Elizabeth I's Pirates: Life Aboard Francis Drake's Golden Hinde | Dr. Kat of @ReadingthePast

We hope these boys do me a privateer So you two ladies think this is going to be a jolly? A chance to find great wealth, achieve fame and glory? No, I wasn't thinking that actually. Were you thinking that? I wasn't thinking that. We're just here to make our kids' history show. Our what? Yeah, one minute we were walking along and talking to camera. We had it all scripted and planned. Yes, we want to talk about what life was like on board the Golden Hind. And then suddenly we stepped on board the ship and everything went really weird. Who are you two? I'm Lauren. And I'm Doctor Kat. Doctor? You? A woman? Yes, I've got a doctorate in literary history. Seems a bit fishy to me. Speaking of fishy, sorry, but it really does stink in here. What is that? Enough! You've wasted enough of my time as it is. The crew could come aboard any second and then we need to set sail. Now my captain, Drake, doesn't normally accept women into the crew. Great, because we weren't planning on joining the crew. But since you've wasted enough of my time, I'm sure that we can find a use for you. You. What did you say your name was? Lauren. Lauren? Strange name. You're not French, are you? No. No, not French. Are you sure? Anyway, we can train you up on the guns. The French make possible gunners, I suppose. I told you I'm not French. I'm from Dorset. And as for you, I've never heard of a woman doctor before. You studied divinity, did we? Actually, I'm a different kind of doctor from that. Well, whatever you are, I'm sure that you can manage the role of barber-surgeon. With proper training, of course. In the meantime, you can scrub the deck, Doctor Kat. Right then, come along Frenchie. Let's go to the guns. Chop, chop. Should I say bang, bang? I don't want to scrub the decks. Scrub the decks? I don't think so. Now I've got you all to myself for a moment. I may as well teach you the history. We're on board the ship, the Golden Hind. And in Elizabethan times, where we seem to be now, they would have called it a galleon. The person in charge of this galleon is Francis Drake. He is one of Queen Elizabeth I's favourite privateers. That's a polite word for pirate. She especially liked him because he was so good at robbing the ports and ships of her enemies. Including those of her former brother-in-law, King Philip II of Spain. Shall we go and explore? In 1577, the Golden Hind, which was at that point called the Pelican, left Plymouth on a trip that would take them round the whole world. With the odd stop off to rob the ships and ports of Portugal and Spain. It arrived back in Plymouth in 1580, packed full of stolen treasure. This was the first English ship to sail around the world. People were impressed. The Queen was so happy, she knighted Drake. Special silver medals were made to celebrate the journey. These celebrations of the circumnavigation, which was certainly a daring and dangerous mission, tend to overlook just how much stealing and violence went along with it. In fact, today, we also overlook Drake's own fairly murky past. Because before he got to work with his raiding and robbing, his earliest voyages were in service of the Elizabethan slave trade. I don't think Drake would have been a particularly pleasant man. I certainly hope we don't bump into him today. Although, with that being said, he probably would have spent most of his time in his own cabin. And I haven't squashed him anywhere, so I'm going to go and have a nosy around. Okay then, Frenchie, welcome down to the gun deck. But it's also where most of the crew would have been living. It's really cramped down here. Why would people subject themselves to this? Some of them are going to be coming aboard to escape poverty. Boys would be coming aboard this ship from a really young age and working their way up. Or you might be aboard as a gentleman, someone very rich, who's aboard for adventure, fame and for glory. Shall we get to it then? Let's load and fire one of these guns. Don't worry, it's actually quite simple. This is called the worm. It goes down inside the muzzle of the gun like this and pull out any debris from the last time it was fired. Then we can take this gun stick. This is called a swab or a sponge. And it goes into a bucket of fresh water and that goes down inside the gun to clean it. Then we're about ready to load the powder and the shot. Gun powder is like black sand, but it's really explosive. When you set it on fire, it goes bang. I then load one of these. You might know it as a cannonball. That's our projectile. And then we make sure that it's all nice and tight in the end with a little bit of wadding. And we ram it all as tight as we can with a ram rod, which is one of these. We'll roll the gun out of the gun port and start the firing sequence. Can you please stick your finger in the touch hole right at the back here? This is called venting and it's to stop anything getting down there and accidentally setting the powder alight before we're ready. And then I'll take my priming wire. It's basically a sharp stick. That goes down inside the touch hole to pierce the cartridge so that the gun powder will catch light. And I'm going to pour a little bit of black powder down. And now I've got a fuse, we're ready to light the gun. So, I'm going to give you this here, our lindstock. This cord on the end is kind of like a match. We're going to light the end. You can touch the end of that match to the touch hole like so. That will light the fuse and the gun will go bang. Fire! Great stuff. I knew that the French made passable gunners. So, I'm a bit concerned by all of this. It seems like there are quite a lot of stages, I think. Don't they have guns in France? Well, it can be a little bit dangerous. If we're not careful, the guns can crack or they can shatter. Rather than shooting our enemies, they can just blow up in our face. That's going to cause injuries. And speaking of which, I'm off to find Doctor Cat. Make sure that she's able to heal the sick and the wounded. Oh, no, wait, wait, wait. Can you just ask about the previous piece? It's easy, it was just a word in the toilet. Ah, no problem at all. You just need to head up onto the beak head, right at the very front of the ship. You'll find some slatted planks. These are open into the sea, so you can just pull down your trousers and do your business. Oh, and there's a rag up there that you can wipe yourself with. We've all been using it, so it's absolutely fine. I think I'll pass. Um, thank you. Doctor Cat! What are you doing sleeping here? I'm just dressing my eyes. Well, I told you to scrub the decks. Well, since you're down here, we might as well go and have a look at some of the stuff that you need to become a barber surgeon. That's a person who's a little bit like a doctor aboard ships like this. And I'm not going to want to overwhelm you, so I'm not going to teach you everything at once, just the essentials. This is called a pelican, and it's used for removing teeth. This little round bit here, they can put against the jaw. This hook bit, or the beak of the pelican, goes behind the tooth like so. And we can lever the tooth out of the jaw. Now you've got to be careful, because you don't want to break the tooth or break the jaw. And that's easier said than done when a ship is rocking from side to side. So lots of practice is needed. Next, when you've got a really nasty wound, we might have to amputate your arm. This is an amputation blade, and we use it to cut through the flesh to get to the bone. Then, you might get your assistant to pull the flesh aside with their hand, so that you can easily access the bone with one of these. Here's our saw. We'd take two people to use this saw, and they'd work together to cut through the bone as quickly as they could. Because this is going to hurt a lot. Finally, because you don't want them to bleed to death, so you'll take one of these. This is called a cauterising iron. You'll heat this up in a bowl of hot coals until it's red hot, and then use it to burn shut all of the blood vessels, so that your patient doesn't lose too much blood. Finally, our clister pipe. Now this is used if you're feeling overly tired and grumpy. You might even be constipated, that means you're struggling to go to the toilet. This is to purge you of your black bile, which we believe is the cause of the problem. And we'll pour some warm water into this leather bag. This little pipe here then goes up your bottom. We then squeeze the pipe so that the water comes out, and purges you of all of your black bile. So I just don't think I'm cut out to be a barber surgeon. I'm sure you'll be absolutely fine, you are a doctor after all. Still not that kind of a doctor. Still confuses me. Can you believe that 60 members of the crew will be sleeping down here in shifts? With all of this cramped space, poor sanitation, farmyard animals, and not to mention the rats, it's easy to see how ships became a hotbed for diseases. There will be 80 members of crew on board the Golden Hind in total, 20 of those being officers. But despite their rank, their sleeping arrangements were still very simple. And there will be 20 men sleeping in that room above as well. What's more, due to the lack of fresh water, the crew would not have washed themselves or their clothes very often. It's going to get even smellier in here. Right, I'm not cut out for this whole gunner job, so I'm just going to leave these cannons here and hope I never actually have to use them. Come on, let's go and explore the rest of the ship. And this will be packed full of barrels of food and drink, as it's mostly used for storage. The more weight you have at the bottom of the ship, and the less likely it is to tip over at sea. In terms of food, as well as storing small animals on board, such as pigs, lambs, and goats, the crew would have also stored dried foods. Such as dried and salted meats, dried biscuits, known as hardtack, beans, peas, and weak beer. There was no such thing as fridges, so they would have to preserve their food by salting, pickling, or drying in barrels. They would have also eaten fresh local food when they stopped, some of which would have been completely new to them. And even penguins, turtles, and seals. What's been going on here? It's grim. Lauren, over here! I've had enough of this, I do not want to be a barber surgeon, I am an academic, we need to escape! I know right, this whole gunner job really isn't working out for me either. I keep banging my shins on the cannons. Right, let's go! So he signed them both up to his captain's crew. Even though their credentials were a bit of a mystery. But they learned how to fight, and they learned how to heal. And the rest, as they say, is history.