Elizabeth's Pirates
The pirates
Sir Francis Drake
1542-1596
Francis Drake towered above all the other sailors of his day. A brilliant
seaman, he was ambitious, brave and ruthless in piracy and war.
Drake was born to strongly Protestant Devon farmers who were driven from
their home by a Catholic uprising. He made his first voyage with his cousin,
the pirate and slave trader John Hawkins,
and was with him on the 1567 expedition to New Spain (Mexico) that was
ambushed by the Spanish at San Juan de Ulua. The four-day battle left
many English dead, and saw the capture of the slave cargo and a ship owned
by Queen Elizabeth.
From then, there was open hostility between Spain and England, and Drake
himself was fired with a desire for revenge. He became England's most
successful pirate, relentlessly seizing Spanish cargoes of spice, precious
metals and coin. In 1572, he went on a pillaging spree in Panama, carrying
off silver and gold from a mule train and raiding several Spanish ships.
He took £20,000 worth of booty back to England – equivalent
to millions today.
At the end of 1577, Drake and his crew became the first Englishmen to
sail round the world, travelling down the coast of South America and through
the Spanish- controlled Strait of Magellan into the Pacific. The Spanish
were duly horrified – especially when Drake again raided their harbours
in Cuba and Peru (with his queen's blessing). He then sailed up to California,
claiming it for England, and on to the Moluccas, where he arranged for
England to run the clove trade, before heading home in 1581.
He brought back enough treasure to pay off the entire national debt and
Elizabeth promptly knighted him. He equally promptly bought a large manor
house and became an MP. His crew received nothing.
In 1585, Elizabeth commissioned Drake to raid Spanish settlements in
the Caribbean – an open act of war. King Philip of Spain began arming
his fleet, but his invasion plans were held up when Drake sailed into
Cadiz harbour in 1587 and 'singed the king of Spain's beard' by capturing
and sinking over 24 ships.
When the Spanish Armada attacked the following
year, Drake, as vice-admiral of the English fleet, successfully harried
the enemy with his ship, the Revenge, though he enraged some of
his comrades – particularly Frobisher
– by indulging in a spot of piracy against the Spanish payship, the
Rosario. He advocated using fireships to scatter the Spanish fleet
and, in the ensuing battle at Gravelines, fought brilliantly against the
Spanish commander Medina-Sidonia.
After the defeat of the Armada, Drake returned to sea, but his glory
days were over: a joint sea-and-land attack on Lisbon was a shambles.
In 1595, Drake and Hawkins made a last voyage to the Caribbean to try
and capture the Spanish treasure fleet. They were thwarted by improved fortifications
– the Spanish had learnt from the past – and struck down by
disease: Drake died in January 1596 and was buried at sea. He has since
become a legendary figure in English history.
The rogue state
The pirates
The Armada
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