A scholarly debut exposing the celebrated 16th-century English
seaman, explorer, and early favorite of Queen Elizabeth's for what
be truly was: a ruthless pirate, a greedy robber-merchant, and a
religious bigot and hypocrite who posed as a devout Christian.
Kelsey (History/Univ. of California, Riverside) spent years
exploring the great libraries of Europe and the US, only to
discover that this hero of the English Renaissance was really not a
very nice guy. A poor youth, Drake learned piracy from John Hawkins
and his family, and he rose in the world largely on the strength of
his reputation as a merciless raider of poorly defended Spanish
merchant ships. He was also well known as a disloyal friend who
abandoned comrades under fire, executed a close friend on flimsy
evidence, deprived relatives of payment and inheritances, profited
from the slave trade, and supported the earl of Essex's bloody
pacification of Ireland. He lived most of his life off the spoils
of his one great achievement, a three-year circumnavigation of the
world. Kelsey shows how Drake transformed piracy into an act of
patriotism by currying favor - and sharing booty - with the queen
and her nobles in exchange for a title. During the religious wars
with Spain, Drake plundered and destroyed churches, monasteries,
and convents and killed clergy in Spanish settlements. Poorly
educated, crude, profane, and ambitious to amass great wealth by
taking it from others, Drake was actually a poor warrior, and
Kelsey maintains that he usually performed badly in massed combat
actions. After he disappeared during the great naval battle with
the Spanish Armada, he was never given high command again and
finally lost favor with Elizabeth. Kelsey's enormous research range
and great detailing of Drake's life restore reality and truth to
the history of the times. A great achievement in the fields of
biography and history. (Kirkus Reviews)
In this lively and engaging 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. Drawing on much new
evidence, Kelsey describes Drake's early life as the son of a poor
family in sixteenth-century England. He explains how Drake dabbled
in piracy, gained modest success as a merchant, and then took
advantage of the hostility between Spain and England to embark on a
series of daring pirate raids on undefended Spanish ships and
ports, preempting Spanish demands for punishment by sharing much of
his booty with the Queen and her councillors. Elizabeth I liked
Drake because he was a charming rogue, and she made him an integral
part of her war plans against Spain and its armada, but she quickly
learned not to trust him with an important command: he was unable
to handle a large fleet, was suspicious almost to the point of
paranoia, and had no understanding of personal loyalty. For Drake,
the mark of success was to amass great wealth, preferably by taking
it from someone else and the primary purpose of warfare was to
afford him the opportunity to accomplish this.
General
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