Sir Francis Drake's body 'close to being found off Panama' - BBC News BBC News Sir Francis Drake's body 'close to being found off Panama' 25 October 2011 Close share panel Image caption The expedition hopes to find the remains of Sir Francis Drake The owner of an American pirate museum claims to be close to finding the remains of Sir Francis Drake, the Elizabethan sailor and navigator. Drake died at sea in 1596 and his body, clad in a full suit of armour and in a lead coffin, is thought to be off the coast of Panama. He was knighted for his successful exploits around the world. Pat Croce claims he has located two ships which were scuttled shortly after Drake died of dysentery. "This is absolutely a dream come true - to find the ships of the most successful pirate in history, who single-handedly wreaked havoc on Spain's New Empire," said Mr Croce, who is blogging on the expedition live from Panama. They are now hoping to find Drake's lead-lined coffin, which may still contain his body, which was reportedly buried in a full suit of armour.

Mr Croce said the remains of the ships, the Elizabeth and the Delight, had been discovered at the bottom of Portobelo Bay. Defeated Armada Drake is credited for defeating the Spanish Armada's invasion of England in 1588 and also became the first Englishman to circumnavigate the globe. After a career as naval officer, Drake drifted into piracy and was also one of the earliest exponents of the slave trade, bringing African men and women to work in the English colonies of North America in the 16th Century. Image caption Sir Francis Drake is described by some as a hero and by others as a pirate Mr Croce, who runs the St Augustine Pirate & Treasure Museum in Florida, said they had found the burnt timbers of Elizabeth and Delight, which sank shortly after Drake's death. The team's marine archaeologist, Jim Sinclair, said: "Finding the Elizabeth and Delight near where Sir Francis Drake is buried is as exciting to me as helping discover the (Spanish galleon, Nuestra Senora de) Atocha and diving the RMS Titanic." The expedition focused on Portobelo Bay after hiring London-based researcher Trevor McEniry to pinpoint areas where the ships might have gone down.

The Drake expedition once again highlights a grey area when it comes to the protection of British shipwrecks. Under the Protection of Military Remains Act 1986 British naval vessels anywhere in the world are protected from exploitation. But the act only covers certain ships which sunk since 1914 and only British citizens can be prosecuted under it. The Joint Nautical Archaeology Policy Committee has been pressing the UK government for years to ratify the Unesco Convention on the Protection of Underwater Cultural Heritage. The JNAPC's chairman, Robert Yorke, told the BBC: "If they are Drake's ships they are presumably sovereign immune so why isn't the British government telling these people to go away? "If we had ratified the convention we could make sure they were properly conserved and looked after." But as Panama has ratified the convention its government might be expected to act to protect the wrecks of the ships. Francis Drake - Exploration - HISTORY.com Francis Drake A+E Networks Introduction Francis Drake participated in some of the earliest English slaving voyages to Africa and earned a reputation for his privateering, or piracy, against Spanish ships and possessions.

Sent by Queen Elizabeth II to South America in 1577, he returned home via the Pacific and became the first Englishman to circumnavigate the globe; the queen rewarded him with a knighthood. In 1588, Drake served as second-in-command during the English victory over the Spanish Armada. The most famous mariner of the Elizabethan Age, he died off the coast of Panama in 1596 and was buried at sea. Google Francis Drake’s Early Life and Hatred for Spain Born between 1540 and 1544 in Devonshire, England, Francis Drake was the son of a tenant farmer on the estate of Lord Francis Russell, earl of Bedford. He was brought up in Plymouth by the Hawkins family, relatives who worked as merchants and privateers (often referred to as pirates). Drake went to sea for the first time around the age of 18 with the Hawkins family fleet, and by the 1560s had earned command of his own ship. Did You Know? When he died off the coast of Panama in 1596, Sir Francis Drake was buried at sea, wearing full armor and encased in a lead-lined coffin.

Divers, treasure hunters and Drake enthusiasts continue to search for his final resting place. In 1567, Drake and his cousin John Hawkins sailed to Africa in order to join the fledgling slave trade. When they sailed to New Spain to sell their captives to settlers there (which was against Spanish law) they were trapped by a Spanish attack in the Mexican port of San Juan de Ulua. Many of their crewmates were killed in the incident, though Drake and Hawkins escaped, and Drake returned to England with what would be a lifelong hatred for Spain and its ruler, King Philip II. Francis Drake: Privateer for the British Crown After leading two successful expeditions to the West Indies, Drake came to the attention of Queen Elizabeth I , who granted him a privateer’s commission, effectively giving him the right to plunder Spanish ports in the Caribbean. Drake did just that in 1592, capturing the port of Nombre de Dios (a drop-off point for silver and gold brought from Peru) and crossing the Isthmus of Panama, where he caught sight of the great Pacific Ocean. He returned to England with a large amount of Spanish treasure, an accomplishment that earned him a reputation as a leading privateer.

In 1577, Queen Elizabeth commissioned Drake to lead an expedition around South America through the Straits of Magellan. The voyage was plagued by conflict between Drake and the two other men tasked with sharing command. When they arrived off the coast of Argentina, Drake had one of the men–Thomas Doughty–arrested, tried and beheaded for allegedly plotting a mutiny. Of the five-ship fleet, two ships were lost in a storm; the other commander, John Wynter, turned one back to England; and another disappeared. Drake’s 100-ton flagship, the Pelican (which he later renamed the Golden Hind), was the only vessel to reach the Pacific, in October 1578. Francis Drake Circumnavigates the Globe After plundering Spanish ports along the west coast of South America, Drake headed north in search of a passage back to the Atlantic. He claimed to have traveled as far north as 48° N (on parallel with Vancouver, Canada) before extreme cold conditions turned him back. Drake anchored near today’s San Francisco and claimed the surrounding land, which he called New Albion, for Queen Elizabeth.

Heading back west across the Pacific in July 1579, he stopped in the Philippines and bought spices in the Molucca Islands. He then sailed around the Cape of Good Hope and arrived back in England’s Plymouth Harbor in September 1580. Despite complaints from the Spanish government about his piracy, Drake was honored as the first Englishman to circumnavigate the globe and became a popular hero. Several months after his return, Queen Elizabeth personally knighted him aboard the Golden Hind. Francis Drake: Defeat of the Spanish Armada, Later Years and Death In 1585, with hostilities heating up again between England and Spain, the queen gave Drake command of a fleet of 25 ships. He sailed to the West Indies and the coast of Florida and mercilessly plundered Spanish ports there, taking Santiago in the Cape Verde Islands, Cartagena in Colombia, St. Augustine in Florida and San Domingo (now Santo Domingo, capital of the Dominican Republic). On the return voyage, he picked up the failed colonists from Roanoke Island off the Carolinas, the first English colony in North America.

Drake then led an even bigger fleet (30 ships) into the Spanish port of Cádiz and destroyed a large number of vessels being readied for the Spanish Armada. In 1588, Drake served as second-in-command to Admiral Charles Howard in the English victory over the supposedly invincible Spanish fleet. After a failed 1589 expedition to Portugal, Drake returned home to England for several years, until Queen Elizabeth enlisted him for one more voyage, against Spanish possessions in the West Indies in early 1596. The expedition proved to be a dismal failure: Spain fended off the English attacks, and Drake came down with fever and dysentery. He died in late January 1596 off the coast of Puerto Bello (now Portobelo, Panama). Tags Sir Francis Drake's grave on verge of being found off Panama coast | Daily Mail Online comments A team of international treasure hunters is close to finding the final resting place of British Naval hero Sir Francis Drake. They have found two of his ships which were scuttled off the coast of Panama over 400 years ago following the adventurer's death.

The team believes Drake's lead-lined coffin could be near to the location of the two ships 'Elizabeth' and Delight' and have begun a search for the historical artefact. Major breakthrough: The treasure-hunting team led by American explorer Pat Croce, pictured in action, believe they have found two of Sir Francis Drake's ships which were scuttled off the coast of Panama over 400 years ago - taking them closer to the site of the British naval hero's final resting place The ships were scuttled by Drake's crews in 1596 after the English captain was buried at sea following his death at the age of 55 from dysentery. Drake is considered one of Britain's greatest naval heroes having led the English fleet in victory over the Spanish Armada in 1588 as they prepared for an invasion of Britain. RELATED ARTICLES Share this article Share He was the first Englishman to circumnavigate the globe and the scourge of the Spanish in their ambitions to conquer the world.

THE LIFE AND TIMES OF SIR FRANCIS DRAKE 1540 - Born in Tavistock, Devon, as one of 12 children 1563 - Sails for the first time to the New World (the Americas) with second cousin Sir John Hawkins 1568 - Again sailing with Hawkins, Drake becomes trapped by Spaniards in the Mexican port of San Juan de Ulua. Both escape but Drake vows revenge 1572 - Drake leads a fleet who capture huge amounts of Spanish silver off the coast of Panama. 1579/80 - Drake, sailing in the Golden Hind, becomes the first Englishman to sail around the world 1581 - Queen Elizabeth I knights Francis Drake, and he also becomes Mayor of Plymouth 1587 - On the orders of Queen Elizabeth, Drake attacks and destroys the Spanish fleet at Cadiz 1588 - As Vice Admiral of an English fleet alongside Sir John Hawkins and Lord Howard of Effingham, Drake helps destroy the Spanish Armada 1595 - Drake is sent to capture treasure from a wrecked Spanish fleet at La Forteleza, near San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Drake fails and returns to Panama 1596 - While anchored off Portobelo, Panama, Drake develops dysentery and dies aged 55. He is buried at sea near Portobelo, though divers have never found the exact location The wrecks of the ships were found in an underwater expedition led by Pat Croce, a self-confessed pirate enthusiast and former president of the Philadelphia 76ers basketball team. The 56-year-old financed the expedition to the coast off Panama to try and locate Drake's last known resting place. His 12-strong crew included explorers from Britain, France, Scotland, Australia, Panama and Colombia. They were armed with the most sophisticated equipment in the world, including a magnetometer, GeoSwath and sub-bottom profiler that can scan the ocean floor. Mr Croce said: 'Explorers have been trying to do this stuff forever, and here I am, a homeboy from Philadelphia in the Caribbean and we score! It's pretty wild.' Mr Croce, who runs a pirate museum in St Augustine, Florida, said the ships would remain in the water as they are the property of Panama.

He said there was no treasure on board as the ships had been stripped before being scuttled. But he added that his team would now focus their efforts on trying to find Drake's coffin. He said: 'It's truly a needle in a haystack, but so were the ships. We found them within a week. We just haven't found him - yet.' Drake was buried in full armour and in a lead lined coffin by his crew following his death. Other marine experts spoke of the importance of the undersea find. 'We've really, I feel, hit a home run here with what we found with Pat,' said marine archaeologist James Sinclair. Sir Francis Drake (right) died of dysentery in January 1596 and was buried at sea. He was the first Englishman to circumnavigate the globe, which he did in his ship the Golden Hind, a replica of which can be seen on the left Final resting place: Drake died near Portobelo, Panama, but after being buried at sea the exact location of his remains are unknown 'Finding the Elizabeth and Delight near where Sir Francis Drake is buried is as exciting to me as helping discover the Atocha and diving down to the RMS Titanic.

'Finding ship structures from that time period in this temperature water with the type of organisms that exist is a treasure in itself. 'We have an area that future students of underwater archaeology will be able to use for years to come.' What Ever Happened to Our Hero, Sir Francis Drake? – The Live The Adventure Letter By Heirloom Audio Feb 04, 2015 Sometimes one person can change the course of history in huge and remarkable ways. Sir Francis Drake, our real-life hero from Under Drake’s Flag was such a man. Through his faith, courage, determination, and skill, Drake accomplished in his lifetime what many of us can only dream about. We know Sir Francis Drake was a remarkable navigator and sea captain. Through his experience, he helped the English defeat the mighty and “invincible” Spanish armada. Not to mention he was the first Englishman to circumnavigate the globe and achieved knighthood for his accomplishments. On top of all those amazing feats, Drake’s real legacy centers around the fact he was a man of devout Christian faith. What Happened To Drake? Like with any good story, whether it be fact or fiction – we the reader want to know what ultimately happens to our most favorite heroes.

Sir Francis Drake is no different. As this issue of the Live The Adventure Letter goes to press, we remember the day of Drake’s passing, some four hundred and nineteen years ago in January of 1596. Because we don’t know his exact birth date (circa 1540), we think Drake was somewhere in his mid-50s when he died. In 1595, he accepted one last assignment from the Queen and took on the Spanish Main yet once more. Drake and his cousin, John Hawkins, were sent to capture Spain’s treasure supply located in and around Panama. The Queen thought that seizing the Spanish assets in this area would dry up their reserves and help end the war once and for all. Unfortunately, this time Drake would not be successful. The expedition failed and Drake lost the Battle of San Juan. After a few skirmishes in the Caribbean, Drake moved his fleet farther west and anchored off the coast of Portobello, Panama. It was there that Drake succumbed to dysentery (then called the “bloody flux”) on or around January 27/28th, 1596.

Legend has it that shortly before his death, Drake himself asked to be buried in his full suit of armor. He was buried at sea in a lead coffin somewhere off the coast of Puerto Bello, Panama in waters thought to be around 129 feet deep. This Day in History - January 28 - News - JamaicaObserver.com Today is the 28th day of 2012. There are 338 days left in the year. Today's Highlight 1813: The novel Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen was first published in London, anonymously. Other Events 1547: England's King Henry VIII dies and is succeeded by his 9-year-old son, Edward VI. 1596: English navigator Sir Francis Drake dies off Panama's coast and is buried at sea. 1689: Britain's Parliament declares that James II has abdicated; Germany's Baron Melas devastates the Palatinate. 1846: East India Company troops defeat Sikhs at Aliwal in India. 1871: France surrenders in the Franco-Prussian War.

1885: British relief force reaches Khartoum, and the Sudan is evacuated. 1902: The Carnegie Institute, a non-profit organisation to conduct basic research and advanced education in biology, astronomy and earth sciences is established in Washington, DC 1909: US control in Cuba is ended. 1912: A lynch mob drags former President General Eloy Alfaro and his lieutenants through the streets of Quito, Ecuador, and burn them to death. 1915: The US Coast Guard is created by an Act of Congress. 1916: Louis D Brandeis is appointed by President Woodrow Wilson to the Supreme Court, becoming its first Jewish member. 1932: Japanese troops occupy Shanghai in China. 1945: First US truck convoy reopens Burma Road in World War II. 1949: UN Security Council adopts resolution to establish a ceasefire in Indonesia, then known as the Dutch East Indies. 1961: Rwanda's provisional government proclaims republic.

1962: US unmanned spacecraft, Ranger III, fails to hit the moon and passes it at a distance of 35,200 kilometres (22,000 miles). 1964: Riots break out in Salisbury, Southern Rhodesia -- known today as Harare, Zimbabwe. 1980: Six US diplomats who avoided being taken hostage at their embassy in Tehran fly out of Iran with the help of Canadian diplomats. 1983: Labour group Solidarity's underground leaders call on Poland's factory workers to prepare for nationwide general strike as "the only way to break down the existing dictatorship." 1986: Space shuttle Challenger explodes moments after lift-off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, killing all seven crew members. 1990: Life in Azerbaijani capital of Baku returns to normal as Armenian and Azerbaijani separatists withdraw from border regions. 1991: Soviet troops seize and shut down two Lithuanian customs posts. 1992: Leadership of National Liberation Front, which won Algeria's independence and ruled for three decades, resigns.

1993: France's ambassador to Zaire is killed by a stray bullet as soldiers riot and loot shops and foreigners' homes in Kinshasa. 1994: Three Italian journalists are killed by a mortar shell in Mostar, Bosnia. 1995: In the bloodiest day so far in Egypt's Islamic insurgency, police shoot to death 14 suspected militants, and extremists kill two policemen and two civilians. 1996: In Sarajevo, three British soldiers are killed when their armoured personnel carrier hits a land mine and a Swedish soldier dies when his vehicle slides off the road. 1997: In Algiers, an assassin shoots and kills the leader of Algeria's largest labour union -- a key presidential ally and an opponent of the Islamic insurgency. 1998: A judge in Poonamallee, India, convicts 26 conspirators linked to Sri Lanka's separatist Tamil Tiger rebels in the 1991 suicide bombing assassination of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and orders all to be hanged. 1999: India and Pakistan meet in their first cricket match in the subcontinent in 12 years.

Pakistan walks away with a 12-run victory after a nail-biting finish. 2000: A plane brings 19 sick and weak-looking adolescents home to Uganda after months -- or possibly years --of captivity under Ugandan rebels based in southern Sudan. Some 5,000 children are believed to have been kidnapped by the rebels over the past decade according to UNICEF. 2001: A Ukrainian vessel sinks in the Black Sea, killing at least 14 people. Five were reported missing and 32 were rescued. 2003: Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's right-wing Likud party wins the parliamentary elections, soundly defeating the center-left Labour Party and extending Sharon's leadership for another four-year term. The Labour Party suffered its worst-ever defeat at the polls. 2007: Britain's Prince Charles and his wife, Camilla, met with New York schoolchildren as they visited Harlem during their whirlwind American weekend. Roger Federer captured his 10th Grand Slam singles title at the Australian Open, beating Fernando Gonzalez 7-6 (2), 6-4, 6-4.

2008: Thousands of machete-wielding youths riot in Kenya, setting buses and homes ablaze and hunting down members of President Mwai Kibaki's Kikuyu tribe. A month of violence triggered by rigged presidential elections gathers frightening momentum with a death toll topping 800. 2009: A caterpillar plague in Liberia spreads, affecting 400,000 people in more than 100 villages in the West African nation, the UN says. 2010: A court rules that former French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin did not take part in a smear campaign against President Nicolas Sarkozy, a verdict that means the two rivals may soon be sparring in the political arena again. 2010: German Chancellor Angela Merkel and British Prime Minister David Cameron swing their weight behind calls to clinch a global trade deal, citing it as a key test for the international community's ability to cooperate in reviving the world economy.

Today's Birthdays John Barclay, Scottish satirist (1582-1621); John Baskerville, English typographer (1716-1775); Alan Alda, US actor (1936--); Joey Fatone Jr, US singer/game show host (1977- ); Nick Carter, US singer (1980- ); Elijah Wood, US actor (1981- ); Sarah McLachlan, Canadian singer (1968- ) French President Nicolas Sarkozy (1955- ); Rapper Rick Ross (1978- ); Rapper J Cole (1985- ); Actress Ariel Winter (TV: Modern Family) is (1998- ) ADVERTISEMENT Sir Francis Drake, Vice admiral (c.1540 - 1596) - Genealogy Sir Francis Drake Share your family tree and photos with the people you know and love Build your family tree online Share photos and videos Sir Francis Drake, Vice admiral Birthdate: in Aboard 'Flagship' in West Indies off coast of Portobello, Panama Cause of death: 1540 - Tavistock, Devon

, United Kingdom Death: Jan 28 1596 - Porto Bello, Porto Bello, Panama Parents: Edmund Drake, Elizabeth Drake (born Mylwaye) Spouses: Elizabeth Sydenham, Mary Drake (born Newman) Siblings: July 4 1569 - Saint Budeaux, Devon, England Wife: 1540 - Tavistock, Devon, United Kingdom Death: Jan 28 1596 - Porto Bello, Porto Bello, Panama Parents: Edmund Drake, Mary Drake (born Milwaye) Sibling: Jan 1 1540 - Tavish, Devon England Death: Jan 28 1594 - Porto Bello, Panama Parents: Mar 26 1540 - Tavistock, Devon, England Death: Jan 28 1596 - Portobello, Panama Parents: Circa 1540 - Tavistock, Devon, England Death: Jan 26 1596 - Portobelo, Panama Parents: Edmund Drake, Mary Elizabeth (Born Drake (born Mylwaye) Brother: 1540 - Crow

ndale (near Tavistock), Devon, England Death: Edmund Drake, Mary Elizabeth Drake (born Milwaye) Siblings: ...seph Drake, John Drake, Edmund Drake, Elizabeth Drake, Robert Drake, Elliot Drake, William Drake, Benjamin Drake, Thomas Drake, Edward Drake 1540 - Tavistock, Devon, United Kingdom Death: Jan 28 1596 - Porto Bello, Porto Bello, Panama Parents: Edmund Drake, Elizabeth Drake (born Mylwaye) Siblings: Joseph Drake, Edward Drake, William Drake, John Drake, Thomas Drake Wife: 1540 - Tavistock, Devon, United Kingdom Death: Jan 28 1596 - Porto Bello, Porto Bello, Panama Parents: Edmund Of Crowdale Drake, Mary Elizabeth Drake (born Mylwaye) Siblings: Joseph Drake, Edward Drake, William Drake, John Drake, Thomas (Of Buckland) Drake Wife: Edmund Drake, Mary Elizabeth Drake (born Mylwaye) Siblings: ...dmund Drake, Edmund Drake, Robert Drake, Elizabeth Drake, Elliot Drake, Benjamin Drake, Thomas Drake, John Drake, Alice Drake, William Drake Wife:

 Lady Mary Drake (born Newman) Wife: Jan 1 1540 - Tavish, Devon, England Death: Jan 28 1594 - Porto Bello, Panama Parents: Edmund Drake, Mary Drake (born Mylwaye) Siblings: ...Drake, Frances Drake, Frances Drake, Edward Drake, Edward Drake, Edmund Drake, Robert Drake, Elizabeth Drake, Elliot Drake, William Drake...

Wife: brother About Sir Francis Drake Alternate date: He his said to have died in January 1596, but his will is dated April 10, 1661. -=-=-=-=-=- Sir Francis Drake, Vice Admiral (1540 – 27 January 1596) was an English sea captain, privateer, navigator, slaver, a renowned pirate, and politician of the Elizabethan era. Elizabeth I of England awarded Drake a knighthood in 1581. He was second-in-command of the English fleet against the Spanish Armada in 1588, subordinate only to Charles Howard and the Queen herself. He died of dysentery in January 1596 after unsuccessfully attacking San Juan, Puerto Rico. His exploits were legendary, making him a hero to the English but a pirate to the Spaniards to whom he was known as El Draque, 'Draque' being the Spanish pronunciation of 'Drake'.

His name in Latin was Franciscus Draco ('Francis the Dragon').[2] King Philip II was claimed to have offered a reward of 20,000 ducats, about £4,000,000 (US$6.5M) by modern standards, for his life. He is famous for (among other things) leading the first English circumnavigation of the world, from 1577 to 1580. Sir Francis Drake was born in Tavistock, Devon, in February or March of 1544 at the earliest, when his namesake godfather Francis Russell, 2nd Earl of Bedford was but age 17. Drake's family immediately removed to Kent where he was raised. Although Drake's birth is not formally recorded, it is known that he was born while the six articles were in force and that 'Drake was two and twenty when he obtained the command of the Judith' (1566) this carries back his birth to 1544 (at which time the six articles were in force).

He was the eldest of the twelve sons of Edmund Drake (1518–1585), a Protestant farmer called in question for his religion by the six articles, who became a minister among the seamen in the king's navy to read prayers to them, and his wife Mary Mylwaye. In the days of religious persecution, the Drake family fled from Devonshire into Kent, where the father obtained an appointment to minister to men in the King's navy,and soon afterwards was ordained deacon and made vicar of Upnor Church upon the Medway. Drake's father put his son to the master of a barque, his neighbour, who carried on coasting trade transporting merchandise to France. The ship master was so satisfied with Drake's conduct, and pleased with him, that, being unmarried and childless at his death he bequeathed the barque to Drake as his inheritor. The elder Drake is sometimes confused with his nephew John Drake (1573–1634), who was the son of Edmund's older brother, Richard Drake. (cf. John White, note 2). Francis Drake's maternal grandfather was Richard Mylwaye.

Francis Drake was married to his first wife, Mary Newman, from 1569 until her death 12 years later. In 1585, Drake married Elizabeth Sydenham—born circa 1562, the only child of Sir George Sydenham, sheriff of Somerset. After Drake's death, Elizabeth eventually married Sir William Courtenay of Powderham. Sir Francis Drake did not have any children, and his estate and titles passed on to his nephew (also named Francis). “ The people of quality dislike him for having risen so high from such a lowely family; the rest say he is the main cause of wars. ” —Gonzalo González del Castillo in a letter to King Philip II in 1592. Francis Drake was reportedly named after his godfather Francis Russell, 2nd Earl of Bedford, and throughout his cousins' lineages are direct connections to royalty and famous personages, such as Sir Richard Grenville, Ivor Callely, Amy Grenville and Geoffrey Chaucer. However, James Froud states, "He told Camden that he was of mean extraction. He meant merely that he was proud of his parents and made no idle pretensions to noble birth.

His father was a tenant of the Earl of Bedford, and must have stood well with him, for Francis Russell, the heir of the earldom, was the boy's godfather." As with many of Drake's contemporaries, the exact date of his birth is unknown and could be as early as 1535, the 1540 date being extrapolated from two portraits: one a miniature painted by Nicholas Hilliard in 1581 when he was allegedly 42, the other painted in 1594 when he was said to be 53. During the Prayer Book Rebellion of 1549, the family was forced to flee to Kent. Before he turned thirteen, Drake started his sea career when he became an apprentice member of the crew of a barque trading between the Thames and the cross-Channel ports. He became owner-master of the ship at the age of twenty after the death of its previous captain, who bequeathed it to him. At age twenty-three, Drake made his first voyage to the New World, sailing, in company with his second cousin, Sir John Hawkins, on one of a fleet of ships owned by his relatives, the Hawkins family of Plymouth.

In 1568 he was again with the Hawkins fleet when it was trapped by the Spaniards in the Mexican port of San Juan de Ulua. He escaped along with Hawkins but the experience is said to have led him to his lifelong revenge against the Spanish. First victory Following the defeat at San Juan de Ulua, Drake vowed to get revenge and thus made two minor voyages to the West Indies, in 1570 and 1571, of which little is known. It was in 1572 that he embarked on his first major independent enterprise. He planned an attack on the Panama isthmus, known to the Spanish as Tierra Firme and the English as the Spanish Main. This was the point at which the silver and gold treasure of Peru had to be landed and sent overland to the Caribbean Sea, where galleons from Spain would pick it up at the town of Nombre de Dios. He left Plymouth on May 24, 1572, with a crew of 73 men in two small vessels, the Pascha (70 tons) and the Swan (25 tons), to capture Nombre de Dios.

His first raid there came late in July, 1572. Drake and his men captured the town and its treasure. However his men noticed that Drake was bleeding profusely from a wound and they insisted on withdrawing to save his life, leaving the treasure. He remained in the vicinity of the isthmus for almost a year, raiding Spanish shipping and attempting to capture a treasure shipment. In 1573, he joined up with a French buccaneer, Guillaume Le Testu, in an attack on a richly laden mule train. This raid succeeded beyond any of their wildest dreams and Drake and his companions found that they had captured around 20 tons of silver and gold. It was far too much for the few men to carry off and so much of the treasure was buried (which may have given rise to all subsequent stories of pirates and buried treasure). Le Testu was wounded, 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 their small raiding boats. However, when they got there, their boats had vanished.

Drake and his men, downhearted, exhausted and hungry, now had nowhere to go and the Spanish were not far behind. At this point, Drake showed exceptional leadership. He rallied his men, buried the treasure on the beach and built a raft to sail himself and two volunteers ten miles along the fearsome surf-lashed coast to where he had left his flagship. The raft was continually awash up to their chests and the salt water and the burning sun caused them much suffering. However, they pushed onwards until they reached their ship. When Drake finally stood on her deck, his men were alarmed at his bedraggled appearance. Fearing the worst they asked him how the raid had gone. Drake, in spite of everything, 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, lads!" By August 9, 1573, he was back in Plymouth. Circumnavigation of the earth Entering the Pacific 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.

He set out from Plymouth on 15 November 1577, but bad weather threatened him and his fleet, who were forced to take refuge in Falmouth, Cornwall, from where they returned to Plymouth for repair. After this major setback, he set sail once again on the 13th of 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. More importantly, he 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 then made landfall at the gloomy bay of San Julian, in what is now Argentina. Ferdinand Magellan had called here half a century earlier and here he had put to death some mutineers. Drake's men saw weathered and bleached skeletons on the grim Spanish gibbets. Here Mary was found to be rotten and was burned.

Drake, following Magellan's example, tried and executed his own 'mutineer' Thomas Doughty. Drake then decided to remain the winter in San Julian before attempting the Strait of Magellan. The three remaining ships of his convoy departed for the Magellan Strait, at the southern tip of South America. A few weeks later (September 1578) Drake made it to the Pacific, but violent storms destroyed one of the three ships in the strait and caused another to return to England, leaving only the Pelican. After this passage the Pelican was pushed south and discovered an island which 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.

Despite popular lore, it seems unlikely that he reached Cape Horn or the eponymous Drake Passage, because his descriptions do not fit the first and his shipmates denied having seen an open sea, while 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. He pushed onwards in his lone flagship, now renamed the Golden Hind in honour of Sir Christopher Hatton (after his coat of arms). The Golden Hind sailed north along the Pacific coast of South America, attacking Spanish ports and rifling 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 Mapuches. Later he sacked the port of Valparaíso further north in Chile. A most consequential action Near Lima, Drake captured a Spanish ship laden with 25,000 pesos of Peruvian gold, amounting in value to 37,000 ducats of Spanish money (about £7m by modern standards).

Drake also discovered news of another ship, Nuestra Señora de la Concepción, which was sailing west towards Manila. It would come to be called the Cacafuego. Drake gave chase and eventually captured the treasure ship which proved their most profitable capture. Aboard Nuestra Señora de la Concepción, Drake found 80 lb (36 kg) of gold, a golden crucifix, jewels, 13 chests full of royals of plate and 26 tons of silver. Nova Albion On 17 June 1579, Drake landed somewhere north of Spain's northern-most claim at Point Loma. He found a good port, landed, repaired and restocked his vessels, then stayed for a time, keeping friendly relations with the natives. He claimed the land in the name of the Holy Trinity for the English Crown as called Nova Albion—Latin for "New Britain". Assertions that he left some of his men behind as an embryo "colony" are founded merely on the reduced number who were with him in the Moluccas. The precise location of the port was carefully guarded to keep it secret from the Spaniards, and several of Drake's maps may even have been altered to this end.

All first-hand records from the voyage, including logs, paintings and charts were lost when Whitehall Palace burned in 1698. A bronze plaque inscribed with Drake's claim to the new lands -Drake's Plate of Brass- fitting the description in Drake's own account was discovered in Marin County, California, but was later declared a hoax. Another location often claimed to be Nova Albion is Whale Cove, Oregon, although to date there is no evidence to suggest this, other than a general resemblance to a single map penned a decade after the landing. Samuel Bawlf[ marshaled indications that "Nova Albion" was established at Comox on Vancouver Island, during an undocumented "secret voyage" north. It is known that Drake and his men sailed north from Nova Albion in search of a western opening to the Northwest Passage, a potentially valuable asset to the English at the time. During this venture the sailors accurately mapped the westward trend of the north-western corner of the North American continent, present-day British Columbia and Alaska. They had a rough voyage among the islands of the Alaskan panhandle, and were forced to turn back due to freezing weather.

Bawlf argues that Drake's ship reached 56°N, much farther north than was recorded. The reason for this false record, Bawlf writes, was for political reasons: competition with the Spanish in the Americas. Queen Elizabeth wanted to keep any information on the Northwest Passage secret, with the result that the location of Nova Albion and the highest latitude the expedition reached is still a source of controversy today. Drake's brother endured a long period of torture in South America at the hands of Spaniards, who sought intelligence from him about Francis Drake's voyage. His voyage to the west coast of North America is important for a number of reasons. When he landed, his chaplain held Holy Communion; this was one of the first Protestant church services in the New World (though French Huguenots had founded an ill-fated colony in Florida in the 1560s). Drake was seen to be gaining prestige at the expense of the Papacy.

What is certain of the extent of Drake's claim and territorial challenge to the Papacy and the Spanish crown is that his port was founded somewhere north of Point Loma; that all contemporary maps label all lands above the Kingdoms of New Spain and New Mexico as "Nova Albion", and that all colonial claims made from the East Coast in the 1600s were "From Sea to Sea". The colonial claims were established with full knowledge of Drake's claims, which they reinforced, and remained valid in the minds of the English colonists on the Atlantic coast when those colonies became free states. Maps made soon after would have "Nova Albion" written above the entire northern frontier of New Spain. These territorial claims became important during the negotiations that ended the Mexican–American War between the United States and Mexico. Garry Gitzen's "Francis Drake in Nehalem Bay 1579, Setting the Historical Record Straight" disputes all other hypothesized landing sites by comparing ethnographic, language, floral, fauna, geography, topography and a sixteen century survey land claim that Drake made.

Gitzen states, "Drake never set foot in California as we know it today." The Oregon Archeological Society Newsletter December 2008 describes the book as "magnificent and without parallel." Drake now headed westward across the Pacific, and a few months later reached the Moluccas, a group of islands in the south west Pacific, in eastern modern-day Indonesia. While there, Golden Hind became caught on a reef and was almost lost. After three days of waiting for expedient tides and dumping cargo, the barque was freed. Drake and his men befriended a sultan king of the Moluccas and involved themselves in some intrigues with the Portuguese there. He made multiple stops on his way toward the tip of Africa, eventually rounded the Cape of Good Hope, and reached Sierra Leone by 22 July 1580. Home and knighting On 26 September, 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 the second such voyage arriving with at least one ship intact, after Elcano's in 1520). Drake was awarded a knighthood by Queen Elizabeth aboard Golden Hind in Deptford on 4 April 1581; the actual 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. By getting the French diplomat involved in the knighting, Elizabeth was gaining the implicit political support of the French for Drake's actions. In September 1581, he became the Mayor of Plymouth, and was a Member of Parliament in 1581, for an unknown constituency, and again in 1584 for Bossiney. In 1580 Drake purchased Buckland Abbey, a large manor near Yelverton in Devon. 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.

The Queen ordered all written accounts of Drake's voyage to be considered classified information, and its participants sworn to silence on pain of death; her aim was to keep Drake's activities away from the eyes of rival Spain. Also considering the friction with Spain, on the occasion of the knighting, Elizabeth I handed the sword to the Marquis de Marchaumont, ambassador from France, and asked him to dub Drake as the knight. During the Victorian era, in a spirit of nationalism, the story was promoted that Elizabeth I had done the actual knighting. On his return, Drake presented the Queen with a jewel token commemorating the circumnavigation. It was made of enameled gold, taken as a prize off the Pacific coast of Mexico, bore an African diamond and a ship with an ebony hull. For her part, the Queen gave Drake a jewel with her portrait, an uncommon gift to bestow upon a commoner, and one that Drake sported proudly in his portrait by Marcus Gheeraerts, 1591. On one side 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", as it is known today, is a rare documented survivor among sixteen-century jewels; it is conserved at the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich. Spanish Armada War broke out between Spain and England in 1585. Drake sailed to the New World and sacked the ports of Santo Domingo and Cartagena. On the return leg of the voyage, he captured the Spanish fort of San Augustín in Spanish Florida. These acts of piracy encouraged Philip II of Spain to order the planning for an invasion of England. Cadiz raid In a pre-emptive strike, Drake "singed the beard of the King of Spain" by sailing a fleet into Cádiz and also La Coruña, two of Spain's main ports, and occupied the harbours, destroying 37 naval and merchant ships. The attack delayed the Spanish invasion by a year. Over the next month, Drake patrolled the Iberian coasts between Lisbon and Cape St. Vincent intercepting and destroying Spanish supply lines.

Drake estimated that he captured around 1600–1700 tons of barrel staves, enough to make 25,000 to 30,000 barrels (4,800 m3) for containing provisions. Defeat of the Spanish Armada Drake was vice admiral 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. As the English fleet pursued the Armada up the English Channel in closing darkness, Drake broke off and captured the Spanish galleon 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.

“ 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. ” — Letter to Admiral Henry Seymour, after coming upon part of the Spanish Armada, written aboard Revenge on 31 July 1588 (21 July 1588 O.S.) 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. There is no known eyewitness account of this incident and the earliest retelling of it was printed 37 years later. Adverse winds and currents caused some delay in the launching of the English fleet as the Spanish drew nearer so it is easy to see how a popular myth of Drake's cavalier attitude to the Spanish threat may have originated. Drake-Norris Expedition In 1589, the year after defeating the Armada, Drake and Sir John Norreys were given three tasks.

They were ordered to first seek out and destroy the remaining ships, second they were to support the rebels in Lisbon, Portugal against King Philip II (then king of Spain and Portugal), and third they were to take the Azores if possible. Drake and Norreys destroyed a few ships in the harbour of La Coruña in Spain but lost more than 12,000 lives and 20 ships. This delayed Drake, and he was forced to forgo hunting the rest of the surviving ships and head on to Lisbon. Final years Drake's seafaring career continued into his mid-fifties. In 1595, following a disastrous campaign against Spanish America, where he suffered a number of defeats, he unsuccessfully attacked San Juan, Puerto Rico. The Spanish gunners from El Morro Castle shot a cannonball through the cabin of Drake's flagship, but he survived. In 1596, he died of dysentery, at age 55 while anchored off the coast of Portobelo, Panama where some Spanish treasure ships had sought shelter. Before dying he asked to be dressed in his full armour. He was buried at sea in a lead coffin, near Portobelo.

Divers continue to search for the coffin. Cultural impact Drakes Bay and Sir Francis Drake Boulevard of Marin County, California are both named after him, as well as the high school in San Anselmo, California. The boulevard runs between Drakes Bay at Point Reyes to Point San Quentin on San Francisco Bay. Each end is near a site considered by some to be Drake's landing place in Central California. A large hotel in Union Square, San Francisco also bears his name. In Devon, England there are various places named after him, especially in Plymouth, where a roundabout has been named Drake Circus. Drake's will was the focus of a vast confidence scheme which Oscar Hartzell perpetrated in the 1920s and 1930s. He convinced thousands of people, mostly in the American Midwest, that Drake's fortune was being held by the British government, and had compounded to a huge amount. If their last name was Drake they might be eligible for a share if they paid Hartzell to be their agent. The swindle continued until a copy of Drake's will was brought to Hartzell's mail fraud trial and he was convicted and imprisoned.

Modern workings of stories involving Drake include the 1961 British television series Sir Francis Drake, and the 2009 US television movie The Immortal Voyage of Captain Drake. Nathan Drake, a fictional descendant of Sir Francis Drake, searches for lost treasure in the video game Uncharted: Drake's Fortune. Controversies Slave trading Drake accompanied his second cousin Sir John Hawkins in making the third English slave-trading expeditions, making fortunes through the abduction and transportation of West African people, and then exchanging them for high-value goods. The first Englishman recorded to have taken slaves from Africa was John Lok, a London trader who, in 1555, brought to England five slaves from Guinea. A second London trader taking slaves at that time was William Towerson whose fleet sailed into Plymouth following his 1556 voyage to Africa and from Plymouth on his 1557 voyage. Despite the exploits of Lok and Towerson, John Hawkins of Plymouth is widely acknowledged to be an early pioneer of the English slave trade. While Hawkins made only three such trips, ultimately the English were to dominate the trade.

Around 1563, Drake first sailed west to the Spanish Main, on a ship owned and commanded by John Hawkins, with a cargo of people forcibly removed from the coast of West Africa. The Englishmen sold their African captives into slavery in Spanish plantations. These activities undermine the tendency to view Drake as simply an untarnished English hero. Although slavery was legal throughout the world at the time, its expansion by Hawkins (and Drake) is now widely seen as a great blot upon their records. In general, the kidnapping and forced transportation of people was considered to be a criminal offence under English law at the time, although legal protection did not extend to slaves, non-Protestants or criminals. Hawkins' own account of his actions (in which Drake took part) cites two sources for their victims. One was military attacks on African towns and villages (with the assistance of rival African warlords), the other was attacking Portuguese slave ships. Conflict in the Caribbean During his early days as a slave-trader, Drake took an immediate dislike to the Spanish, at least in part due to their Catholicism and inherent mistrust of non-Spanish.

His hostility is said to have increased over an incident at San Juan de Ulua in 1568, when Drake was sailing with the fleet of his second cousin John Hawkins. While negotiating to resupply and repair at the Spanish port, the fleet were attacked by Spanish warships, with all but two of the English ships lost. Drake survived the attack by swimming.[citation needed] 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. With a crew including many French privateers and Maroons—African slaves who had escaped the Spanish—Drake raided the waters around Darien (in modern Panama) and tracked the Silver Train to the nearby port of Nombre de Dios. He made off with a fortune in gold, but had to leave behind another fortune in silver, because it was too heavy to carry back to England. It was during this expedition that he climbed a high tree in the central mountains of the Isthmus of Panama and thus became the first Englishman to see the Pacific Ocean.

He remarked as he saw it 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. 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. Ireland In 1575 Drake was present at Rathlin Island, part of the English plantation effort in Ulster when 600 men, women, and children were massacred after surrendering. Francis Drake was in charge of the ships which transported John Norreys' troops to Rathlin Island, commanding a small frigate called Falcon, with a total complement of 25. At the time of the massacre, he was charged with the task of keeping Scottish vessels from bringing reinforcements to Rathlin Island. The people who were massacred were, in fact, the families of Sorley Boy MacDonnell's followers.

Execution of Thomas Doughty “ And after this holy repast, they dined also at the same table together, as cheerfully, in sobriety, as ever in their lives they had done aforetime, each cheering up the other, and taking their leave, by drinking each to other, as if some journey only had been in hand. ” —Francis Fletcher in his account of the Communion In 1578 Drake accused his co-commander Thomas Doughty of witchcraft in a shipboard trial. Doughty was charged with mutiny and treason. Drake then denied his requests to see Drake's commission from the Queen to carry out such acts and was denied a trial in England. The two main pieces of evidence against Doughty were the testimony of the ship's carpenter, Edward Bright, and also that Doughty admitted to telling Lord William Burghley of the voyage. Drake consented to his request of Communion and dined with him. Thomas Doughty was beheaded on 2 July 1578.

Source: Booklet “One Man’s Family – The Andrew’s” by Laura Hummel, 49 pages, written 1976, sent to my grandmother Vera Pickup by Frances Platte (Andrew) from Canada. - says mother of James Singleton was a Drake, a descendant of Sir Francis Drake who was the Admiral of the Fleet when they defeated the Spanish Armada. THE LAST VOYAGE 1595-1596: Sir Francis Drake: A Pictorial Biography by Hans P. Kraus (Rare Book and Special Collections Reading Room, Library of Congress) Bibliography The Last Voyage, 1595-1596 Drake's last campaign was an expedition commanded jointly by him and his old associate Sir John Hawkins, under whom his career had had such a spectacular beginning at San Juan de Ulúa, in 1567. Nearly thirty years later, they sailed from Plymouth on August 28, 1595. Their primary objective was a treasure ship which had suffered damage at sea, and which was in the harbor of San Juan, Puerto Rico, with 2,000,000 ducats aboard.

The attempt to surprise this ship failed, as San Juan was well fortified and well defended. Drake then went to Nombre de Dios, on the Panama isthmus, which he used as a base for an attack on Porto Bello and Panama, where the treasure from Peru was carried across the isthmus for shipment to Spain. This attack (Dec. 27-30, 1595) was also a failure. They returned to Nombre de Dios, then sailed again; but on January 28th, 1596, Drake died at sea off Porto Bello. He was buried in the waters of the Caribbean, the scene of many of his most daring exploits, the next day, in a lead coffin. The document to the left displays one aspect of this last voyage. It again was a joint venture, and to raise money for his investment, Drake sold his 71-year lease of a house called "The Herbar" in the Dowgate ward of London. The document is the one which Drake received as his record of the transaction; it is signed by the purchaser, Alderman Paul Banninge. The Herbar was a most interesting building.

It had been a royal residence, under King Richard III (1483-1485), and for a time it had been occupied by King Philip II of Spain's diplomatic chargé d'affaires in London (c. 1571-1578). Drake's lease of the property dates from November 6, 1588, so that it is quite possible that he purchased it with his prize money from the capture of the Rosario during the Armada campaign of that year. Document recording Drake's sale of the lease of his house "The Herbar" in London, 1593, apparently to finance his last expedition. [11] Caro de Torres' Relacion , 1620, relating the success of Sotomayor. [38] On the Spanish side, the defenses at Panama were commanded by Don Alonso de Sotomayor (1545-1610), a soldier of great experience, who was sent there by the Viceroy of Peru and made commander-in-chief ("Capitan General"). The English troops were under Sir Thomas Baskerville (d.

1597) ("Coronel Tomas" in the text). Their attempt to cross the isthmus was defeated, and soon after this Drake died. A biography of Sotomayor by Francisco Caro de Torres (c. 1560-1630) relates this Spanish success in detail. The author includes a lengthy eulogy of Drake, praising his courtesy, his outstanding performance as a navigator, especially in his circumnavigation, and lauds his humane treatment of prisoners--the latter indeed an exception in the generally brutal condition of sixteenth century warfare. The text and translation of Caro de Torres' eulogy are printed on these two pages. Francis Drake was greatly disheartened by the ill success of this voyage, which had caused the deaths of two commanders [Hawkins and Clifford] and of so many gentlemen, so he went with his fleet to the Escudo of Veragua, along the coast to the westward.

There he took counsel with his brother and with Colonel Thomas [Baskerville] and with such others as were left; he declared to them that he was determined not to return Passage on the success of Sotomayor from Caro de Torres' Relacion , 1620, continued. [38] to England without again attempting the expedition up the Chagres River in launches, for so much time had by now passed that the Spaniards would be unprepared for them, and if they could reach the way station at Cruces it would be simple to capture Panama because from there the route was an easy one. He thought that it was better to be defeated than to return to England, where he would be disgraced in the eyes of the Queen and her favorites, for they would hold him responsible for the failure of the voyage and forget his previous successes. Therefore, with great courage, he resolved to renew his attempt, in the course of which he was overtaken by a fever which killed him. This was when the fleet had arrived at the mouth of the Chagres River, which may be considered famous as the scene of the death of so great a sailor.

Although he had not been brought up a soldier by profession, his Queen gave him appointments as commander-in-chief of her forces, and employed him in positions of trust and honor. In his profession as a seaman he was one of the most outstanding mariners the world has ever seen: in sailing around it only Magellan preceded him. Despite such celebrity he was courteous and kindly to his prisoners, and hospitable to them, as reported by Captain Ojeda. Don Francisco de Zárate, who fell in with Drake in the Pacific, when he was voyaging from New Spain towards Peru, was sumptuously entertained; Drake discussed important questions with him and returned all his property to him with great humanity and courtesy--his silverware, his servants, a slave woman and his ship. This is a virtue which can never be sufficiently praised, even in enemies. An anonymous Spanish Relacion covers the successful defense of Puerto Rico against the attempt to seize the treasure ship there. Events are related up to Dec. 20, 1595, and the license for printing is dated Feb. 21, 1596, less than a month after Drake's death, which of course was not then known in Spain.

The present edition (hitherto only one other edition known) is unrecorded and possibly unique. A translation of the text is on the opposite page. A contemporary account of Drake's repulse at Puerto Rico in an anonymous Relacion , 1596. [29] REPORT OF THE VOYAGE OF HIS MAJESTY'S FIVE WAR FRIGATES, UNDER THE COMMAND OF DON PEDRO TELLO DE GUZMAN, THIS YEAR, 1595. Everybody was surprised and overjoyed at this happy outcome, when two sail came in sight. We gave them chase until three in the afternoon, when our vice-admiral brought one of them by the lee, grappled with her and took her, leaving the Santa Isabel to keep her company. The flagship and the remaining vessels of the squadron continued in chase of the other ship. About then--that is to say, around four o'clock in the afternoon--the vice-admiral shot off three guns, as a warning to the flagship. Ordered to search the sea, the lookouts sighted nine sail coasting along the island of Guadeloupe.

We thereupon abandoned the chase: the flagship returned to the convoy to pick up the frigates and spoke with [Vice-]Admiral Gonzalo Méndez, who transmitted the report he had extracted from the prisoners he had taken, as follows: First, that they had de parted from Plymouth on 8th September in the year aforesaid, in company with a fleet commanded by the generals Francis Drake and [Sir] John Hawkins. The prize and her companion had lost company with the fleet in rough weather, four days earlier. Ships that might lose company had been ordered to rendezvous with the main body either at Bayona [in Galicia, on the north coast of Spain] or at Puerto Santo [in the Canary Islands] or off Guadeloupe [as might be requisite according to the stage of the voyage reached]. If they did not fall in with the fleet at those roadsteads they were to proceed to Puerto Rico where they were told the expedition would spend ten days.

They had fallen with the island on the previous afternoon, and had sighted and counted nineteen sail, but had not succeeded in fetching them to speak with them; then they had taken our frigates for ships of their own squadron, and that was why they had fallen in with our flotilla. Asked how strong their fleet was, they said that it consisted of 26 sail. Of these six were Queen's ships: five of them ranged from 800 down to 500 tons, and the other was of 300. Among the remaining 20 vessels, which were adventured by private persons, some were comparable to them in strength and burthen. All of them were under orders from the Queen. Asked what effect the fleet was intended to accomplish when it left England, witness said that he knew no more than that it was to proceed to Puerto Rico and there take the silver; but that it was so well victualled and stored that the men believed that they were expected to spend a long time in the Indies. News of Drake's death spread slowly.

On June 20, 1596, Andres Armenteros, a member of the Council of the Indies, the Spanish governmental committee which supervised operations in America, wrote from Seville to the Duke of Medina Sidonia, Drake's old opponent at Cadiz and during the Armada campaign. He informed the Duke that Drake was dead, and that his body had been carried back to England in a barrel of beer--this latter detail was of course not true. Armenteros also speaks of a combined English-Dutch flotilla which was being assembled. Even as he wrote, this fleet was sailing towards Spain, under the command of the Earl of Essex and Lord Howard of Effingham, both of them old military associates of Drake. Their successful attack on Cadiz (June 22-July 5, 1596) was a repeat performance of Drake's stunning attack on that same city in 1587, and the flames of this raid, as the Spanish war and merchant ships were again being destroyed, form a fitting postscript to the career of the great warrior and discoverer. The Armenteros letter (reproduced to the right) is unpublished, so far as we can discover.

A translation of the portion that relates to Drake is printed below. TRANSLATION OF ARMENTEROS' STORY I received your Grace's letter, of which I return a transcript herewith, and I gave it to the Flemings to make them understand the obstacles to the plans for trade in Calais. They called a meeting and discussed the question exhaustively, eventually deciding that what has been set down in the margin of the transcript will be the best course for His Majesty's service. I send this to Your Grace so as to comply with Your Grace's instructions, for this is the right and profitable course of action. Your Grace will already be aware that Drake's fleet on its return reached England with only five ships, and very few men in them: Drake's body was on board, embalmed, in a beer cask. Because of this failure the preparations of another war fleet which was being got ready in England, with ships from Holland and Zeeland participating, have been wrecked, because they were planning to fit it out with the two million pieces of eight that they wrongly thought Drake had been successful in capturing at Puerto Rico... I kiss Your Grace's hands, those of Her Grace the Duchess, etc.

Seville, 20 June, 1596. The Licentiate Armenteros. A hitherto unpublished letter of Andres Armenteros to the Duke of Medina Sidonia, reporting that Drake's body, embalmed, was brought back to England in a beer cask, 1596. [13] The account of Drake's last voyage in the third volume of Hakluyt's Principal Navigations , 1600. [30] The most comprehensive account of these dramatic events, as seen by the Englishmen whom Drake commanded on his last voyage, is a temperate and reliable narrative which corrects the many erroneous Spanish stories about it, some of them found when Howard and Essex sacked Cadiz. Though the story that follows is very nearly contemporary with the operation, for this second and definitive edition of Principal Navigations [30] Richard Hakluyt took care to see that it was complete and impartial. This chronicle of the final decline of Drake's fortunes (Volume III, pp. 583-590) is probably by one of his captains and the beginning is reproduced above.

In undertaking this narration of the life of Sir Francis Drake the object throughout has been to present it as it was seen through the eyes of the men of his time. So, if it is to be concluded fittingly, the last word must, by right, belong to his great countryman Richard Hakluyt. It is unthinkable to leave the English hero to the fate to which Licentiate Armenteros (see p. 176) consigned him when so incomparable a historian of voyages and discovery has recorded, in the present account, exactly how the greatest of English mariners did meet his end. The close of the epic story of the life of Sir Francis Drake, as told by Richard Hakluyt (Volume III, pp. 587-588) only four years afterwards, is transcribed below. The 29 [December, 1595] sir Thomas Baskervil with 750 armed men, besides Chirurgians and provand boyes [boys serving for an allowance of food, without pay] went for Panama.

The last of December the Generall [i.e., Drake] burned halfe the towne, and the first of Januarie [1596] burnt the rest, with all the Frigats, Barks & Galiots, which were in the harbour and on the beach on shore, having houses built over them to keep the pitch from melting. The second of January sir Thomas returned with his souldiers both weary and hungry, having marched more than halfe the way to the South sea...The march was so sore as never Englishman marched before...upon the top of an hill, through which we must needes passe, the Spaniards had set up a Fort and kept it with some 80 or 90 men, who played upon us as we came up, before wee were aware of them, and so killed some twentie or more among us...Then sir Thomas had perfect knowledge that they must passe two such Forts more, [even] if he got that [one], besides [knowing] Panama to be very strong, the enemie knowing of our comming long before.

Also our souldiers had no victuals left, nor any meanes to get more; which considerations caused sir Thomas to return and give over his attempt...the 5 [January] we set saile at 12 of the clocke, and stood to the westward. The 10 day we saw an Iland lying westward some 30 leagues called Escudo, where wee came to anker...we sawe a roader [i.e., a vessel riding at anchor], who seeing us, set sayle, but that night with our Pinnesses we tooke him...The men being examined by the Generall confessed him to be an Advisor sent from Nombre de Dios to all the ports along the coast westward...It is a sickly climat...and given to much raine: here we washed our ships and set up the rest of our Pinnesses. Cover of the oval container preserving the Silver Map of his circumnavigation, bearing Drake's coat of arms. [58a] The 15 day Captaine Plat died of sicknesse, and then sir Francis Drake began to keepe his cabin, and to complaine of a scowring or fluxe.

The 23 we set saile and stood up again for Puerto Bello, which is but 3 leagues to the Westwards of Nombre de Dios. The 28 at 4 of the clocke in the morning our Generall sir Francis Drake departed this life, having bene extremely sicke of a fluxe, which began the night before to stop on him. He used some speeches at or a little before his death, rising and apparelling himselfe, but being brought to bed againe within one houre died. He made his brother Thomas Drake and captaine Jonas Bodenham executors, and M. Thomas Drakes sonne [the later Sir Francis Drake, first baronet] his heire to all his lands except one manor which he gave to captain Bodenham. The same day we ankered at Puerto Bello, being the best harbour we found along the maine both for great ships and small...After our comming hither to anker, and the solemne buriall of our Generall sir Francis in the sea: Sir Thomas Baskervill being aboord the Defiance,... M. Bride made a sermon, having to his audience all the captaines in the fleete.

1000+ images about Sir Francis Drake and The Spanish Armada on Pinterest | Drums, Pirates and Sea captain Forward Sir Francis Drake, Vice Admiral (1540 – 27 January 1596) was an English sea captain, privateer, navigator, slaver, and politician of the Elizabethan era. Elizabeth I of England awarded Drake a knighthood in 1581. He was second-in-command of the English fleet against the Spanish Armada in 1588. He also carried out the second circumnavigation of the world, from 1577 to 1580. He died of dysentery in January 1596 after unsuccessfully attacking San Juan, Puerto Rico. See More

Question: Which English navigator, who dies in 1596, was buried at sea in a lead coffin off the coast of Panama?
Answer: FRANCIS DRAKE