Drake: England’s Greatest Sea-Farer

By Ernle Bradford

The life of Sir Francis Drake reads like a piece of improbable fiction. He was the first Englishman to circumnavigate the globe, was the plunderer of the Spanish gold fleet, was knighted by Queen Elizabeth aboard his ship The Golden Hind, and was largely responsible for the destruction of the Spanish Armada in 1588.

He is an extraordinary example of a self-made man, a navigator of astonishing brilliance, a genuis at naval warfare and an outstanding leader of men. He was already a legend when he died in 1596. And the legend is justified. At a time when birth and breeding were essential keys to the doors of power, Drake rose by his own efforts, almost unaided.

Ernle Bradford, the renowned historian and author of The Great Siege and Ulysses Found shows us the man behind the legend. Drake was of humble origin, but became a tough and able seaman and officer. He was a realist who managed to rise to the top in the difficult and treacherous world of Elizabethan politics. His story is the life of a man whose abiding ethic was “to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.”

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