Sir Francis Drake: No Hero's Death

It is almost possible to feel sorry for Sir Francis Drake, and certainly it is easy to see why he ended up going to sea and becoming an Elizabethan overachiever. First, he had eleven brothers, so living quarters were fairly crowded, and he didn’t stand to inherit much. Second, his father, Edward, was in constant danger because of his religious beliefs. During the brief period when Catholic Queen Mary (a ferocious and greatly feared defender of that faith) ruled England, Edward Drake was outspoken in his Protestantism. For his trouble, Edward Drake was banished from his nice home on the River Tavy in Tavistock, Devon, in bucolic southwest England to while away some years on small ships laid up in Gillingham Reach on the River Medway near already-teeming London.

Sailor boy inherits ship

From that lowly berth, at age ten, Francis Drake was apprenticed to the master of a bark sailing between London, Zeeland (the Low Countries) and France. The industrious young Drake was bequeathed his master’s boat when that master died, just at the time when Elizabeth was supplanting her half-sister on the throne. That was a happy accident, as Francis was no longer tainted by his father’s religious beliefs. He was free to become a favorite of the Queen, and his father was free to abandon the sea and embrace Holy Orders in the Church of England.

The story of the Armada and Plymouth Hoe

Drake plied the seas for almost fifty years, plundering for his Queen, but also commanding Her Majesty’s ships in bona fide naval battles. The most notable of these involved a combination of English ship maneuverability and gale force winds, resulting in the wrecking of the Spanish Armada off the Devon coast in 1588. Many believe that Drake was playing a game of bowls on Plymouth Hoe while waiting for the Armada to sail into view. While the Hoe (a term that comes from the Gaelic language Cornish for “high place”) offers a spectacular view of England’s south coastal waters, it seems far-fetched to think Drake might have been quite that cavalier. And, in fact, history also notes that signal fires were placed along the south coast; it was by that means that each sighting was relayed to the next harbor along the coast.

Drake's Stately Home a Former Monsastery

Drake did spent some time ashore, enjoying the fruits of his plunder, that portion not reserved for the crown. In 1580, Drake had purchased a substantial home, the decommissioned Buckland Abbey (Queen Elizabeth sought in short order to dispossess all the papists her half-sister had cosseted), quite a ways inland, in Buckland Monachorum. He would live there when not at sea until his death in 1596. But he isn’t buried there, as so many great men are at their stately homes. Still plaguing Spanish shipping, Drake suffered defeat at San Juan, Puerto Rico in 1595, surviving a cannonball that crashed through his cabin. He died a year later, off the coast of Panama, from a much less romantic cause—dysentery--and was buried at sea.

A visit to Buckland Abbey

Except for organized displays, Buckland Abbey today has little of the flavor it must have had during Drake’s visits home in Elizabethan times. Still, it is a wonderful group of buildings; the Great Barn that the Cistercian monks used for their grain and other farm products, is truly impressive. Indeed, the exotic roosters that strut around the grounds hearken more to the monastic life the Abbey once knew than Drake’s brief occupation as an absentee owner.

Britain’s National Trust has run the site since 1948, offering estate tours, garden tours, a restaurant and a particularly good National Trust shop. Generally speaking, the site is closed between about December 21 and mid-February.

Buckland Abbey is easily reached by road from the charming nearby town of Yelverton. Views of the Tavy Valley, from the hills around the Abbey, are extraordinary in almost any weather.

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