693. Elizabeth I vs The Catholics: England’s Greatest Hero (Part 3)

22:54Tom Holland:We could just take it. And this is the start of what will become, I guess, the most devastating piracy in English history.

23:02Dominic Sandbrook:You say of piracy, but we would, I mean, all the children's books I used to read about Francis Drake said he was not a pirate. He was a privateer, which is very different. Did he see himself as a pirate? If you had put it to him that he was engaged in piracy?

23:17Tom Holland:Well, to be a privateer, you have to have the sanction of the government to operate.

23:22Dominic Sandbrook:Of course.

23:22Tom Holland:Yeah. And he doesn't have that. He does not have that. So I think at that point, by English as well as by Spanish law, he is operating as a pirate. He would say, I think, that he's operating as a godly Protestant attacking the evil papists. And of course, he is out for revenge. And so he would say, I'm launching raids. And these are both raids and reconnaissance missions, his first kind of trips out to the Indies. He's basically working out where should we strike. They are quite lucrative. So when Drake returns to Devon from his first raid in 1571, he has made three times the profit that Hawkins had made on all his slaving trips.

24:05Tom Holland:So Drake has definitely worked out, yeah, you can get rich with these. But more significantly than that, he's used these raids to kind of sniff around the treasure routes, the shipping lanes that link Spain to the gold and silver of the New World, and which, of course, are incredibly strategically important to Philip and the operations of his empire, because it's this treasure that is funding his armies in, say, the low countries or Italy or wherever. And Drake has identified the perfect place to attack. It's a weak point that is basically stuffed to the gills with treasure. And it's a port on the Caribbean coast of Panama called Nombre de Dios, the name of God.

24:51Dominic Sandbrook:Yeah.

24:51Tom Holland:So this is where the silver is being brought from Potosi in Bolivia, which we talked about in our final episode on the Incas, didn't we? It's the greatest silver mine ever found, discovered in 1545. And basically for two centuries, it will flood the entire world with silver.

25:10Dominic Sandbrook:An incredible thing. And it's still going. You know, the Cerro Rico, I think they call it. Just an unbelievable, I mean, hellish. People used to say the single worst place in human history or one of the worst places. Yeah, hell on earth, isn't it? But producing all of this treasure. I mean, nothing like it in human history has existed before.

25:30Tom Holland:And so it's brought down to the coast from this great mine, loaded onto ships, and then the ships sail up the coast of South America to Panama. It's loaded onto mules and donkeys, and there is a kind of 30-mile mule trail which threads its way through thick forest from Panama on the Pacific coast to Nombre de Dios on the Atlantic coast. And at Nombre de Dios, the treasure is loaded onto these vast galleons, these vast transport ships, and then it is taken across the Atlantic to Spain. So it is, in a sense, kind of, you know, it's the great treasure house of the world, but it's very, very poorly defended.

26:10Tom Holland:No real fortifications, very little artillery. and it depends for protection essentially on the fact that it is very very isolated and that people outside Spain up until this point have not thought to look for it but Drake has sniffed it out and so by the spring of 1752 he is ready for the big one a direct attack on Nombre de Dios and this by now people in devon and particularly in plymouth are starting to think yeah he's really onto something here this is very very exciting and so drake has no trouble in raising funds for this expedition nor does he have any difficulty in finding sailors who want to join him on the on the trip to the spanish main because his two previous ventures you know people have noted the money that he's brought back and the kind of stories of the rich pickings to be had you know people are aware of his plan.

27:10Tom Holland:And the measure of this is that even John Hawkins, you know, his cousin with whom there was bad blood, even he decides to kind of, you know, mend things up and to sink some money into this expedition. And I think for Hawkins, as for Drake himself, and as with lots of the sailors who are sailing with Drake on this expedition, I mean, it's definitely about profit. There's no question about that. They all want to make themselves rich. But I think they do also want vengeance. I think there's a sense in which people in Devon feel that that slaughter at San Juan de Ulua was in some way an insult to them personally.

27:50Tom Holland:And they, like Drake himself, want their vengeance. And I think that sailors who are joining Drake, when they see him, they feel there is really something special about him. So to see Drake, there's nothing particularly impressive about him physically. he's kind of he's quite short i mean he's stocky very broad-shouldered but he's not a kind of giant of a man by any means he's got this kind of reddish hair reddish beard but as i say he's that he's not physically imposing but he is very charismatic and he exudes a sense of of confidence and authority and so although his schemes may seem wild most people in in plymouth think yeah he could pull this off it's it's worth giving him a go right so 24th of may uh 1572 drake leaves plymouth he's got two ships and he's got three kind of ikea style pinnaces which he's planning to flat packs yeah flat packs to um to build when he he reaches the west indies he's got about 100 men and he's got provisions for around a year and they reach the spanish main on the 12th of july and this is where they assemble the pinnaces so now they've got five ships yeah and from this point on everything about the expedition is like the pirates of the caribbean it's it's so hollywood everything that happens from now on so drake's first move is to attack nombre de dios directly and the amazing thing is that it almost comes off so the english fleet sails into the harbor under cover of darkness.

29:25Tom Holland:And there are bored rowboats. So they're kind of gliding in. And they take the town completely by surprise. And as a result of this, it seems that they have the treasure house at their mercy. But just as they're about to advance on it and kind of, you know, blow the gates, it starts to rain. And this leaves the English gunpowder sodden. And even the strings on their crossbows are kind of left useless. And also in the fighting, Drake has been wounded in the leg and he looks down and suddenly realized that he's losing a lot of blood and he's kind of, you know, turning a bit faint. And so to quote the record of the expedition that's written up later, his men abandoned the most rich spoil for the present only to preserve their captain's life.

30:11Tom Holland:Drake is disappointed. You know, he was so close, but so far. but he's not unduly downcast because i think he's essentially amazed that the spanish at nombre de dios had proved even more useless than he'd been expecting that they would and so to quote the record and therefore he advised the governor of nombre de dios to hold open his eyes for before he departed if god lent him life and leave he meant to reap some of their harvest which they get out of the earth and send into spain to trouble all the earth and you can see why he becomes such a hero in england there's something of robin hood there yeah kind of telling the sheriff of nottingham i'm going to come in and steal all your treasure do you think he really did that because it would be foolish surely to to forewarn this guy i think he did because he was among other things he's a master of psychological warfare okay yeah he's trolling him yeah exactly he's building a kind of sense of himself as a menacing figure operating in the shadows who has to be taken seriously.

31:11Tom Holland:And as you say, that kind of trolling is something that makes Drake, even at this stage before he's really taken any treasure from the Spanish, makes him into a kind of bogeyman, a phantom of the shadows.

31:24Dominic Sandbrook:Well, I mean, not least because he actually does it, right? He actually follows through on his promise.

31:29Tom Holland:He does. So how does he pull it off, this amazing kind of heist? And the simple answer is he finds some very unexpected allies and Drake is introduced to these allies by an African who's been called Diego by the Spanish. He's a slave who had defected to the English during their raid on Nombre de Dios. And Drake adopts Diego as a crew member and the two men get on tremendously well. So Miranda Kaufman, who wrote a great book on black Tudors, Diego is one of the 10 black Tudors in that book. and the friendship between Drake and Diego seems to have been a very close one and in fact in his book John Sugden points out that in the official narrative of the voyage the one we've been quoting Diego is mentioned more than any of the other seamen on either ship in Drake's expedition and he pretty much ends up as kind of Drake's right-hand man because he reveals that in the heights above Panama there are African outlaws, escaped slaves called Cimarrones.

32:39Tom Holland:And these Cimarrones are very proficient at fighting and they're very keen for vengeance on the Spanish. So in every way, they're just the kind of guys that Drake wants to make friends with. It's an absolute marriage made in heaven. And for the Spanish, of course, it is an absolute disaster. And as an official in Panama, the Spanish very rapidly become aware of this alliance between the Cimarrones and Drake's Englishmen. This league between the English and the Negroes is very detrimental to this kingdom because being so familiar with the region and so expert in the bush, the Negroes will show them methods and means to accomplish any evil design they may wish to carry out.

33:20Tom Holland:And Drake does absolutely have a design because early in 1573, he has brought the news that he's been waiting for. the Spanish treasure fleet has arrived in Nombre de Dios, ready to pick up a vast consignment of silver that is in Panama on the Pacific side of the Isthmus. And this is about 60 miles away, you know, along this kind of mule trail. And the treasure has been kept there because the Spanish assume, you know, it will be more secure. There's no way that anyone could attack it actually in Panama. But Drake's plan is to ambush the mule train that will be bringing the silver from Panama. And so that February, he goes with the Cimarrones up into the heights above the mule train to try and kind of work out the lay of the land.

34:10Tom Holland:And after four days in the wild, they come to a great tree standing on a very high hill. And the Cimarrones have cut steps into the side of the trunk of the tree. And at the top of the tree, there's a kind of treehouse, a viewing platform. And Drake climbs up the steps and he gets to this viewing platform. And from it, he is able to see the Pacific as well as the Atlantic. So it's in the Keats poem. He and all his men are kind of looking at each other. Unbelievable. And Drake, when he sees the Pacific, something that no Englishman has ever seen before, to quote the record, He besought almighty God of his goodness to give him life and leave to sail once in an English ship in that sea.

34:54Tom Holland:I mean, it's very Drake.

34:55Dominic Sandbrook:Yeah. And actually, I was about to ask, is he the first Englishman to see the Pacific? Of course, lots of Spaniards have seen it, but it's a sign of how England has been locked out of so far, the kind of exploration of the new world.

35:08Tom Holland:And everyone in Europe, only the Spanish really have seen it. And it's very Drake that the moment he sees this kind of unknown vastness of the ocean, he thinks, oh, I want to go there. I want to explore it. But of course, his immediate concern is this mule train loading down with treasure. And so a few days later, they see it approaching and they lie in ambush. But unfortunately, one of Drake's men has got drunk and he launches the ambush too early and gives the game away. Drake still doesn't despair. He goes undercover. He lets a month or so pass so that the Spanish will think he's given up and gone home.

35:47Tom Holland:And then on the 1st of April, he launches a second ambush. And this one is a resounding success. There are no kind of drunks spoiling the surprise. And they take 30 tons of gold and silver. And that is such a haul that half of it actually has to be buried because it's too heavy to be transported. and even after the treasure has been shared out among drake's allies including the cimarones it's you know it's a completely spectacular hall and when drake reaches plymouth he does so to quote sugden with wealth few englishmen could have amassed in a lifetime you know it is the greatest robbery in the whole of english history up until this point there's more will be to come And I think that sense that there is more to come, that basically we've just scratched the surface.

36:37Tom Holland:The treasure is brilliant, but I think what is even more significant is this kind of strategic intelligence that Drake brings back with him. The details of the treasure routes, of how vulnerable these treasure routes are, and specifically the opportunities to be had in the Pacific, where the Spanish do not expect to be surprised. and in particular there is this alliance with the Cimarrones so as we said it's the first alliance ever made by a British captain with a black power and a Spaniard taken prisoner by the English reported of Drake he had heard Captain Francis say that he loved them and he spoke well of them and every day he asked if they were in peace and you could well imagine that he would because without the Cimarrones I don't think Drake would have been able to to pull this tremendous scam.

37:24Dominic Sandbrook:So just to make a very obvious point there's absolutely no suggestion whatsoever that drake is um prejudiced that drake would be what we would now call racist i mean not that they have the concept

37:34Tom Holland:i suppose of racism in the 16th century i think drake you know if he can sell black people for profit he'll do that and if he can ally himself with black people for profit he'll do that as well um right that's that's business and key word there is profit i think it's profit but also So clearly God has sent him in the, you know, has shown him these opportunities. So there's an element of godliness as well. And it's that fusion of greed and Puritanism that is what Drake is all about. And I think a love of adventure for its own sake. I mean, I think that is really, really important. And I think that's why Drake becomes so kind of loved and admired is that people, even the Spanish to a degree, kind of respond to the sense of swagger and excitement that Drake conveys.

38:19Dominic Sandbrook:Well, that's what makes him so famous across Europe, isn't it? The fact that he has pulled off a tremendous coup. I mean, don't forget, he's the underdog, the English are the underdogs in all this.

38:29Tom Holland:Yeah, he's Robin Hood. I mean, he absolutely is the Robin Hood here. Yeah. And I'll tell you, one person who really sits up and pays attention is someone we've mentioned a lot on this show. And this is Francis Walsingham, Elizabeth's first secretary.

38:41Dominic Sandbrook:The spymaster. Yeah.

38:43Tom Holland:And so he, I mean, he's intrigued by the money that's been taken, but he's intrigued as well to learn that Drake is dreaming of another even bolder expedition. And this is an expedition that Drake had first envisaged while he was standing in that treehouse, gazing out towards the Pacific. And this is an expedition that will lead him to the very ends of the earth.

39:10Dominic Sandbrook:The ends of the earth. Well, come back after the break and we'll be sailing to the far side of the world.

39:21Dominic Sandbrook:Welcome back to The Rest is History. It's five o 'clock in the afternoon of the 15th of November, 1577. And we are in Devon, specifically at Plymouth Sound, where a flotilla of five small ships is slipping out into the harbour. and they're led, of course, by Francis Drake. Aboard his flagship, which had been built to his personal requirements a year before, and this is one of the most famous ships in English history. It is the Pelican. But if you compare it to other great ships in English history, like HMS Victory, I mean, the Pelican is tiny, isn't it? It's only 80 feet long. It's only 18 guns, 150 tons.

40:01Dominic Sandbrook:There is a Pelican, I think, in Southwark, where there's a replica of the Pelican?

40:05Tom Holland:Yeah, it's a replica of it. So you can see what it's like. And just to say, this ship is, as you say, one of the most famous ships in English history, but it's not known as the Pelican. So the Pelican's name will be changed in the course of the voyage.

40:19Dominic Sandbrook:Yeah, we don't want to give the game away though, do we?

40:21Tom Holland:No. So Drake is heading out in the Pelican with his fleet of five small ships into the Bay of Biscay. And he is surrounded on his ship with people he loves. So he's got his brother, Thomas. He's got his 15-year-old cousin, John. And he has Diego, who had come with him from the Spanish main and is going off with him on this new adventure. He has books in his cabin. So he's got the Bible, of course. He's got Fox's Book of Martyrs, that great compendium of Protestant martyrs. And he's got a songbook of the Psalms. So people can sit on the deck and sing the Psalms, all very godly. But he also has books on navigation.

40:58Tom Holland:And one of these is an account of a Spanish expedition that had been led by a Portuguese explorer called Ferdinand Magellan almost 60 years before. And this had been a really record-breaking expedition. So it had set off in 1519 from Spain, and it had gone all the way down the Atlantic coast of South America. And at the foot of South America, it had discovered some dangerous but navigable straits. These straits come to be called after Magellan, the Magellan Straits. Magellan had led his expedition through these straits. It had then crossed the Pacific and continued westwards. In the course of this, they had discovered what in due course come to be called the Philippines.

41:46Tom Holland:And they're named the Philippines in 1542 after the Philip who is going to end up the king of Spain, the man who becomes Elizabeth I's great enemy. Magellan is killed in the Philippines. And ultimately, of Magellan's expedition, only a single ship, the Victoria, survives to reach Spain in 1522. But it is obviously a record-breaking and seismic achievement because the Victoria is the first ship ever to have circumnavigated the entire globe. And the history of this voyage might seem an odd thing for Drake to have brought with him on his expedition. Because officially, his expedition is heading to Alexandria and Constantinople in the Mediterranean on a trading expedition.

42:30Tom Holland:And this is what the 160 odd kind of men and boys on board his expedition have all been told. And it's also what Spanish spies have reported back to Philip II. You know, they are planning to go to the Mediterranean. But I think had Philip's spies been a bit more attentive, they might have come to a different conclusion. So if they had looked into the holds of these ships, they would have found that they were full of armaments. So pikes and crossbows and muskets and kind of various kinds of incendiaries. Also, Drake has a lawyer with him on board this expedition. Again, not something that you would generally take with you on a trading trip to the Mediterranean.

43:11Tom Holland:And this is a guy called Thomas Doughty, who is a friend that Drake had made two years before while in Ireland. And Doughty is a very learned, charming, highly educated man. So a very different class of person to Drake. He's a gentleman. Drake is absolutely not a gentleman. And Doughty is secretary to a key figure in Elizabeth's court. And this is a guy called Sir Christopher Hatton. And the Queen herself adores Hatton. Hatton is one of the Queen's favorite courtiers. He's very handsome. He's witty. He's a good dancer. So exactly the kind of guy that Elizabeth tends to go for. And she has made Hatton a gentleman of the Privy Chamber, captain of the Yeoman of the Guard, and both of those responsibilities means that Hatton is always in attendance personally on the Queen so very much kind of hanging around her yeah yeah and she bestows all kinds of marks of favour all kinds of gifts on him and this includes the estate of the Bishop of Ely on the margins of London and this is where the region called Hatton Gardens gets its name from Hatton Gardens is where the jewelers are it always kind of features in Guy Ritchie films where you're blowing up blowing up the safe all that kind of thing and this is is named after after Christopher Hatton and Elizabeth not only admires Hatton's ability as a dancer but also his loyalty and his political shrewdness and so three days before Drake leaves Plymouth Elizabeth makes Hatton a member of the Privy council i think this isn't coincidental because there is now a very clear chain of command you have the queen you have hatton and the privy council and hatton's secretary doughty is with drake on this expedition so there are very clear links there to the queen herself and what about

45:04Dominic Sandbrook:um you mentioned francis wilsingham before the great spymaster are there there are associations with him as well on there well he's a direct investor in the expedition like hatton and like

45:14Tom Holland:Doughty. And he's also been pulling strings on Drake's behalf. So a few months before Drake leaves Plymouth Sound, Wolsingham had arranged for him to have a private interview with Elizabeth. And according to Drake's later account of what the Queen said, basically, she is upgrading him from the rank of pirate to privateer. So the Queen supposedly said to Drake, I would gladly be revenged on the king of spain for diverse injuries that i have received and drake had suggested to the queen a plan that he'd been mulling over a long time and this is namely to sail through the magellan straits attack the spanish ships off the pacific coast of america and to plunder them for all their worth and the genius of this is that there is no way the spanish will be expecting it because they've actually including magellons up until this point they've only been three expeditions through the Magellan Straits.

46:12Tom Holland:They are that dangerous. And so the Spanish, as we've been hearing, tend to access the Pacific via Nombre de Dios and that mule train over to Panama. And so therefore they assume that their control over the Pacific coast is absolute. You know, there's no way that other European ships can get there. And so they call the Pacific itself, the Mare Clausum, the closed sea.

46:36Dominic Sandbrook:Just to give people a sense about the map, the only way you can possibly get to the Pacific if you don't go overland through Panama is to go all the way down the coast of basically Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina, around the bottom of Argentina and then up the other side and that is so difficult that you would be mad to attempt it.

46:57Tom Holland:Yeah and just to be even more precise they don't at this stage know that what will become Argentina has a kind of bottom as it were. They're not yet aware that there is just nothing but open ocean south of Argentina. So that's why the Straits are so important. And the Queen hears all this, and she thinks it's absolutely brilliant. And she essentially says, yeah, I love this. But Elizabeth being Elizabeth, she's very, very canny. She's very cautious. She doesn't want to put anything in writing. You know, she wants Drake to go and attack the Spanish, but she also wants deniability. And Drake himself is perfectly happy with this arrangement, because the one thing that he really wants is that whatever he does the queen privately will have his back and elizabeth says about drake before he leaves if need be the gentleman careth not i should disavow him you know they they basically understand each other right and just to say elizabeth she clearly adores drake she thinks he's tremendous as we will see in due course so although it is never written down this is the plan drake is going to sail as you said down the Atlantic coast of South America.

48:05Tom Holland:He's going to reach the Magellan Straits, go through these straits into the Pacific. He's then going to head up the west coast of the Americas. And essentially, he will be like a fox who has broken into a chicken coop. He's going to take as many prizes as he can. He's going to map the coastline for future reference for later English adventurers. And then he's going to return the way he came. So in other words, via the Straits of Magellan, There is no plan at this point to follow Magellan's route all the way around the world, because that essentially is seen by everyone as a mad course. It's way, way too dangerous.

48:45Tom Holland:Well, Magellan himself died. Yes, exactly. Exactly. And since that first attempt, no one else has tried to do it. No one else has tried to sail around the world. It's just not something that people think should or could be tried. so that's that's drake's plan get into the pacific loot it map it and then come back to england by the by the mcgillan straits and up the atlantic and so they set off and at first everything seems to be going well they make it through the stormy weather of the north atlantic in november um it soon becomes apparent that they're not going to the mediterranean but drake's men aren't particularly discombobulated by this i'm struck by this surely they must some of them must have known i mean the fact that you know there are explosives in the hole yeah come on i think so and also drake is you know by this point is the most charismatic sea captain in england you know he's very popular he's very admired and when he says we're going to get loads of loot people believe him and sure enough they're soon all you know they're having a lovely time attacking portuguese ships taking them as prizes kidnapping portuguese pilots you know they and then use all their maps and their kind of nautical know-how, all of this.

49:56Tom Holland:But as they sail southwards down towards the Magellan Straits, what has always been a theme in English history and remains so to this day starts to raise its head. And this is the issue of class. I love this detail. So at stake on Drake's ship is a jockeying for position between Doughty, the lawyer, the gentleman with intimate connections at court, the protégé of Sir Christopher Hatton, who is the incredibly close courtier to Elizabeth herself, and Drake, who is an upwardly mobile son of Devon with a massive chip on his shoulder. And Doughty, as is his due as a gentleman, insists on the rights that are due to him by virtue of his rank.

50:46Tom Holland:While Drake is demanding that even a gentleman like Doughty has to put his shoulder to the wheel. And so there's a growing tension between these two men who initially had been friends. And Drake does make various attempts to mollify Doughty. So first he gives him the command of a captured Portuguese ship, and then he gives him command, amazingly, of the pelican itself, so Drake's own flagship. But despite these attempts to build bridges, relations still worsen. And Doughty accuses Drake's brother of stealing from a captured hall of wine. And he starts to make comments about Drake himself that are clearly verging on the mutinous.

51:23Tom Holland:And Drake starts to think that Doughty is practicing witchcraft against him. Does he really think this or is this just a weapon? I think he really believes it. You know, you're at sea. Drake is a very pious man. I think he thinks the only reason that Doughty could be behaving like this is because he's in hock with the devil. I don't see the floor in that argument at all. Right. Okay. It comes completely naturally. And finally, There is a series of very open bust-ups, which are happening in direct view of all the crew. So firstly, Drake very publicly demotes Doughty from his command of the Pelican to command of a tiny supply vessel called the Swan.

52:01Tom Holland:And then he places him directly in the custody of his vice-admiral. And he warns the vice-admiral and everybody on board the Pelican that Doughty is a conjurer, a seditious fellow, and a very bad and lewd fellow. So essentially, Doughty, by this point, he's been clapped in irons. And by this stage, they're further south than any English ship before them ever in history. And they sail into a bay called San Julien on the coast of what is now Argentina. And they make anchor there on the 20th of June. And in the bay of San Julien, it's very kind of Treasure Island, very Pirates of the Caribbean. on the shoreline of the bay, they find a gallows from which Magellan, who'd arrived there with his flotilla, had hanged a mutineer.

52:51Tom Holland:And the bleached skeleton of the mutineer is still there in the gibbet. Oh my God, that's brilliant. So Drake's crew see the bones of this mutineer. They say to Drake, well, this is how you deal with mutineers. You should do this to Doughty. God, this is so Pirates of the Caribbean, in a treasure island or something, isn't it? It really is. And so Drake thinks, yeah, why not? Okay. So on the 30th of June, he summons his men to an island out in the bay. And Doughty is brought out, you know, clapped in irons. And Drake puts him on trial. And Doughty, of course, is a lawyer. So Doughty says, well, by what right are you doing this?

53:28Tom Holland:You know, show me your commission from the Queen. And Drake doesn't have a commission from the Queen because he's, you know, operating under the radar. so drake who of course is not a lawyer but he's very much a man of action yeah i don't care about that who cares about the letter of the law and he turns to his men and he says this fellow is full of prating bind me his arms for i will be safe of my life and he convenes a jury and he puts doughty on trial and says the charges treason and incitement to mutiny and this of course is a massive massive test of drake's authority and it's a test which drake passes and the moment that that test has been passed there can really be only the one verdict because drake says to his men when he's kind of you know commissioning the jury consider what a great voyage we are like to make the like was never made out of england we cannot afford to have dissension on board our ships you You know, we cannot tolerate even the threat of mutiny.

54:31Tom Holland:And so, unsurprisingly, the jury finds Doughty guilty and they recommend death. Drake does prevaricate. You know, he and Doughty had been friends. And also, Doughty is the secretary of Sir Christopher Hatton, who is this great favourite. I mean, it's a big ask. This is high risk.

54:51Dominic Sandbrook:Yeah.

54:51Tom Holland:Very high risk. But, you know, he says, OK, I'm sentencing Doughty to death. and Doughty, to give him great credit, meets his fate very, very bravely. And Drake and Doughty, amazingly, they share Doughty's last meal. That's bizarre. And to quote the record of the voyage, they shared it as cheerfully in sobriety as ever in their lives they had done aforetime, each cheering up the other and taking their leave by drinking each to other as if some journey only had been in hand. I mean, what a meal that must have been.

55:23Dominic Sandbrook:I mean, each cheering up the other just strikes me as a ludicrous claim. I mean, I can see that Doughty needs cheering up, but for Drake to need cheering up, really?

55:32Tom Holland:I mean, well, Drake's a bit depressed that he's had to do this. I think he's probably worried about what Christopher Hatton's going to say.

55:38Dominic Sandbrook:I don't feel like this is Doughty's job, really, to cheer Francis Drake up in his final moments.

55:43Tom Holland:Well, I think you could either say this was completely made up or you could say, well, this reflects tremendously well on both men.

55:48Dominic Sandbrook:Yeah. And by extension on England.

55:50Tom Holland:So that's nice. Absolutely. So that's all the more reason for believing it. so they finish their meal and then uh doughty is brought forward uh and his head is chopped off and drake lifts the severed head and cries out lo this is the end of traitors and that is the end of doughty um and it's a very brutal episode it's controversial but i think it is an act of expediency drake did it and he was right to do it because it very clearly and decisively established the chain of command. Drake is in charge of the expedition, no one else. And it also, I think, because of Drake's fame, it serves to establish a very important precedent, namely that the authority of a captain on board his own ship outranks that of everyone else, even a gentleman.

56:39Tom Holland:And you might say that it is because Drake asserted himself over Doughty in this manner that in 1912, when the Titanic hit the iceberg, Charles Leitola, the guy in charge of allocating people to the lifeboats on the sinking Titanic, was able to tell Aster, the richest man on board the ship, no, you can't get in board. And Aster accepted that instruction. I mean, there's a kind of really fascinating line of descent there, I think. But clearly, I think Drake, he'd taken a risk because perhaps his crew wouldn't back him in. They've turned out that they have. But he is also taking a risk because he doesn't know how this is going to go back home.

57:20Tom Holland:What's Christopher Hatton going to say? What's Elizabeth going to say? And so they arrive at the Magellan Straits on the 20th of August and they pause there. And it's a very forbidding sight, like something out of the Odyssey. The cliffs are kind of grim and grey and forbidding. And Drake, before they enter the Straits, he offers a salute to the Queen. And obviously this is recorded. He's showing his respect for Elizabeth. He holds a church service. I'm sure they're singing from the hymn book, from the psalm at E. All the psalms. And then he rechristens his ship. And what had been the pelican becomes the golden hind.

57:58Tom Holland:And the golden hind is the crest of Sir Christopher Hatton.

58:02Dominic Sandbrook:Such a clever trick. Such a good detail there. Yeah. When you see the kids' books about Sir Francis Drake, or at least the ones I read, this aspect of the story was never mentioned. slightly covered over. Yeah. Because it's a little bit complicated and it reflects quite badly on Francis Drake, I think. Whereas in reality... I don't think it reflects badly.

58:19Tom Holland:I think he's, you know, he's asserted himself.

58:21Dominic Sandbrook:Well, I think if you're eight, you would be a little bit confused by this story.

58:25Tom Holland:Yeah, it's never explained why the pelican becomes the golden hind, but that's the reason. So anyway, we now come to the passage through the Magillan Straits. And this is a bit like, you know, the Argonauts going through the clashing rocks. It's a very tense experience. The straits are kind of about 300 miles long and they're very treacherous. There are reefs and dangerous winds and erratic tides. So it's a big ask. And it's such a big ask that in fact, Drake abandons two of his five ships because he feels that they're unseaworthy to make the attempt. However, I'm proud to say Drake completely aces it.

59:04Tom Holland:So he negotiates the Straits in only 15 days and Magellan had taken 37 days and Drake sets the record for the whole of the 16th century. So this reflects well on Drake. It reflects well on England. Hooray. Wow. They come out the other side. They're now in the Pacific and there's a massive storm and it rages on and off for almost two months. And one of Drake's ships is sunk and the other is separated from the Golden Hind and is blown back towards the Magellan Straits and kind of ends up thinking, oh, screw this, we're going to go back home. And so goes back. And so now in all the great vastness of the Pacific, the Golden Hind is the only English ship left.

59:44Tom Holland:So it's very science fiction. It's like kind of Voyager or Interstellar or something like that. The sense of of a ship lost in the vastness of Pacific or the vastness of space. I mean, it's an amazing, an amazing drama and incredible tribute to Drake that he doesn't at this point think, well, I'd better go back to. He's still thinking I've got here. I'm going to take my chances. But to do what? Because there's just one of him. Yeah. Well, that's the problem. So he can't now launch a direct attack, say, on Panama. And also he has a very finite number of men. So every casualty matters. so in November for instance he suffers the loss of two sailors when the native peoples on an island off Chile mistake the English for Spanish who you know they know that the Spanish are bad news the English are trying to make friends with them but no they're not having that and Drake himself actually gets hit in the face under his right eye by an arrow and Diego too suffers an arrow wound and very sadly he will die of this wound a few months later so he doesn't make it all the way around the world.

1:00:48Tom Holland:But, you know, why is Drake deciding, well, we're going to carry on? Because the Spanish aren't expecting him. And so that means they are incredibly vulnerable. And so he, you know, I said he's like a kind of fox in a chicken coop. There are a lot of chickens. The most spectacular coup is the capture of an enormous Spanish treasure ship, Nuestra Señora de la Concepción. And this gives Drake 14 chests of silver reals. This is so Treasure Island. 80 pounds of gold, 26 tons of silver bars. And so this is even more of a hall than Drake's previous hall of Spanish treasure. Probably the greatest, the single greatest hall of treasure in maybe European history.

1:01:35Tom Holland:I don't know. I mean, it is a vast amount of money. Drake, I'm proud to say, treats the captured Spanish captain with exemplary chivalry. And it has to be said that Spaniards who meet Drake are generally, despite themselves, very impressed by his courtesy and his sense of chivalry. So I think they fear and hate him. But it's a bit like the highwayman, the gentleman highwayman, something like that.

1:02:02Dominic Sandbrook:Yeah.

1:02:02Tom Holland:He also, any slaves that he finds on board the Spanish ships, he offers them their freedom and sailors' wages. And of course, most of the captured slaves take this offer up. And this is an obvious way for Drake to top up his crew.

1:02:17Dominic Sandbrook:I'm getting massive sort of Tom Hiddleston, Roger Moore vibes from Sir Francis Drake.

1:02:22Tom Holland:He's suave. Yeah, but remember, he's stocky and broad-shouldered and he has a broad, devoured accent and he's not a gentleman.

1:02:30Dominic Sandbrook:Yeah, I know. So if you're doing realistic casting, it's John Rhys-Davis. It's the guy who played Gimli. But I think you surely want more of a sort of a smooth, suave Englishman, sort of David Niven. I thank you for your offer of silver. Yeah, exactly. Certainly. Maybe if you're doing comedy, Terry Thomas would play him. No, I don't think so. No, you've got to take him seriously. Really? You'd never do a Francis Drake comedy? You don't think that would work? Carry On Drake? No. Carry On in the Caribbean? No. I think that would be offensive. I mean, the Spanish obviously don't find this a comedy.

1:03:02Tom Holland:No, they don't. They're appalled. What are they planning to do? Well, they're thinking, how is Drake, you know, he's got all this silver and gold, but he's got to take it back home. How's he going to do it? So he might try and go overland from the Pacific coast across Panama to the Atlantic coast. And so they put garrisons in Panama on the alert in case he tries that. And then they think, well, he might, you know, try and go back through the Straits of Magellan. So we'll put patrols there. But Drake is aware that this is probably what they're thinking. And so instead of heading back south towards the Magellan Straits, he heads northwards in the hope of finding a northern passage.

1:03:38Tom Holland:So around what would be Canada at this point. Drake doesn't know whether actually that that's impossible. And so he sails up the coast of South America, North America, and he reaches almost as far as what is now Canada by June 1579. And he starts to realize, you know, we're never going to find a way around this. It just goes on and on and on. So he heads back south. And by late June, early July, he's hanging out in the Bay Area. So hence, that's why you get Sir Francis Drake Boulevard and all of that. And he makes contact with the native peoples in the region of what is going to become San Francisco.

1:04:17Tom Holland:And these are people called the Miwok, who apparently were based in what's now Sonoma County. Wine country. Yeah, isn't that where we had a very expensive truffle crisp?

1:04:27Dominic Sandbrook:I'm going to absolutely destroy the reputation of the rest is history. It was you, me and Tabby, and we had an artisan Pringle topped with caviar. Tough on the road, isn't it?

1:04:36Tom Holland:Tough on the road.

1:04:37Dominic Sandbrook:Yeah.

1:04:37Tom Holland:Well, Drake wasn't having any of that, but I think he is entertained by the Miwok, and Drake reports of them that there are people of attractable, free and loving nature, without guile or treachery. And the Miwok put a feathered crown on Drake's head. And so obviously Drake says, right, I'm claiming all of this land for England. and Elizabeth, and he calls it New Albion. So this is the first English possession in the West Coast of America. Californians could perhaps reflect on this. They're open arms if they want to return to the bosom of the English crown.

1:05:11Dominic Sandbrook:So he's done a sort of Nick Clegg and he's gone off to San Francisco.

1:05:15Tom Holland:Yes.

1:05:15Dominic Sandbrook:But rather like Nick Clegg, he ultimately is going to return home, though perhaps a little bit more popular.

1:05:21Tom Holland:Yeah, he wants to come back. He doesn't want to hang out. I mean, he likes the Milwaukee, but he doesn't want to stay with them.

1:05:25Dominic Sandbrook:He's obviously not going to go over land. yeah but i mean that means he has to go back by sea all the way down the coast of south america

1:05:32Tom Holland:again surely not can't do that so what he's gonna have to sail across the pacific go head westwards he's gonna have to follow in mcgillen's not not footsteps but in his in his wash yeah um it's obviously very risky you know sailing across the pacific is a massive ask but drake has prepared for it so every spanish ship that he has captured he's taken charts he's got uh sailing guides and And before he leaves California, which he does on the 24th of July, he stocks up with seabirds and seals. So he kind of butchers them and salts them. So hopefully this will be enough to keep him going. I mean, butchered seal, but it's better than drinking your own urine, I guess.

1:06:11Tom Holland:So the Golden Hind sets sail westwards from California, and it is 68 days at sea without sight of land. And then finally, on the 68th day, they reach an island called Palau, which is west of the Philippines. And they arrive there on the 30th of September. And the scene is very Captain Cook. The inhabitants of Palau have never seen a European before, never seen a European ship. And they're all kind of rowing out on their canoes and things like that. They're welcoming. You know, they don't kill Drake as the people of Hawaii end up killing Captain Cook. And by early November, the Golden Hind has reached the Spice Islands, which are in the east of Indonesia.

1:06:52Tom Holland:and there they find the local sultan is at war with the portuguese um so very keen to sign drake and the english more generally as allies and he gives drake six tons of clothes god that's a lot of clothes now this is fabulous wealth yeah it kind of just adds to the the gold and the silver and he gives a ring for queen elizabeth and in return drake says absolutely we will send a fleet of english ships to help you out against the portuguese i mean obviously that never happens but drake doesn't care because he's got the clothes so hooray he's he's up there they continue westwards and then on the 10th of january seeming disaster because the golden hind runs aground on a reef and it's impossible to budge the reefs are kind of very very scratchy sort of coral coral reefs yeah so drake tries a prayer first that doesn't seem to work and so then they try offloading the artillery that still doesn't seem to work so they then revert to prayer and then the prayer it does work because in the afternoon the wind changes and the golden hind slips off the reef and the only damage is a slight leak which is very simple to repair and so by late march they've left java behind and on the 21st of may they catch sight of africa and that actually is an incredible feat of navigation as well yeah um you know it's a long time at sea and by mid-june they're rounding the cape of good hope uh on the 22nd of july they make landfall in sierra leone what will become from Sierra Leone, so on the west coast of Africa.

1:08:18Tom Holland:And that is 9 ,700 miles without picking up any supplies, any provisions. Drake's crew suffer no deaths from scurvy, no deaths from dehydration. It's an incredible feat. Absolutely incredible feat. How have they done that with no supplies? I don't, I mean. They're catching birds. They're catching fish. They're getting rainwater. It's amazing.

1:08:40Dominic Sandbrook:Wow. I mean, that is impressive because, you know, without fresh fruit, I guess

1:08:46Tom Holland:yeah kind of comparison there I think between Nelson and Drake because Nelson also kind of understood the importance of keeping his crew healthy yeah but Nelson was always getting supplies wasn't he from Naples and stuff yeah he was

1:08:58Dominic Sandbrook:so Drake's in many ways I hate to say this of Nelson but even more impressive

1:09:02Tom Holland:yeah I mean my guess is that local people are rowing out and giving them papaya or whatever that's my hunch okay that's great fruit knowledge

1:09:10Dominic Sandbrook:Tom well done thanks Callum points out that they would have been eating the cloves I mean you can get clove scented toothpaste it'd be like eating silver wouldn't it

1:09:19Tom Holland:I guess yeah eat the treasure anyway so by the time they reach the west coast of Africa relatively they know where they are they can now sail up the west coast of Europe and on the 26th of September the golden hind heads into Plymouth Sound and as we've been saying Drake's achievements are stupefying the voyage has lasted 1046 days it was the first by an English ship, the second in history to circumnavigate the globe. He has survived appalling weather. Drake has returned with enormous amounts of treasure, more than the entire annual revenue of Queen Elizabeth. I mean, stupefying. And he's not only plundered the Spanish, he's outsmarted them and made them look foolish.

1:10:02Tom Holland:But all that being said, Drake has good reason to be nervous. You know, what's his reception going to be? Will the Queen really have his back? That ship that he'd been separated from by the Straits of Magellan, that will have returned to England with news of Doughty's fate. So will Doughty's relatives be out to get him? Surely. What about the Spanish? I mean, you know, they will doubtless have been complaining to Elizabeth. So all of this is a worry, as is the possibility that perhaps while he's been gone, Elizabeth has died or been assassinated or whatever, and maybe Mary Queen of Scots is on the throne, and she certainly won't be a Francis Drake fan.

1:10:35Tom Holland:So rather than sell directly for Plymouth Harbour, Drake, first of all, makes sure to hail a passing fisherman and to ask this fisherman, is the queen alive and well? And the fisherman replies to Drake's relief. Yes, Queen Elizabeth still sits on the throne and is very well. And so then he continues into Plymouth. But even now, he doesn't disembark because the city is ravaged by plague and Drake is still nervous about the reception that he's going to get from the queen. His wife and the mayor of Plymouth are rode out to greet him and they are able to give him a briefing. And Drake is informed that during his absence, England's strategic situation has got worse.

1:11:16Tom Holland:Philip has become the king of Portugal as well as Spain, which means that he now rules an even more global empire. All Portugal's possessions are now his, as well as all those kind of possessions that Spain had won. Philip has also been backing that invasion of Ireland that we talked about in the previous episode. And most ominously of all, from Drake's point of view, Philip is demanding that Elizabeth punish Drake for, quote, his piratical acts. And so the question is, what will the queen do? And so Drake decides that he is going to stay on the golden hind, wait to find out and hope for the best.

1:12:02Dominic Sandbrook:So what will the Queen do? Is the Francis Strait going to be punished or is he going to be free to resume his life of plundering the Spanish on the high seas? Listen, there's only one way to find out and that's to listen to the next episode of The Rest is History. Now, if you're a member of the Rest is History Club, of our own swashbuckling crew, then you can listen to that episode right now. If you would like to sign up to embark on our voyage around the world or around world history, then you should head to the restishistory.com because, Tom, as you will know, that is the only way you can get all of the unbelievable benefits from our own Cerro Rico, from our own massive silver mine.

1:12:44Dominic Sandbrook:We hand out bounty, don't we? But you only get all that bounty by signing up at the website rather than on one of the various platforms.

1:12:53Tom Holland:Dominic, I have even more exciting news because we are running a summer sale. And so for a limited time, if you want to sign up to the Rest of History Club, listen about the dinosaurs and a host of other supplementary benefits, then you will get an extra 20 % off an annual membership using the code SUMMER26. And this is only valid until the 31st of August. So hurry, hurry, hurry while stocks last.

1:13:18Dominic Sandbrook:So do that. Also, I think the important thing to do is to subscribe to our free newsletter. Definitely. We've got all kinds of articles and extracts and amazing things. So basically, we've got a lot of silver and we're giving it away. We're just throwing it around, you know, willy nilly. We want people to share it because that's the kind of people we are. And on that bombshell, we will be back next time with the further adventures of Francis Drake. So we'll see you then. Bye bye. Bye bye.

1:13:52Vinalian