Frances Drake

He was the eldest of the twelve sons of Edmund Drake (1518–1585), a Protestant farmer, and his wife, Mary Mylwaye.

The first son was said to have been named after his godfather, Francis Russell, 2nd Earl of Bedford.

His birth date is not formally recorded – such writers as E. F. Benson have claimed that he was born while the Six Articles of 1539 were in force, but British naval historian Julian Corbett, writing of William Camden's account, on which this information is based, writes that "As a slip of memory, too, we must put down his difficult assertion that Edmund Drake was driven from Devonshire during a persecution under the Six Articles Act of 1539."

A date of 1540 is suggested from two portraits: one a miniature, painted by Nicholas Hilliard in 1581, when he was allegedly 42, which would place his birth c. 1539, while the other, painted in 1594 when he was said to be 52, would give a birth year of c. 1541.

This would date his birth to 1544.

Due to religious persecution during the Prayer Book Rebellion in 1549, the Drake family fled from Devon to Kent.

There Drake's father obtained an appointment to minister to the men in the King's Navy.

He was ordained deacon and was made vicar of Upchurch Church on the Medway.

At an early age, Drake was placed into the household of a relative, sea-captain William Hawkins of Plymouth, and began his seagoing training as an apprentice on Hawkins' boats.

By 18, he was a purser, according to the English chronicler Edmund Howes, and in the 1550s, Drake's father found the young man a position with the owner and master of a small barque, one of the small traders plying between the Medway River and the Dutch coast.

Drake likely engaged in commerce along the coast of England, the Low Countries and France.

The ship's master was so satisfied with the young Drake's conduct that, being unmarried and childless at his death, he bequeathed the barque to Drake.

In 1562, the West African slave trade was a duopoly dominated by the Portuguese and the Spanish.

Sir John Hawkins devised a plan to break into that trade, and enlisted the aid of colleagues and family to finance his first slave voyage.

Drake was not part of that group of financiers, though his presence as one of hundreds of seamen on Hawkins's first two slaving voyages has been assumed.

There is some anecdotal evidence to support Drake serving as a common seaman on the first two voyages, and good evidence of his presence for the last two of four slaving voyages made by Hawkins' ships between 1562 and 1569.

In 1562, Hawkins sailed to the coast of the Sierra Leone, seized Portuguese slave ships, and sold the Africans in the Spanish Indies.

It was highly profitable, so for his second slave voyage in 1564, Hawkins gained Queen Elizabeth I's support.

She lent him one of her ships, Jesus of Lübeck, which served as his flagship.

Hawkins attacked an African native town and sold many of its inhabitants in Spanish ports on the Caribbean mainland making another large profit for himself, the Queen and the consortium of investors from her court.

His birth date is estimated from the wording of texts in contemporary sources such as: "Drake was two and twenty when he obtained the command of the Judith" (1566).

In 1572, he set sail on his first independent mission, privateering along the Spanish Main.

Drake's circumnavigation began on 15 December 1577.

He crossed the Pacific Ocean, until then an area of exclusive Spanish interest, and laid claim to New Albion, plundering coastal towns and ships for treasure and supplies as he went.

He arrived back in England on 26 September 1580.

Elizabeth I awarded Drake a knighthood in 1581 which he received aboard his galleon the Golden Hind.

Drake was the Member of Parliament (MP) for three constituencies: Camelford in 1581, Bossiney in 1584, and Plymouth in 1593.

Drake's exploits made him a hero to the English, but his privateering led the Spanish to brand him a pirate, known to them as El Draque ("The Dragon" in old Spanish).

Drake's circumnavigation inaugurated an era of conflict with the Spanish and in 1585, the Anglo-Spanish War began.

Drake was in command of an expedition to the Americas that attacked Spanish shipping and ports.

Having started as a simple seaman, in 1588 he was part of the fight against the Spanish Armada as a vice-admiral.

At an early age, Drake was placed into the household of a relative, William Hawkins, a prominent sea captain in Plymouth.

When Philip II sent the Spanish Armada to England in 1588 as a precursor to its invasion, Drake was second-in-command of the English fleet that fought against and repulsed the Spanish fleet.

A year later he led the English Armada in a failed attempt to destroy the remaining Spanish fleet.

Sir Francis Drake ( 1540 – 28 January 1596) was an English explorer and privateer best known for his circumnavigation of the world in a single expedition between 1577 and 1580.

This was the first English circumnavigation, and third circumnavigation overall.

He died of dysentery after his failed assault on Panama in January 1596.

Francis Drake was born at Crowndale Farm in Tavistock, Devon, England.

Sources vary on the dates and the age of Drake at the time; Harry Kelsey says he was twenty years old, "[a]ccording to Howes" (in reference to the English chronicler Edmund Howes writing in 1615).

Drake was not a member of that consortium, but the crew would have received a small share of the profits.