Sir Francis Drake, Scourge of Spain
We
must now turn back for a moment to 1545, the year in which the Old
World, after the discovery of the mines of Potosi, first awoke to
the illimitable riches of the New; the year in which King Henry
assembled his epoch-making fleet; the year, too, in which the
British National Anthem was, so to say, born at sea, when the parole
throughout the waiting fleet was "God save the King!" and the
answering countersign was "Long to reign over us!"
In the same year, at Crowndale by Tavistock in Devon, was born
Francis Drake, greatest of sea-dogs and first of modern admirals.
His father, Edmund Drake, was a skipper in modest circumstances. But
from time immemorial there had been Drakes all round the countryside
of Tavistock and the family name stood high. Francis was called
after his godfather, Francis Russell, son and heir of Henry's
right-hand reforming peer, Lord Russell, progenitor of the Dukes of
Bedford down to the present day.
Though fortune thus seemed to smile upon Drake's cradle, his boyhood
proved to be a very stormy one indeed. He was not yet five when the
Protestant zeal of the Lord Protector Somerset stirred the Roman
Catholics of the West Country into an insurrection that swept the
anti-Papal minority before it like flotsam before a flood. Drake's
father was a zealous Protestant, a 'hot gospeller,' much given to
preaching; and when he was cast up by the storm on what is now
Drake's Island, just off Plymouth, he was glad to take passage for
Kent. His friends at court then made him a sort of naval chaplain to
the men who took care of His Majesty's ships laid up in Gillingham
Reach on the River Medway, just below where Chatham Dockyard stands
today. Here, in a vessel too old for service, most of Drake's eleven
brothers were born to a life as nearly amphibious as the life of any
boy could be. The tide runs in with a rush from the sea at
Sheerness, only ten miles away; and so, among the creeks and
marshes, points and bends, through tortuous channels and hurrying
waters lashed by the keen east wind of England, Drake reveled in the
kind of playground that a sea-dog's son should have.
During the reign of Mary (1553-58) 'hot gospellers' like Drake's
father were of course turned out of the Service. And so young
Francis had to be apprenticed to 'the master of a bark, which he
used to coast along the shore, and sometimes to carry merchandise
into Zeeland and France.' It was hard work and a rough life for the
little lad of ten. But Drake stuck to it, and 'so pleased the old
man by his industry that, being a bachelor, at his death he
bequeathed his bark unto him by will and testament.' Moreover, after
Elizabeth's accession, Drake's father came into his own. He took
orders in the Church of England, and in 1561, when Francis was
sixteen, became vicar of Upchurch on the Medway, the same river on
which his boys had learned to live amphibious lives.
No dreams of any Golden West had Drake as yet. To the boy in his
teens "Westward Ho!" meant nothing more than the usual cry of London
boatmen touting for fares up-stream. But, before he went out with
Sir John Hawkins, on the 'troublesome' voyage which we have just
followed, he must have had a foretaste of something like his future
raiding of the Spanish Main; for the Channel swarmed with Protestant
privateers, no gentler, when they caught a Spaniard, than Spaniards
were when they caught them. He was twenty-two when he went out with
Hawkins and would be in his twenty-fourth year when he returned to
England in the little "Judith" after the murderous Spanish treachery
at San Juan de Ulua.
Just as the winter night was closing in, on the 20th of January,
1569, the "Judith" sailed into Plymouth. Drake landed. William
Hawkins, John's brother, wrote a petition to the Queen-in-Council
for letters-of-marque in reprisal for Ulua, and Drake dashed off for
London with the missive almost before the ink was dry. Now it
happened that a Spanish treasure fleet, carrying money from Italy
and bound for Antwerp, had been driven into Plymouth and neighboring
ports by Huguenot privateers. This money was urgently needed by
Alva, the very capable but ruthless governor of the Spanish
Netherlands, who, having just drowned the rebellious Dutch in blood,
was now erecting a colossal statue to himself for having
'extinguished sedition, chastised rebellion, restored religion,
secured justice, and established peace.' The Spanish ambassador
therefore obtained leave to bring it overland to Dover.
But no sooner had Elizabeth signed the order of safe conduct than in
came Drake with the news of San Juan de Ulua. Elizabeth at once saw
that all the English sea-dogs would be flaming for revenge. Everyone
saw that the treasure would be safer now in England than aboard any
Spanish vessel in the Channel. So, on the ground that the gold,
though payable to Philip's representative in Antwerp, was still the
property of the Italian bankers who advanced it, Elizabeth sent
orders down post-haste to commandeer it. The enraged ambassador
advised Alva to seize everything English in the Netherlands.
Elizabeth in turn seized everything Spanish in England. Elizabeth
now held the diplomatic trumps; for existing treaties provided that
there should be no reprisals without a reasonable delay; and Alva
had seized English property before giving Elizabeth the customary
time to explain.
John Hawkins entered Plymouth five days later than Drake and started
for London with four pack horses carrying all he had saved from the
wreck. By the irony of fate he travelled up to town in the rear of
the long procession that carried the commandeered Spanish gold.
The plot thickened fast; for England was now on the brink of war
with France over the secret aid Englishmen had been giving to the
Huguenots at La Rochelle. But suddenly Elizabeth was all smiles and
affability for France. And when her two great merchant fleets put
out to sea, one, the wine-fleet, bound for La Rochelle, went with
only a small naval escort, just enough to keep the pirates off;
while the other, the big wool-fleet, usually sent to Antwerp but now
bound for Hamburg, went with a strong fighting escort of regular
men-of-war.
Aboard this escort went Francis Drake as a lieutenant in the Royal
Navy. Home in June, Drake ran down to Tavistock in Devon; wooed,
won, and married pretty Mary Newman, all within a month. He was back
on duty in July.
For the time being the war cloud passed away. Elizabeth's tortuous
diplomacy had succeeded, owing to dissension among her enemies. In
the following year (1570) the international situation was changed by
the Pope, who issued a bull formally deposing Elizabeth and
absolving her subjects from their allegiance to her. The French and
Spanish monarchs refused to publish this order because they did not
approve of deposition by the Pope. But, for all that, it worked
against Elizabeth by making her the official standing enemy of Rome.
At the same time it worked for her among the sea-dogs and all who
thought with them. 'The case,' said Thomas Fuller, author of "The
Worthies of England", 'the case was clear in "sea divinitie".'
Religious zeal and commercial enterprise went hand in hand. The case
"was" clear; and the English navy, now mobilized and ready for war,
made it much clearer still.
"Westward Ho!" in chief command, at the age of twenty-five, with the
tiny flotilla of the "Dragon" and the "Swan", manned by as good a
lot of daredevil experts as any privateer could wish to see! Out and
back in 1570, and again in 1571, Drake took reprisals on New Spain,
made money for all hands engaged, and gained a knowledge of the
American coast that stood him in good stead for future expeditions.
Back to: English Exploration of America
