men. He soon added a sixth ship, Mary (formerly Santa Maria), a Portuguese merchant ship that had been captured off the coast of Africa near the Cape Verde Islands. He also added its captain, Nuno da Silva, a man with considerable experience navigating in South American waters.

Drake's fleet suffered great attrition; he scuttled both Christopher and the flyboat Swan due to loss of men on the Atlantic crossing. He made landfall at the gloomy bay of San Julian, in what is now Argentina. Ferdinand Magellan had called here half a century earlier, where he put to death some mutineers. Drake's men saw weathered and bleached skeletons on the Spanish gibbets. Following Magellan's example, Drake tried and executed his own "mutineer" Thomas Doughty. The crew discovered that Mary had rotting timbers, so they burned the ship. Drake decided to remain the winter in San Julian before attempting the Strait of Magellan.[54]

Entering the Pacific (1578)

A replica of the Golden Hind at Bankside in London

The three remaining ships of his convoy departed for the Magellan Strait at the southern tip of South America. A few weeks later in September 1578 Drake made it to the Pacific, but violent storms destroyed one of the three ships, Marigold (captained by John Thomas) in the strait and caused another, Elizabeth, captained by John Wynter, to return to England, leaving only Pelican. After this passage, Pelican was pushed south and discovered an island that Drake called Elizabeth Island. Drake, like navigators before him, probably reached a latitude of 55°S (according to astronomical data quoted in Hakluyt's The Principall Navigations, Voiages and Discoveries of the English Nation of 1589) along the Chilean coast.[57] In the Magellan Strait Francis and his men engaged in skirmishes with local indigenous people, becoming the first Europeans to kill indigenous peoples in southern Patagonia.[58] During the stay in the strait, crew members discovered that an infusion made of the bark of Drimys winteri could be used as remedy against scurvy. Captain Wynter ordered the collection of great amounts of bark – hence the scientific name.[58]

Historian Mateo Martinic, who examined records of Drake's travels, credits him with the discovery of the "southern end of the Americas and the oceanic space south of it".[59] The first report of his discovery of an open channel south of Tierra del Fuego was written after the 1618 publication of the voyage of Willem Schouten and Jacob le Maire around Cape Horn in 1616.[60]

Drake pushed onwards in his lone flagship, now renamed Golden Hind in honour of Sir Christopher Hatton (after his coat of arms). Golden Hind sailed north along the Pacific coast of South America, attacking Spanish ports and pillaging towns. Some Spanish ships were captured, and Drake used their more accurate charts. Before reaching the coast of Peru, Drake visited Mocha Island, where he was seriously injured by hostile Mapuche. Later he sacked the port of Valparaíso further north in Chile, where he also captured a ship full of Chilean wine.[61][62]

Coast of California: Nova Albion (1579)

Main articles: New Albion and Drake in California

Drake's landing in California, engraving published 1590 by Theodor de Bry

Drake viewing treasure taken from a Spanish ship, print[64] courtesy New York Public Library

Prior to Drake's voyage, the western coast of North America had only been partially explored in 1542 by Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo who sailed for Spain.[65] So, intending to avoid further conflict with Spain, Drake navigated north-west of Spanish presence and sought a discreet site at which the crew could prepare for the journey back to England.[66][67]

On 5 June 1579, the ship briefly made first landfall at what is now South Cove, Cape Arago, just south of Coos Bay, Oregon, and then sailed south while searching for a suitable harbour to repair his ailing ship.[68][69][70][67][71] On 17 June, Drake and his crew found a protected cove when they landed on the Pacific coast of what is now Northern California.[72][73] While ashore, he claimed the area for Queen Elizabeth I as Nova Albion or New Albion.[74] To document and assert his claim, Drake posted an engraved plate of brass to claim sovereignty for Elizabeth and every successive English monarch.[75] After erecting a fort and tents ashore, the crew laboured for several weeks as they prepared for the circumnavigating voyage ahead by careening their ship, Golden Hind, so to effectively clean and repair the hull.[76] Drake had friendly interactions with the Coast Miwok and explored the surrounding land by foot.[77] When his ship was ready for the return voyage, Drake and the crew left New Albion on 23 July and paused his journey the next day when anchoring his ship at the Farallon Islands where the crew hunted seal meat.[78][79][80]

Return to Plymouth (1580)

1829 portrait of Drake wearing the Drake Jewel

The "Drake Jewel" as painted by Gheeraerts the Younger in a 1591 portrait of Drake

On 26 September 1580, Golden Hind sailed into Plymouth with Drake and 59 remaining crew aboard, along with a rich cargo of spices and captured Spanish treasures. The queen's half-share of the cargo surpassed the rest of the crown's income for that entire year. Drake was hailed as the first Englishman to circumnavigate the Earth, and his was the second such voyage arriving with at least one ship intact, after Elcano's in 1520.[81]

Queen Elizabeth declared that all written accounts of Drake's voyages were to become the queen's secrets of the Realm, and Drake and the other participants of his voyages on the pain of death sworn to their secrecy; she intended to keep Drake's activities hidden from the eyes of rival Spain.[81]

Drake presented the queen with a jewel token commemorating the circumnavigation. Taken as a prize off the Pacific coast of Mexico, it was made of enamelled gold and bore an African diamond and a ship with an ebony hull.[81]

To show her gratitude the queen gave him the Drake Jewel, a valuable pendant surrounded by diamonds, rubies and pearls. It was an unusual gift to bestow upon a commoner, and one that Drake wore in a 1591 portrait by Marcus Gheeraerts. On one side of the pendant is a state portrait of Elizabeth by the miniaturist Nicholas Hilliard, on the other a sardonyx cameo of double portrait busts, a regal woman and an African male. The Drake Jewel is a rare documented survivor among sixteenth-century jewels; it is conserved at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.[81]

Knighthood and arms

Queen Elizabeth awarded Drake a knighthood aboard Golden Hind in Deptford on 4 April 1581; the dubbing being performed by a French diplomat, Monsieur de Marchaumont, who was negotiating for Elizabeth to marry the King of France's brother, Francis, Duke of Anjou.[82][83] By getting the French diplomat involved in the knighting, Elizabeth was gaining the implicit political support of the French for Drake's actions.[84][85][86] During the Victorian era, in a spirit of nationalism, the story was promoted that Elizabeth I had done the knighting.[83]

Sir Francis Drake's new heraldic achievement, with motto: Sic Parvis Magna[87]

After receiving his knighthood Drake unilaterally adopted the coat of arms of the ancient Devon family of Drake of Ash, to whom he claimed a distant but unspecified kinship. The right to use the arms was disputed in court[88] so Queen Elizabeth awarded Drake his own coat of arms.

Drake's heraldic achievement and coat of arms contains the motto, Sic Parvis Magna, translated literally as: "Thus great things from small things (come)". A hand coming out of the clouds is labelled Auxilio Divino, which means "With Divine Help".[87]

Drake first became a member of parliament for the last session of the 4th Parliament of Elizabeth I,[89] on 16 January 1581, for the constituency of Camelford. He did not actively participate at this point, and on 17 February 1581 he was granted leave of absence "for certain his necessary business in the service of Her Majesty".[90]

Drake became the Mayor of Plymouth in September 1581.[7] During his tenure, he installed a compass in the town's Hoe, and passed a law regulating the local pilchard trade.[91] He also advocated for the construction of Plymouth Leat.[92]

Drake became a member of parliament again in 1584 for Bossiney,[7] on the forming of the 5th Parliament of Elizabeth I.[93] He served the duration of the parliament and was active in issues regarding the navy, fishing, early American colonisation, and issues related chiefly to Devon. He spent the time covered by the next two parliamentary terms engaged in other duties and an expedition to Portugal.[90]

He became a member of parliament for Plymouth in 1593.[90] He was active in issues of interest to Plymouth as a whole, but also to emphasise defence against the Spanish.[90][94]

Map of Drake's Great Expedition in 1585 by Giovanni Battista Boazio

War had already been declared by Phillip II after the Treaty of Nonsuch, so the queen through Francis Walsingham ordered Sir Francis Drake to lead an expedition to attack the Spanish colonies in a kind of pre-emptive strike. An expedition left Plymouth in September 1585 with Drake in command of twenty-one ships with 1,800 soldiers under Christopher Carleill. He first attacked Vigo in Spain and held the place for two weeks ransoming supplies. He then plundered Santiago in the Cape Verde islands after which the fleet then sailed across the Atlantic, sacked the port of Santo Domingo, and captured the city of Cartagena de Indias in present-day Colombia. At Cartagena, Drake released one hundred Turks who were enslaved.[95] On 6 June 1586, during the return leg of the voyage, he raided the Spanish fort of San Agustín in Spanish Florida.[96]

After the raids he then went on to find Sir Walter Raleigh's settlement much further north at Roanoke which he replenished and also took back with him all of the original colonists before Sir Richard Greynvile arrived with supplies and more colonists. He finally reached England on 22 July, when he sailed into Portsmouth, England to a hero's welcome.[96]

Painting depicting The Spanish Armada

Angered by these acts, Philip II ordered a planned invasion of England.

Defeat of the Spanish Armada

Drake was purportedly playing bowls when first informed about the approach of the Armada

Eighteenth-century painting of the Spanish Armada showing fireships

Drake taking the surrender of Admiral Pedro de Valdés on the Spanish galleon Nuestra Señora del Rosario

In command of the English fleet (under Lord Howard of Effingham) when it overcame the Spanish Armada that was attempting to invade England in 1588.[103] Drake was vice admiral in the galleon Revenge. As the English fleet pursued the Armada up the English Channel in closing darkness, Drake broke off and captured the Spanish galleon Nuestra Señora del Rosario, along with Admiral Pedro de Valdés and all his crew. The Spanish ship was known to be carrying substantial funds to pay the Spanish Army in the Low Countries. Drake's ship had been leading the English pursuit of the Armada by means of a lantern. By extinguishing this for the capture, Drake put the fleet into disarray overnight.

On the night of 29 July, along with Howard, Drake organised fire-ships, causing the majority of the Spanish captains to break formation and sail out of Calais into the open sea. The next day, Drake was present at the Battle of Gravelines. He wrote as follows to Admiral Henry Seymour after coming upon part of the Spanish Armada, whilst aboard Revenge on 31 July 1588 (21 July 1588 OS):[104]

Coming up to them, there has passed some common shot between some of our fleet and some of them; and as far as we perceive, they are determined to sell their lives with blows.

The armada, having failed in their aim, were unable to sail back via the English channel. The English ships, including the Revenge, pursued to prevent any landing on English soil, although by this time most of Howard's ships were almost out of shot. Nevertheless the battered Spanish fleet were forced instead to sail around the British isles and encountered heavy storms off the coast of Ireland. The fleet eventually limped back to Spanish ports having lost overall some 63 ships and vessels and 20,000 men.[105]

The most famous (but probably apocryphal) anecdote about Drake relates that, prior to the battle, he was playing a game of bowls on Plymouth Hoe. On being warned of the approach of the Spanish fleet, Drake is said to have remarked that there was plenty of time to finish the game and still beat the Spaniards, perhaps because he was waiting for high tide. There is no known eyewitness account of this incident and the earliest retelling of it was printed 37 years later.[54] Adverse winds and currents caused some delay in the launching of the English fleet as the Spanish drew nearer,[54] perhaps prompting a popular myth of Drake's cavalier attitude to the Spanish threat. It might also have been later ascribed to the stoic attribute of British culture.

In 1589, the year after the failure of the Spanish Armada the English sent their own armada to attack Spain. Drake and Sir John Norreys were given three tasks. Firstly to destroy the battered Spanish Atlantic fleet, which was being repaired in ports of northern Spain. Secondly to make a landing at Lisbon, Portugal and raise a revolt there against King Philip II (Philip I of Portugal) installing the pretender Dom António, Prior of Crato to the Portuguese throne. And thirdly to take the Azores if possible so as to establish a permanent base.[107]

In the siege of Coruña, Drake and Norreys destroyed a few ships in the harbour of A Coruña in Spain but were repelled. This defeat in all fronts delayed Drake for two weeks, and he was forced to forgo hunting the rest of the surviving ships and head on to Lisbon.[102]

In Lisbon, he anchored the fleet in the Tagus estuary while Norris attempted to arouse a Portuguese rebellion with Dom António in the lead. The rebellion never materialised and the ground campaign was a total failure, so Norris, with his army and António, re-embarked to make an attempt at capturing the treasure fleet. The weather was not in their favour so they eventually sailed for home.

However, Drake wanted to atone for such a bitter setback and, in order not to return empty-handed and with the morale of his troops sunk, he made a fleeting stop in the Galician rías, razing the defenceless town of Vigo to the ground without mercy for four days. Even this abusive demonstration of power did not leave the corsair unharmed, as he lost some five hundred more men on land, in addition to as many wounded. The growing defences of the inhabitants, and the arrivals of militias from Portugal, put the ships in retreat again. Two of the vessels sailing back to Plymouth were captured in the Bay of Biscay by a squadron of zabras led by Captain Diego de Aramburu.[108][109]

The failure cost more than 12,000 lives and 20 ships.[110][111] After an investigation was opened in England to try to clarify the causes of the disaster, Drake, whose behaviour was harshly criticised by his comrades in arms, was relegated to the modest post of commander of the coastal defences of Plymouth, being denied the command of any naval expedition for the next six years.

Drake's burial at sea off Portobello. Bronze plaque by Joseph Boehm, 1883, base of Drake statue, Tavistock.

Drake's seafaring career continued into his mid-fifties. In 1595, he failed to conquer the port of Las Palmas, and following a disastrous campaign against Spanish America, where he suffered a number of defeats, he unsuccessfully attacked San Juan de Puerto Rico, eventually losing the Battle of San Juan.

The Spanish gunners from El Morro Castle shot a cannonball through the cabin of Drake's flagship, but he survived. He attempted to attack over land in an effort to capture the rich port of Panamá but was defeated again. A few weeks later, on 28 January 1596, he died (aged about 56) of dysentery, a common disease in the tropics at the time, while anchored off the coast of Portobelo where some Spanish treasure ships had sought shelter.[112][113] Following his death, the English fleet withdrew defeated.[114]

Before dying, he asked to be dressed in his full armour. He was buried at sea in a sealed lead-lined coffin, near Portobelo, a few miles off the coastline. It is supposed that his final resting place is near the wrecks of two British ships, the Elizabeth and the Delight, scuttled in Portobelo Bay. Divers continue to search for the coffin.[115][116]

Buckland Abbey in Devon

Francis Drake married Mary Newman at St. Budeaux church, Plymouth, in July 1569. She died 12 years later, in 1581. In 1585, Drake married Elizabeth Sydenham – born c. 1562, the only child of Sir George Sydenham, of Combe Sydenham,[117] who was the High Sheriff of Somerset.[118]

In 1580, Drake purchased Buckland Abbey, a large manor house near Yelverton, Devon, via intermediaries from Sir Richard Greynvile. He lived there for fifteen years, until his final voyage, and it remained in his family for several generations. Buckland Abbey is now in the care of the National Trust and a number of mementos of his life are displayed there. His coat of arms and full achievement is depicted in the form of a large, coloured plaster overmantel in the Lifetimes Gallery at Buckland Abbey.[87]

This portrait, c. 1581, is at the National Portrait Gallery, London.

Bronze statue in Tavistock, in the parish of which he was born, by Joseph Boehm, 1883.

Illustration of Drake by Thomas Heath Robinson

In the UK there are various places named after him, especially in Plymouth, Devon. Places there carrying his name include the naval base HMS Drake, Drake's Island, and Drake Circus Shopping Centre. Plymouth Hoe is also home to a statue of Drake. The Sir Francis Drake Channel is located in the British Virgin Islands.

In British Columbia, Canada, where some theorise he may also have landed to the north of the usual site considered to be Nova Albion, various mountains were named in the 1930s for him, or in connection with Elizabeth I or other figures of that era, including Mount Sir Francis Drake, Mount Queen Bess, and the Golden Hinde, the highest mountain on Vancouver Island.

Several landmarks in northern California were named after Drake, beginning in the late 19th century and continuing into the 20th century. American historian Richard White has traced the origins of these commemorations to nineteenth-century Anglo-Saxonism,[119] an Anglo-American racial ideology that was variously used to justify manifest destiny, imperialism, slavery, nativism, and the genocide of indigenous peoples.[120][121][122]

Public scrutiny of these memorials intensified after the murder of George Floyd, when protests against police brutality and racism drew critical attention to place names and monuments perceived to be connected to white supremacy. Several California landmarks that commemorated Drake were removed or renamed. Citing Drake's associations with the transatlantic slave trade, colonialism and piracy,[123][124] Sir Francis Drake High School, in San Anselmo, California, changed its name to Archie Williams High School, after former teacher and Olympic athlete Archie Williams. A statue of Drake in Larkspur, California was also removed by the city authorities.[125][126] Multiple jurisdictions in Marin County considered renaming Sir Francis Drake Boulevard, one of its major thoroughfares, but left the name intact when they failed to reach a consensus.[127] In San Francisco, the Sir Francis Drake Hotel was renamed the Beacon Grand Hotel.[128]

Drake's will was the focus of an extensive confidence scam which Oscar Hartzell perpetrated in the 1920s and 1930s.[129]

Drake's Drum has become an icon of English folklore with its variation of the classic King asleep in mountain story motif.

Drake was a major focus in the video game series Uncharted, specifically its first and third instalments, Uncharted: Drake's Fortune and Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception, respectively. The series follows Nathan Drake, a self-proclaimed descendant of Drake who retraces his ancestor's voyages.[130]

Drake was the subject of a TV series, Sir Francis Drake (1961-1962). Terence Morgan played Drake in the 26-episode adventure drama.

In Valparaíso, Chile, folklore associates a cave known as Cueva del Pirata (lit. "Cave of the Pirate") with Francis Drake. A legend says that when Drake ransacked the port, he was disappointed with the scant plunder, and proceeded to enter the churches in fury to sack them and urinate on the goblets. Supposedly he still found the plunder to be not worth enough to take on board his galleon, and hid it in the cave.[131]

• Francis William Drake, relative of Sir Francis Drake
• Drake's Leat, a water supply for Plymouth, promoted by Drake

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• Lane, Kris (2015) [1990]. Pillaging the Empire : Piracy in the Americas 1500-1750. M.E. Sharpe. ISBN 9780765602565.
• Loades, David (2007). "Drake, Francis (1540–1595) English seaman and circumnavigator". In Hattendorf, John J. (ed.). The Oxford Encyclopedia of Maritime History. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780195307405.
• Mattingly, Garett (1959). The Defeat of the Spanish Armada. Houghton Mifflin Company.. Received a special citation from the Pulitzer Prize committee in 1960.
• Maynarde, Thomas (1849). Sir Francis Drake his voyage, 1595 – via Internet Archive.
• Sugden, John (2006) [1990]. Sir Francis Drake. United Kingdom: Pimlico. ISBN 978-1-8441-3762-6.
• Sugden, John (2012). Sir Francis Drake. Random House. ISBN 9781448129508.
• White, Richard (2020). California Exposures. New York, N.Y.: W. W. Norton & Company. pp. 1–31. ISBN 978-0-393-24306-2. OCLC 1102467481.
• Whitfield, Peter (2004). Sir Francis Drake. NYU Press. p. 8. ISBN 9780814794036.

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Wikisource has the text of a 1920 Encyclopedia Americana article about Francis Drake.

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• Hakluyt, Richard (1880). Payne, Edward John (ed.). Voyages of the Elizabethan seamen to America. Thirteen original narratives from the collection of Hakluyt. London: Thos. de la Rue & Co.
• Kraus Collection of Sir Francis Drake From the Rare Book and Special Collections Division at the Library of Congress
• Wallis, Helen (1984). "The Cartography of Drake's voyages". Sir Francis Drake and the famous voyage, 1577-1580. Berkley: University of California Press.
• Wilson, Derek (1977). The World Encompassed: Drake's Great Voyage, 1577–80. Harper & Row. ISBN 9780060146795.