Talk by John Turner
John’s very informative and entertaining presentation revealed a lot more to us about Francis Drake than is commonly known. Who was Sir Francis Drake; did he actually play bowls on Plymouth Hoe and say there was plenty of time when informed of the approach of the Spanish Armada?
Commencing with his birth between 1540 and 1543 near Tavistock north of Plymouth, we learned that he was the eldest of twelve sons; his father Edmund being a preacher and tenant farmer of the second Earl of Bedford. In 1548 however, Edmund was reported either to have been arraigned on charges of assault and robbery resulting in the family fleeing to Kent, or to have fled with the family to Kent because of religious persecution during the Prayer Book Rebellion (see note below). There he was ordained deacon and made vicar of Upnor church on the Medway. The claim that he was a refugee from Roman Catholic persecution was deemed by some to be a later pious fiction to avoid the unpalatable truth.
· The Prayer Book Rebellion was a popular revolt in Cornwall and Devon in 1549 in which year the Book of Common Prayer presenting the theology of the English Reformation was introduced. The change was widely unpopular, particularly in areas where firm Catholic religious loyalty was the tradition. Lord John Russell was sent to suppress the revolt, the rebels being defeated and their leaders executed two months after the beginning of hostilities. Lord John Russell was thus granted the Earldom of Bedford along with ownership of extensive lands in the south-west as well as other parts of the country. It was the 5th Earl who was created Duke of Bedford and Marquess of Tavistock.
Some scholars think Drake was born illegitimate and that was the reason for him being placed in the household of relatives who lived nearby in Plymouth, the Hawkins family, who were prosperous merchants and pirates. It was with them that he began his seagoing training as an apprentice. By the age of eighteen he had risen to be a bursar and his father found him a position with the owner and master of a small barque plying for trade between the river Medway and the Dutch coast. On the death of the barque’s owner, Drake was granted its ownership.
Drake’s relative John Hawkins returned in 1862 from a successful venture to Guinea with a rich cargo of gold, ivory and spices, and an idea. At that time the West African slave trade was officially a Portuguese monopoly but Hawkins thought it would be good to get a slice of the action. Thus in 1567, when Drake was still only twenty-six or twenty-seven, he was master of his own ship and joined in a venture with John Hawkins to sail to New Guinea on the East Coast of Africa where they took part in some of the first English illicit trading of slaves to the Spanish colonies in the Caribbean. It was in fact illegal in English law to capture people and transport them, but in those days it was perceived as OK if they were slaves, non-protestants or criminals!
Drake made a second voyage with Hawkins to the West Indies but this became a disaster after they were attacked by the Spanish and many sailors were killed. Drake managed to escape and returned to England in command of one of two small ships but was left with a lasting deep and all-consuming hatred of the Spanish and he ever after nursed an overwhelming determination to have his revenge. Although the trip had been a failure, it did bring Drake to the notice of the Queen. She herself had invested in slave trading ventures and gave Drake a privateering commission which amounted to a licence to plunder in the King of Spain’s realm in her name.
Over the following few years, Drake made several trips to the West Indies and in 1573 embarked on his boldest enterprise, planning an attack on the isthmus of Panama the famous Spanish Main. This was of great strategic importance because it was the point at which the Spanish gold and silver treasure of Peru had to be landed and sent overland in mule trains to the Caribbean Sea from where Spanish galleons would load up the treasure at the town of Nombre de Dios. Drake captured the Spanish Silver Train and ended up with over twenty tons of silver and gold. Much of the treasure was buried as it was too heavy to carry but he still made off with a fortune in gold, and expeditions to locate the buried treasure continue to the present day.
Unfortunately his return to England was not best-timed as Queen Elizabeth and King Philip of Spain had reached a temporary truce and, although delighted with Drake’s success, the Queen could not possibly acknowledge piracy! Drake saw it was not a good time to be around so sailed with a small squadron to Ireland where he served under the earl of Sussex, taking part in a notorious massacre in July 1575 at Rathlin Island.
In 1577 Drake was invited by the Queen to lead an expedition to round South America, passing through the Straits of Magellan, and thus Drake would subsequently become only the second man to sail round the world and the first Englishman. The explicit object of the expedition was to “find out places meet to have traffic” – but needless to say, Drake ignored this and devoted the entire voyage to piracy – and all without any reproof in England!!
Drake had problems with his co-commander Thomas Doughty during the passage south, accusing him of witchcraft, treason and mutiny. This was not surprising considering nearly all of his crewmen believed they were going on a simple trading expedition to Egypt. It was only after they passed the Mediterranean that their commander announced his true intentions to round the southern tip of South America and enter the Pacific Ocean, a feat never before accomplished by an English vessel. Needless to say the crew were less than impressed! As soon as they arrived in Brazil, Drake held a shipboard trial, found Doughty guilty and ordered his head to be chopped off – although it was somewhat doubtful if Drake had the authority to do so.
As soon as he had navigated the perils of the Magellan Straits and entered the Pacific Ocean, Drake wreaked havoc amongst the Spanish who simply were not used to a hostile ship in those waters and he captured some very rich prizes. He continued to sail north and claimed to have reached as far as 48 degrees north, parallel to Vancouver, in the search for the north west passage. However, the cold drove him back and he finally anchored near what is now San Francisco and going ashore named the surrounding country New Albion, taking possession of it in the name of Queen Elizabeth.
He finally returned to England on 26th September 1580, sailing into Plymouth Harbour laden with treasure and spices and a very wealthy man for life. Queen Elizabeth went aboard the ship when finally lying at Deptford and personally knighted him on the ship, although a French diplomatic actually wielded the sword on her behalf to avoid upsetting the Spanish king.
A year later in 1581 Drake was made Mayor of Plymouth and bought Buckland Abbey a few miles north of Plymouth. He organised a water supply for Plymouth by having a watercourse dug from the start of the river Meavy all the way to the city. The plan was to provide via a leat a supply of water for naval and merchant shipping, to provide water for fire-fighting in Plymouth, and to scour the harbour of silt.
Construction of the leat was by means of a simple ditch and bank which measured approximately six feet at its widest and was approximately two feet deep and seventeen miles long. Its course was deliberately meandering and gently sloping so that the water would not flow too fast and erode the banks. It was estimated that it took some thirty-five men just over four months to complete the construction. Drake was paid £200 for the work plus another £100 for compensating any landowners whose property the course of the leat would have to pass through. In the event he paid out only £100 for construction and £60 for compensation, making a tidy £140 profit. Coincidentally, the leat powered all six of the new mills built by Plymouth Corporation and leased exclusively by Drake, as well as the existing mill already being leased by Drake.
On completion of the leat it became obvious that little notice had been taken of original intentions since it didn’t flow to the naval victualling yard until much later; it was of no use for fire-fighting as it avoided the built up areas of the city; it never went near Sutton Harbour, and finally no arrangements for supplying irrigation were ever made – with the taking of water from the leat being made illegal. It would appear therefore that the primary purpose was for the benefit of Drake who was enabled to capitalise on his own commercial milling operations. Eventually some excess water was made available free to the public via twenty-seven conduits spread around the town, an arrangement which remained in place for 300 years.
Drake continued his seafaring and undertook several further exploits, including the Great Expedition to America which resulted from the Treaty of Nonsuch signed by the Dutch in August 1585 and which led to England providing Dutch rebels in the Netherlands with a small military force to aid the rebels in their fight against Spain. This provoked the declaration of war between England and Spain, one of the reasons for Spain sending the Spanish Armada.
In 1587 he sailed to the port of Cadiz in Spain, setting fire to the ships of the gathering Spanish naval forces before raiding forts along the Portuguese coast. This delayed Spain’s invasion of England by a whole year, an intervention that became known as ‘singeing the King of Spain’s Beard’. His final venture however was an unsuccessful attack on San Juan do Puerto Rico and a few weeks later on 29th January 1596 he died of dysentery – a common disease in the tropics at the time. Before dying he asked to be dressed in his full armour, and was buried at sea in a sealed lead coffin a few miles off the coastline. After all these years divers are still trying to locate Drake’s final resting place.
Drake is said to have taken a snare drum emblazoned with his coat of arms, on his round the world venture. It was still with him for his final voyage and as he lay on his death bed off the coast of Panama he ordered the drum be returned to England where in times of trouble it should be beaten and he would return from heaven to rescue the country.[2
“Take my drum to England, hang et by the shore, Strike et when your powder’s runnin’ low; If the Dons sight Devon, I’ll quit the port o’ Heaven, An’ drum them up the Channel as we drummed them long ago.”
A faithful replica of the drum can be seen preserved at Buckland Monachorum but the original is preserved in a climate controlled store somewhere else in England. The drum has become an icon of English folklore and several times throughout history, people have claimed to have heard the drum beating. Some claim to have heard it when the Mayflower left Plymouth for America in 1620, some when Napoleon was brought into Plymouth Harbour as a prisoner, and some when World War I began in 1914. Reportedly, on HMS Royal Oak, a victory drum roll from a drum was heard when the Imperial German Navy surrendered in 1918. The ship was searched twice by officers and then again by the captain and neither a drum nor a drummer was found on board and eventually the phenomenon was put down to the legendary drum.
Thus, John provided us with a potted biopic of Sir Francis Drake. Was he a swashbuckling English hero of the high seas, or a ruthless privateer who smashed and grabbed his way to fame and fortune? He was undoubtedly one of the most skilful and gifted navigators of his time, charismatic, resourceful and determined. Many others didn’t share this view however- his fellow captains found him unreliable and self-seeking. And there can be little doubt that his life was dedicated to self-aggrandisement and a driving determination to assuage his hatred of the Spanish.
Equally he was hated by the Spanish, who were so afraid of him that called him El Draque (the dragon) and thought he possessed magical powers. King Philip reportedly offered a reward of 20,000 ducats, well over £6 million in today’s money, for his capture or death.
So there can be little doubt why Queen Elizabeth 1st should call on him to play a leading role in the English fleet facing the mighty oncoming Spanish Armada.
Following questions, club members expressed their appreciation and John was thanked by our president for his most interesting talk.