fered her, and to resist the king of Spain’s preparations.”
Drake was made the head of this fleet, commanding in
the ship Elizabethan Bonaventure. It sailed from Plym-
outh on 14 September 1585 with Martin Frobisher
as vice admiral. When they arrived in this Caribbean,
Drake’s force raided the island of Vigo, the village of St.
Iago (which they burnt down), and landed on Hispan-
iola, where land forces under Sir Christopher Carleill
took the towns of San Domingo (now in the Dominican
Republic), and, later, Cartagena.
Two years later, in 1587, Drake led an important
raid on the port of Cádiz, Spain, sinking a reported
33 Spanish ships. This delayed the Spanish Armada, a
feared fleet of warships, from sailing to invade England,
which allowed the English to prepare superior sea forces.
In the newspaper The English Mercurie, printed in July
1588, the following appeared:
Earlie this Morninge arrived a Messenger at Sir
Francis Walsingham’s Office, with Letters of the
22d [of July] from the Lorde High Admirall
[Lord Howard] on board the Ark-Royal, contain-
inge the followinge materiall Advices.
On the 20th of the Instant Capt. Fleming,
who had beene ordered to cruize in the Chops
of the Channell, for Discoverie, brought Advice
into Plymouth, that he had descried the Spanish
Armado near the Lizard, making for the Entrance
of the Channell with a favourable Gale. Though
this Intelligence was not received till near foure in
the Afternoone, and the Winde at that time blew
hard into the Sound, yet by the indefatigable
Care and Dilligence of the Lord High Admiral,
the Ark-Royal, with five of the largest Frigates,
anchored out of the Harbour that very Eveninge.
The next Morninge, the greatest part of her
Maiestie’s Fleet gott out to them. They made in
all about eight Sail, divided into four Squadrons,
commanded by his Lordship in Person, Sir Fran-
cis Drake Vice-Admiral, and the Rear-Admirals
Hawkins and Frobisher. But about one in the
Afternoone, they came in Sighte of the Spanish
Armado two Leagues to the Westward of the Ed-
distone, failing in the Form of a half-Moon, the
Points whereof were seven Leagues asunder...
The Lord High Admirall observing his generall
Alacritic, after a Council of War had beene held,
directed the Signall of Battle to be hung out. Weattacked the Enemy’s Reare with the Advantage
of the Winde... In the meane tyme, Sir Francis
Drake and the two Rear-Admirals Hawkins and
Frobisher, vigorously broadsided the Enemies
sternmost Ships commanded by Vice-Admiral
Recalde, which were forced to retreat much shat-
tered to the main Body of their Fleet....The victory of Howard, Drake, Hawkins, and
Frobisher over the Spanish was one of the turning points
in English history.
Drake returned home, again as a hero, and tem-
porarily settled into a quiet life at his home near Plym-
outh. However, in 1595 he was again called upon to go
to sea and attack the Spanish in the Caribbean, where,
commanding the Defiance, he raided Spanish forts in
what is now Panama. However, after the start of the new
year, 1596, he came down with a disease most historians
feel was probably yellow fever (although William Laird
Clowes, in a history of the English Royal Navy, says it
was dysentery). He took to bed on his ship, where he suc-
cumbed on 28 January 1596 (a few days following the
death of Hawkins). His remains were placed in a lead cof-
fin, and he was buried in the sea off the coast of Panama.
The place of Sir Francis Drake in the history of
England is secure, although his circumnavigation of
the world is perhaps better known than his service in
the defense of his homeland. In his work on the history
of commanders in world history, historian James Lucas
wrote of Drake: “The revolution in naval warfare of the
16th century meant that new tactics and strategies had
to be devised to make full use of the new technology.
Francis Drake was one of the seamen who grasped this
idea wholeheartedly, with a full tactical and strategical
understanding of the new power the galleon and the
cannon would provide in combination.”References: Bell, Douglas Herbert, Drake (London:
Duckworth, 1935); Sugden, John, Sir Francis Drake (New
York: Holt, 1990); Corbett, Sir Julian Stafford, Drake and
the Tudor Navy; With a History of the Rise of England as a
Maritime Power (London: Longmans, Green, 1898); The
English Hero: Or, Sir Fran. Drake Reviv’d. Being a Full Ac-
count of the Dangerous Voyages, Admirable Adventures, No-
table Discoveries, and Magnanimous Achievements of that
valiant and Renowned Commander... (London: Printed
for N. Crouch, 1698); Drake, Sir Francis, Bart., The World
Encompassed by Sir Francis Drake, being his next voyage to DRAke, SiR FRAnciS