Francis Drake

Sir Francis Drake, Vice Adm, (c. 1540 – January 28, 1596) was an English privateer, navigator, naval pioneer, naval raider, politician, and civil engineer of the Elizabethan period. He was the first Englishman (and the first captain of a non-Spanish ship) to circumnavigate the globe. He was second in command of the English fleet which defeated the Spanish Armada in 1588.

Birth and early years

Francis Drake was born in Tavistock, Devon, the son of Mary or Elizabeth Mylwaye and her husband Edmund Drake (1518–1585), a Protestant farmer (who later became a preacher) and grandson of John Drake and Margaret Cole. He is often confused with his nephew Francis Drake (1573–1634) who was the son of Richard Drake and Ursula Stafford, grandson of John Drake (1500–1558) – Edmund's older brother – and Amy Grenville (1510–1577), and great-grandson of the same above-stated John Drake and Margaret Cole (cf. John White, en. 2). His maternal grandfather was a Richard Mylwaye. Drake was reportedly named after his godfather Francis Russell, 2nd Earl of Bedford, but throughout his cousins' lineages are direct connections to the Royalty and famous persons such as Sir Richard Grenville through Amy Grenville and Geoffrey Chaucer through Ursula Stafford. Ursula's line goes royal in four generations. As with many of Drake's contemporaries, though, 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, and the other painted in 1594 when he was alleged to be 53 according to the 1921/22 edition of the Dictionary of National Biography, which quotes a certain Barrow, Life of Drake (1843) p. 5. He was the second eldest of twelve children; but as he was not granted legal right to his father's farm, he had to find his own career.

Related Topics:
Tavistock - Devon - Protestant - Preacher - Richard Mylwaye - Godfather - Francis Russell, 2nd Earl of Bedford - Royalty - Sir Richard Grenville - Geoffrey Chaucer - 1535 - 1540 - Miniature - Nicholas Hilliard - 1581 - 1594 - 1921 - 22 - Dictionary of National Biography - Barrow

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During the Roman Catholic uprising of 1549, the family was forced to flee to Kent. At about the age of 13 Francis took to the sea on a cargo barque, becoming master of the ship at the age of twenty. He spent his early career honing his sailing skills on the difficult waters of the North Sea, and eventually, after the death of the captain for whom he was sailing, becoming the master of his own barque. At age 23 Drake took his first voyages to the New World under the sails of the Hawkins family of Plymouth, in company with his cousin, Sir John Hawkins. Together, Hawkins and Drake made the first English slave-trading expeditions.

Related Topics:
Roman Catholic - 1549 - Kent - Barque - Sailing - North Sea - New World - Plymouth - John Hawkins - Slave-trading

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