Sir Francis Drake is one of England’s best-known sailors. He stole from the Spanish for Queen Elizabeth I, was the first person to complete a circumnavigation of the globe while remaining Captain from beginning to end, and even spent time as a politician. Loved by the English people (and possibly even the Queen herself), Drake has gone down in history for his exploits. Such an interesting life bred interesting facts, and if you read on, you may find out some things you didn’t know.

Less than Noble Beginnings

While Drake today is known mostly as a privateer and explorer, the beginnings of his career were much more infamous. After his father had fled England from charges of assault and robbery, Drake went to live with the Hawkins family, who were part-time pirates and also slave traders. With his cousin John Hawkins, Drake made his early fortunes capturing people as slaves in Africa and selling them in Spanish colonies in the Caribbean. 1568 saw his and Hawkins’ slaving fleet attacked by Spanish ships and most of English ships lost and their sailors killed. This would end up turning Drake away from slaving and towards a path of revenge against the Spanish.

The Drake

By 1570, Drake was sailing to the Caribbean to attack Spanish ships and steal the gold and silver brought from South America. For the first two years of his career, Drake was a full-on pirate, operating illegally without a privateer’s commission, which he would gain from Queen Elizabeth in 1572. Though his privateering made him a hero in England, the Spanish considered him a pirate and referred to him as “El Draque” (“The Drake”). It is said that King Phillip II of Spain offered 20,000 ducats for his capture, the equivalent of several million pounds today.

Maybe It’s Supernatural

Such was the fear of Drake among the Spanish that some sailors believed he was a witch with magical powers. Spanish sailors believed that Drake had a magic mirror that would enable him to locate their ships at sea and that he was in league with the devil himself!

Around the World

While Drake’s wasn’t the first expedition to circumnavigate the globe, his was the first to come back as the captain at the beginning *and* the end of the voyage. Setting off in 1577, Drake has implicit orders from the Queen to disrupt Spanish shipping lanes in the Pacific. He set out with five ships and sailed through the Strait of Magellan to reach the other side of the continent, raiding as they went up the coast to Peru. Unfortunately, circumstances whittled his fleet down to one ship, the Golden Hind, by the end of the voyage, but Drake returned rich enough that his investors received 47 pounds sterling for every pound they invested in him.

Off With His Head

While most of the crew from Drake’s fleet died in combat or because of disease, at least one sailor was personally decapitated by Drake as punishment for leading a mutiny.

California

Drake is said to have made anchor off the coast of Northern California (possibly close to San Francisco) and made friends with the native population while his ship was being prepared. He named the area “Nova Albion” and claimed it for England. He left after a month, and the area would eventually become a Spanish colony.

Knighthood

On his return, Queen Elizabeth had Drake knighted. She did not perform the ceremony herself, however, and instead, the dubbing was conducted by Monsieur de Marchaumont, a French diplomat who was attempting to negotiate a marriage between Elizabeth and the King’s brother, Francis, Duke of Anjou. Elizabeth supposed picked the diplomat so that it would appear Drake’s actions had the implicit support of France. Since that time, a period of Victorian nationalism changed the story so that the Queen herself knighted Drake on his ship.

One of the Favourites

It is said that Queen Elizabeth’s admiration for Drake’s privateering skills may have been more than professional. He is rumoured to have been one of her suitors, but there is little (if any) evidence to support it, and Drake himself was a married man by 1569 and remarried in 1585, four years after the death of his first wife. Neither marriage produced children.

First Strike

Part of the reason for King Phillip II’s creation of the Spanish Armada was to invade England for the attacks against his ships by Drake and other privateers. However, Drake ended up getting the drop on the Armada first, attacking in 1587 and destroying thirty-seven Spanish ships, delaying the invasion for a year. When the Spanish Armada attacked in 1588 with 130 ships, the English defeated them at the Battle of Gravelines, for which Drake was a Vice-Admiral for the English fleet.

Never Found

Drake continued his privateering well into his fifties, and in 1595, he set off to raid again, hitting Puerto Rico and Panama. In 1596, he caught dysentery and died off of Portobello. Drake was placed in full armor, sealed inside a lead coffin, and sent it overboard off the coast. Many a diver, historian, and treasure hunter have sought to find Drake’s coffin, but no one yet has found it.