Sir Francis Drake, master seaman and buccaneer

Sir Francis Drake (1540 –1596) was an English sailor, slave-trader, pirate and explorer. He is probably most famous for being the vice-admiral of the British fleet at the time of the invading Spanish Armada - which was defeated. Drake was also the first Englishman to sail all the way around the world, and consequently made a Knight by Queen Elizabeth I.

Drake was born in Tavistock, Devon in around 1540 and went to sea at an early age. He was from a lowly background, his father was a tenant farmer and other relatives were merchants, sailors and pirates. Drake was apprenticed to a ship's master and proved so promising that the master bequeathed the ship to Drake upon his death.

Drake's rise from commoner to great war hero and man of influence was rare for his time. In 1575, Drake was present, though not the instigator, of the Rathlin Island Massacre, where English troops under Sir Henry Sidney killed 600 Irish and Scottish people who had been resisting the English/Protestant colonisation of Ulster. The massacre included the murder of 400 civilians after their surrender.

From 1577, Drake began a ground-breaking navigation of the globe, which took two and a half years. He was the second person to achieve the feat. He set sail with six ships, but the mortality rate was such that Drake returned with only one, the famed Golden Hind.

Drake retains a prominent place in popular culture as the defender of Britain against the invasion of the Spanish Armada which took place in 1588 in the English Channel off the coast of Gravelines, France, Spain's so-called “Invincible Armada” was defeated by an English naval force under the command of Lord Charles Howard and Drake. He was also a pioneer of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, and captured a fortune in gold from raiding Spanish ships and ports. He died of dysentery in January 1597, aged 56, and was buried at sea.

Sir Francis Drake, master seaman and buccaneer

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