Sir Francis Drake

THE FAMILY AND HEIRS OF SIR FRANCIS DRAKE BY LADY ELIOTT-DRAKE WITH PORTRAITS AND ILLUSTRATIONS IN TWO VOLUMES VOL. I. LONDON SMITH, ELDER & CO., 15 WATERLOO PLACE, S.W 1911 fAII rights reserved] THE FAMILY AND HEIRS OF SIR FRANCIS DRAKE VOL. I. It is a degradation to man to be reduced to the life of the present. He will never put forth his hopes, his views, and efforts towards the future with due effect and energy, unless at the same time he holds close to his heart the recollections of the past. W. E. GLADSTONB (Speech al Edinburgh, No ...mber 1882.) A FEW years ago, a little book, entitled ' The Family of Sir Francis Drake,' was put together and privately printed by the Rev. Thomas Hervey. It consisted of a genealogy, the Memoranda of a Lady Drake, written in the reign of William and Mary, the reprint of a funeral sermon, and a few miscel laneous papers, some of which were new to me. Of these the Memoranda interested me the most, because they afforded a clue· to the meaning of a bundle of eighteenth-century letters which had been preserved for the justification of one of the writers, yet without any accompany ing explanation of the circumstances which had led to the correspondence. As the story thus newly revealed seemed, from a family point of view, to be worth clearing up, I made some notes about it, to bind in with my copy of Mr. Hervey's book, intending to add thereto a few particulars respecting each successive Lady Drake-her lineage, the amount of her fortune, and any personal details discoverable. It soon appeared, however, that the addenda would be out of proportion to the volume to be illustrated, wherefore, at the suggestion of those most interested in the matter, I abandoned that plan, and began a more comprehensive history of the Drakes of Buckland. Of the great Sir Francis Drake I have said little, abler pens than mine having pair' the tribute that was due to him ; but I have tried to put on record something of the lives Vlll PREFACE and characters of those who carried on his name, men who were useful in their generation, not afraid of responsibility in dangerous times, and willing-always-to spend and be spent in the service of their country. In this narrative there is of necessity frequent allusion to politics and to public events, but, as I have no pretension to write history, I have been careful to quote from original sources or from the works of well-known authorities. With all its shortcomings, I present the book confidently to those for whom it was primarily intended, knowing that they are well aware of the difficulties under which it has been written. Other readers may reasonably be more critical, and from these I ask their kindliest judgment, seeing that I acknowledge my limitations and claim no merit for my work but that it is truthful. If there are mistakes, they certainly are not wilful ones. I wish to offer the grateful thanks I owe to those who have been so good as to help me ; to Sir Mortimer Durand, who, when Ambassador at Madrid, enabled me, through the British Embassy, to obtain the official copy of an important Spanish document which I could not otherwise have had; to Count de Salis, for procuring further documents for me and for inquiries made on my behalf in South America and elsewhere, as well as for his great kindness in making the excellent translations printed in the Appendix; to Mr. Julian Corbett, for assistance and helpful advice; to the Rev. Thomas Hervey, for per mission to make use of the contents of his book; and to Mr. Pleydell Bouverie, for allowing me to look through and make extracts from his very interesting MSS. at Brymore. E. F. E. D. BUOXLAND ABBEY, 1911. CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME PART I THE DRAKE FAMILY CHAPTER PA.Gill J. 3 SIR FRANCIS DRAKE, 1541-1596 (l!IAPTlllR PAGE CHAPTER PAGE II.. 23 V.. 89 III .. 44 VI.-. 108 IV .. 61 PART II THOMAS DRAKE, 1585-1606 -OIIAPrER PAGE CHAPTER PAGE I. 131 I III .. 174 II•. 157 PART III SIR FRANCIS DRAKE, FIRST BARONET, 1606-1637 <lllAPTEB PAGE CHAPTER PA.GB I. 197 III. 230 IL • 213 X CONTENTS PART IV SIR FRANCIS DRAKE, SECOND BARONET, 1637-1662 CHil'TlllR PAGE CHAPTER PAGll I. 249 v.. 374 II. 282 VI. 403 III. 32Q VII. 419 IV. 340 ILLUSTRATIONS IN THE FIRST VOLUME SIR FRANCIS DRAKE Frontispiece; SIR FRANCIS DRAKE To face p. 32 (From a Miniature by Isaak Oliver) CUPS PRESENTED BY QUEEN ELIZABETH TO SIR FRANCIS DRAKE 50 ELIZABETH, LADY DRAKE (DAUGHTER OF Sm GEORGE SYDENHAM), WrnE oF Sm FRANCIS DRAKE 68 DRAKE's SmP, "THE GoLDEN HIND" 74 SILVER MAP MADE FOR Sm FRANCIS DRAKE 74 DON PEDRO DE VALDES, .ADMIRAL OF THE .ANDALUSIAN SQUADRON OF THE SPANISH ARMADA 104 L'ESCUDO DE VERAGUA, ONE OF DRAKE'S MAPS, IN THE POSSESSION OF THE BIBLIOTREQUE NATION ALE, PARIS 126 JOAN, LADY DRAKE (DAUGHTER OF Srn WILLIAM STRODE), WIFE OF FIRST BARONET 250, " PORCH AT BRYMORE Page 266 Sm FRANCIS DRAKE, SECOND BARONET To face p. 276 DOROTHEA, LADY DRAKE (DAUGHTER OF JOHN PYM, OF BRYMORE), WIFE OF SECOND BARONET 360 MARY DRAKE (WIFE OF ELIZEUS 0RYMES), DAUGHTER OF FIRST BARONET 394 JEWEL PRESENTED BY QUEEN ELIZABETH TO Sm FRANCIS DRAKE 433 GENEALOGICAL TABLE SHOWING DESCENT FROM EDMUND DRAKE 132 MAP OF THE WESTERN COUNTIES 328 PART I SIR FRANCIS DRAKE, KT. 1541-1596 PART I CHAPTER I THE family of Drake has been estated in Devonshire from a very early period. The first mention of the name that we can discover is in the reign of Henry III, when Reginald le Drake owned land in Tiverton, and a Ralf and a Roger le Drake held half a knight's fee in Dartington.1 The Tavistock branch-ancestors of the Drakes of Buck land-are first heard of in the reign of Edward Ill, at which time Ralf, John, and Richard Drake all held lands in the immediate neighbourhood, and Richard Drake's assessment was the highest in the Tavistock Hundred. Thenceforth the name constantly appears on the Subsidy and other Rolls. Two John Drakes in succession were vicars of St. Stephen's on the Tamar; the second of these resigned the living in 1393. Another member of the family was a monk in the Monastery of Tavistock. A John Drake was churchwarden of Tavistock and portreeve of the borough in 1466, and by the early subsidy of Henry VIII we learn that, in 1523, Drake, Hawkins, and 1 ' There is a great diversity of opinion concerning the content of a knight's fee, that is how much land goeth to the livelihood of a knight, for some say that a knight's fee should be eight hundred acres, but I hold that a knight's fee is properly to be estimated according to the quality and not according to the quantity of the land. And antiquity thought that he which had land to the value of twenty pound per annum., had a 'sufficient livelihood for the maintenance of a knight.'-COKE, VOL. I. • 2 4 THE FAMILY AND HEIRS OF (1541- Amadas were three of the only eight names returned as rate able under the highest assessment. Simon Drake is the first of our branch of whose existence there is documentary evidence at Nutwell Court.1 He had a lease from the Abbot of St. Rumon's Monastery of all that part of Crowndale which lies within the parish of Tavistock. His will, proved in 1534, is mentioned in the calendars of the Totnes Probate Court, but the document itself cannot now be found. It would appear that he had no children, and that he made John and Margery Drake his heirs, for in 1519 the Abbot of the Monastery at Tavistock granted to them and their son John a lease for their respective lives of all the lands and buildings in Crowndale then held by Simon Drake, at the end of whose tenure the new lease was to begin to take effect. This term was again renewed in 1546, notwithstanding that the three lives were all still in existence, the reason being that at the dissolqtion of the monasteries the fee-simple of the lands belonging to St. Rumon's 2 had passed into the possession of other owners. These domains were now held by Lord Russell and Anne his wife, to whom they had been granted by Henry VIII ; but the King was dying, his heir was a sickly boy, and the Russells, no doubt prudently, looked forward to the possibility that England might before long be ruled by a Roman Catholic sovereign, when an endeavour would be made to restore to the Church the lands so recently torn from her. They there fore took every precaution which could tend to give them a tighter hold on their newly acquired possessions. The prospect of a re-establishment of the Monastic Orders in this country, and the consequent passing again into mortmain of the enormous portion of England lately released 1 Simon Drake was rated in £24, on goods. His name appears on a Subsidy Roll from which the date is gone. Probably it belongs to the year 1523. 2 The Abbot of St. Rumon's was adequa.tely pensioned. He died at Tavistock. in the year 1550. 1596) SIR FRANCIS DRAKE 5 with so much difficulty, was a danger not ignored by the King's Government.

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