Sir Francis Drake

by Kelsey, Harry

• ISBN13: 9780300071825
• ISBN10: 0300071825
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1998-09-01
• Publisher: Yale Univ Pr

Summary

In this new biography, Harry Kelsey shatters the familiar image of Sir Francis Drake. The Drake of legend was a pious, brave, and just seaman who initiated the move to make England a great naval power and whose acts of piracy against his country's enemies earned him a knighthood for patriotism. Kelsey paints a different and far more interesting picture of Drake as an amoral privateer at least as interested in lining his pockets with Spanish booty as in forwarding the political goals of his country, a man who became a captain general of the English navy but never waged traditional warfare with any success.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	viii
List of Maps and Plans	ix
Acknowledgments	xi
Introduction	xv
I Loomings
From Tavistock to Plymouth	3	(8)
Learning to Be a Pirate	11	(29)
Raids on the Spanish Main	40	(28)
The Successful Merchant	68	(25)
II Around the World
Plymouth to Cape Horn	93	(44)
Cape Horn to Guatulco	137	(35)
Guatulco to the Pacific and Home	172	(35)
III A Pirate and a Gentleman
Honors and Riches	207	(33)
Raid on the West Indies	240	(40)
Raid on Cadiz	280	(25)
Defeat of the Spanish Armada	305	(36)
Expedition to Lisbon	341	(26)
IV A Pirate's Legacy
The Last Voyage	367	(25)
The Drake Legend	392	(9)
Appendixes	401	(22)
Notes	423	(100)
Bibliography	523	(22)
Index	545