The Golden Hind: How Francis Drake Defeated The Spanish Armada

Majestic, powerful, and deadly, for over 400 years British ships ruled the waves. These magnificent vessels helped shape history across the globe. I'm Rob Bell and in this series I'll be exploring six of the world's greatest ships. In this episode I discover the extraordinary story of the Golden Hind, the first English ship to sail around the globe. Sir Francis Drake's epic voyage was marked by daring, violence, and betrayal. Yet the Golden Hind also set Britain on a path to becoming the world's greatest sea power. On the 13th of December 1577 a small group of ships set sail from the south coast of England. At their head was the ship we now know as the Golden Hind. Most of the men on board thought they were bound for Alexandria, a short and peaceful trip across the Mediterranean. But anyone who knew their captain might have guessed that their real mission was very different. Today Sir Francis Drake is celebrated as the great British hero who helped defeat the Spanish Armada of 1588. By then he was a knight of the realm and vice-admiral of the English fleet. He couldn't have been more respectable. But 11 years previously when he was captain of the Golden Hind he'd enjoyed a rather different kind of fame as one of England's most notorious pirates. In the early 1570s Drake took part in a series of daring raids against the American colonies of Britain's great rival Philip II, King of Spain. Drake plundered immense amounts of gold from the Caribbean by shamelessly stealing from Spanish treasure ships. Having been stung once the Spanish were now on the lookout for another English raid in the Caribbean. So in 1577 Queen Elizabeth gave her secret approval for Drake's most daring plan yet. To surprise the Spanish Drake wouldn't simply cross the Atlantic and raid the Caribbean again. He would do something no Englishman had ever done before. Head south down the coast of South America and become the first English mariner to sail from the Atlantic to the Pacific. The plan was so bold that Drake hoped to catch the Spanish treasure ships here completely unprepared. When you think of an Elizabethan ship capable of sailing halfway around the world you might picture some giant towering galleon bristling with cannons ready to take on the fiercest of enemy ships. And so large it could ride out even the biggest ocean storms. So when you see the ship that Drake chose to lead his mission up close you might be in for a bit of a surprise. Even by Elizabethan standards the Golden Hind was a small ship. This replica moored on London's south bank is built to the approximate dimensions of the original ship. At barely a hundred feet long and 20 feet wide it's astonishing to think a vessel this size sailed all the way around the world. So why did Drake commission such a modest ship for such a hazardous voyage? To find out more I've come to meet the man in charge of restoring this replica, Toby Millinder. I hope you don't mind me saying but I think one of my first impressions is just how kind of stripped back a design Golden Hind is. Why is she so so small? Well she's known as a race built galleon which was designed preferred by the English. They were a lot more maneuverable as opposed to the Spanish galleons which were massive. They were designed to carry treasure and to sink ships whereas we were designed to basically board ships and stay out of range of them. I can't see any lifeboats up there at all. What would have happened if someone had fallen overboard? In calm conditions they would have sent out a boat or thrown them a line but in heavy seas they were pretty much done for. They couldn't really swim a lot of the mariners at that time and it was almost seen as you would defy the sea if you did learn to swim. I've always thought it's good to sail with sailors that can't swim because they're less likely to sink the boat. That's an interesting thought. I will bear that in mind for any future excursions on the sea. The planks on the original hull of the Golden Hind would have been made of oak and to fix replacement planks on this replica, Toby's using ancient shipbuilding techniques. How did the original shipbuilders build the hull and ensure it was watertight? They would have used trennels to hold the planks on. It means tree nail so that's a piece of oak. So this is a tree nail? Tree nail, yeah. Trennel? Yeah. The use of trennels in shipbuilding goes back over 7,000 years. Nice. Because the nails are made of wood they expand and contract with the planks around them, keeping the structure incredibly tight. That's it. Chops are good, look at that. Lovely. They would have been using the same techniques as we've seen there. Exactly the same technique, yeah. When it was originally built. Once the ship was built it was time for Drake to recruit his crew but here he faced a big problem. England was full of Spanish spies. If Drake told his recruits of his daring plan to attack Spanish treasure ships on the Pacific coast there was every chance that word would get back to the Spanish authorities. This would not only rob him of the element of surprise but could even spark an open war between Spain and England. Drake's solution was simple. He lied. He told his men they were on a short diplomatic mission to Alexandria in Egypt. Had the men known where they were really going many might have had second thoughts. In the Elizabethan era transatlantic voyages were notoriously hazardous. If you didn't die by drowning or disease then there was always being killed in combat by the Spanish or meeting a grisly end at the hands of hostile natives. But once he reached the Mediterranean Drake had to reveal that these were all dangers his men now faced. It's likely many of his crew were furious. One sailor remarked that he would rather have been hanged in England than come on this voyage. To stop his men deserting from this new hazardous mission Drake may have needed to draw on his own humble origins. Francis Drake is basically a simple seaman. He doesn't come from a high-born family. He is not a gentleman originally so therefore he has to prove himself in terms of his professional ability and therefore people would work for him even if he was misleading them as to where they were going like he did on this voyage he was able to keep them on board quite literally and they would go wherever he took them. Once Drake had persuaded his crew to stay on board he could embark on his true mission raiding Spanish ships in the Americas. Having first sailed from Plymouth to the coast of North Africa he finally began his journey westward across the Atlantic. Yet reaching the new world could take over a month so what was life like for the crew on this perilous crossing? On a small ship like this space is at a premium. There's only one private cabin on the ship and that was this Drake's own and pretty much the most luxurious aspect of this small room was this the door. On a vessel of this size there's simply no privacy. Inside may not have been that luxurious but Drake used his time in here to try and relax. Apparently one of Drake's favorite pastimes in the evenings was to make drawings of the places he'd seen on his voyage. In an age well before photography this was a vital way of preserving what he'd learnt about the new lands he'd visited. We can also deduce another of Drake's favorite pastimes from his crew list. Alongside soldiers and sailors, a shoemaker and a surgeon, Drake recruited string players and trumpeters to play music on board. If he'd ever invited them in here for a private performance it certainly would have been an intimate gig. If you think Drake's living quarters look a little on the small side wait until you see where the rest of the crew slept. The vast majority of the men on board shared a single space below deck. Richard Blakemore is an expert on what life would have been like for the men sharing these appallingly cramped conditions. Where abouts on the ship are we here now? We're down here in the gun deck and the clue is sort of in the name. This is where the 18 cannons that were carried on board would have sat and would have been used. All around us here now? Absolutely but it's also where most of the crew would have slept and spent a lot of time. How many men would have been sleeping down here then? Well there's a crew of about 80 so we're thinking probably about 60 men would be based. 60? But only about half of the crew would have been down here at any one time because of the watch system. So can you tell me what a typical routine might have been in the day for these sailors? They had a very strict timetable in order to make the ship work and they kept time with hourglasses like this one. So these would normally measure about half an hour and eight glasses or four hours was one watch. So at the same time as it being an operational part of the deck you would have had people trying to get some shuttle here as well. So how were they doing it? It wasn't quiet or dark for you to sleep? No it absolutely wasn't quiet or dark. I mean I think one of the things about this deck is just how noisy it would be if we think of the sort of feet running around above deck with all the crew who are running up the rigging. But also if you think about the ship at sea pitching and tossing the sounds of the ocean all around. Well life on board really doesn't sound very pleasant. In fact it sounds horrendous most of the time. So why would these sailors ever have agreed to go on this voyage especially as they weren't conscripted? Well I think the first place we have to start with that question is the fact that society at that time was not a safe place. You could catch the plague in London. Life expectancy is not good. So for people of this social status staying at home is not necessarily that much better than coming out on the ship. One thing that was definitely worse at sea than on land was food. Mark Hortry is an expert on the diet that most Elizabethan sailors would have had to contend with. On Drake's voyage in the Golden Hines what would they be eating? What was their kind of staple diet on board? Well standard naval rations for them and right through into the 18th century tends to be a couple of pounds of salt pork or salt fish and rather than bread which will go off very quickly get damp then we have ship's biscuit hardtack. Right okay so what is hardtack exactly? That's wholemeal flour made up to a paste with water and salt and then baked at least twice to dry it to make it really really hard. That was the point was it to try and keep everything dry? Yes definitely. Do you want to try some? That's really hard Mark. It is. I can't actually. Can you staff a bit? No. There you go. Right I've got a tiny bit off and now I'm going to try and eat that. My jaw. Now this is the point where I tell you they never ate them dry like that. Right okay. These are usually dropped into a stew to make it almost like a dumpling. Brilliant. I don't blame them for not getting involved in that because that's that's hard going. It's not overly flavoursome either. To make matters worse damp storage conditions could attract some unwelcome visitors. What have we got here? We've got some weevils. Weevils. Are these guys? Weevils were notorious for laying their eggs in damp biscuit leaving their larvae to gnaw through the hardtack. There's common sailors stories about having to knock the weevils out or drop those into hot liquids to try and float the larvae to the surface. So even if a piece of hardtack there was infested with with weevils would they still eat that? Yes we're very used to having lots of food and so we worry about what our food tastes like whereas if you're hungry you eat. Yeah. Even if it's got weevils in it you might just regard it as extra protein. With sailors often in poor health it's little wonder they frequently had problems with their guts. It meant that one particular part of the ship got some all too frequent use. Now this is the beak head. A small space right at the front of the ship and these open slats in floor here give you a bit of a hint as to what this space was used for because this was the ship's toilet. Now while the facilities on modern day ships may be somewhat more sophisticated they do have one thing in common with this early prototype. Even today sailors still refer to the toilets on ships as the heads named after the original beak head on a ship like this. It wasn't only physical conditions that caused problems for Drake's crew. Living for months at sea in cramped conditions could also cause the psychological relationships between the men on board to unravel. One of Drake's closest friends on board was a nobleman who'd worked in the court of Queen Elizabeth, Thomas Doughty. He'd been crucial in winning her backing for the mission. Yet over the course of their transatlantic voyage the relationship between the two friends deteriorated. It was rumoured that Doughty had openly questioned Drake's authority in front of his men raising the prospect of a mutiny. If the threat of open rebellion amongst his men wasn't bad enough Drake was soon to learn that this potential mutiny had an unusually dark inspiration. Some said that Doughty and his brother had openly boasted about being able to raise the devil and to transform themselves into the likeness of a lion or bear. For Drake it meant just one thing. At the heart of his crew he had a witch. Today it may be hard to imagine that Drake could have seriously believed that his old friend was a devil worshipping shapeshifter. Yet for Elizabethan sailors witchcraft was all too real. Amongst ordinary people on the ground belief in witchcraft was absolutely endemic during Elizabeth's reign. Their mental world was very very different from ours. I mean I think that the great majority of them, probably almost all of them, would absolutely have believed in the reality of witchcraft and in the ability of witches to to cause big problems for mariners. There are stories for example of fires starting at sea in an unexplained way which are attributed to witchcraft of ships sinking in fair weather which is again attributed to the power of witches. There are stories even of witches having been seen in the top mast of a ship actually you know conjuring up storms on the ship itself. Given the strong link in the Elizabethan mind between witches and shipwrecks what happened next may have sealed Doughty's fate. Soon after Drake reached what is now Argentina he was hit by a freak storm that scattered his flotilla. Drake drew a shocking conclusion. Doughty was not only a would-be mutineer but a witch who'd raised the storm himself. In the strained pressure cooker atmosphere of a small ship Drake's outlandish claim seemed terrifyingly plausible. If you imagine you know just just how cramped the quarters were for the sailors on that trip, just how little space they would have had and at the same time there's this lurking sense of menace you know we're heading out into unknown waters once these rumours of witchcraft of an expedition that is dogged by occult forces begins to spread it's easy to imagine what a terrible atmosphere would have grown up on that ship. While he decided what to do with him Drake had Doughty tied to the hind's mast here to roast in the harsh sunlight. Drake may have considered charging Doughty with witchcraft but in the end he decided it would be easier to convict him on a separate charge of attempted mutiny. In the harbour of San Julian Drake convened an impromptu trial. The jury was unanimous and Doughty was found guilty. For Drake there was only one sentence for a crime of this kind, death. Yet Doughty's reaction to the news he was going to be killed was somewhat unexpected. The story goes that after sentence had been pronounced on Doughty, far from sort of you know violently protesting his innocence or falling on Drake as you might have expected him to, the two men actually agree to take the sacrament together and then to actually sit down and have sort of a final meal. I wonder if the truth is that right up to the last minute Doughty doesn't really believe that he will be executed. This was something that happened a lot in the early modern period. People would be tried, condemned to death and then at the very last minute when they are led up to the place of execution a pardon will be brought in and they will be spared. Second of July 1578, on a barren stretch on the coast of what is now Argentina, Drake prepared for his grisliest task yet, executing his old friend Thomas Doughty for the crime of mutiny. The spot chosen for Doughty's execution had a macabre past. In the natural harbour of San Julian, some 60 years previously the Portuguese explorer Magellan had also executed some of his men for attempted mutiny. It seems that on both voyages the hardship of that transatlantic crossing proved a fertile breeding ground for rebellion and it was on this same shore that Doughty was to meet his death. Doughty knelt, prayed for his queen and for the success of Drake's mission and then bowed his head. After the blade fell, Drake raised his severed head and cried low, this is the end of traitors. Drake's execution of a fellow gentleman cast a long shadow over later mutinies. It set the precedent that a ship's captain had absolute power over all his crew regardless of rank. With the mutiny behind him, Drake could concentrate on the most challenging part of his entire voyage, crossing from the Atlantic to the Pacific. To fulfill his mission of plundering Spanish treasure ships in the Pacific, you'd think Drake could have simply sailed around Cape Horn, the very southern tip of South America. At the time however, it was thought that a giant landmass, Terra Australis, blocked any passage between the two oceans. The only sea route known to Drake was the treacherous Magellan Straits, a winding waterway that cuts through the tip of South America. At that time, the only man who had ever sailed through the Straits was the mariner after whom they were named, the Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan. In 1522, his ship had gone on to become the first ever to complete an entire circumnavigation of the globe. Yet to follow in Magellan's illustrious footsteps, Drake faced a daunting task. Even today, sailing through the Straits of Magellan takes considerable skill, but in Drake's day it would have been even harder. The only navigational tools an Elizabethan mariner would have had were instruments like this cross astrolabe, both used to measure the distance between the horizon and the midday sun so you could calculate your latitude. But what you really need if you're going to safely sail through a narrow waterway like the Magellan Straits is a good map. Now even if Drake had had one of the accurate maps of the time drawn up by one of Magellan's crew, it would only have looked something like this. As you can see, it's not that accurate. The Straits of Magellan here has been rendered as a straight line through there. If you compare that to a map from 200 years later, it doesn't include any of these small islets and inlets that you could easily have crashed into, potentially smashing the ship to smithereens. It means that even if Drake had had the most accurate map that was available, it would have been virtually useless. When he entered the Straits of Magellan, he was essentially sailing blind. Drake's passage through the Straits was far from easy. The winds went against him, blowing him towards rocks and landlocked inlets where he almost ran aground. At one point, the ship was even hit by a roaring tornado that caused the sea to swell upward on every side. At last, however, on the 6th of September 1578, Drake reached the Pacific. What had taken Magellan 37 days back in 1520, Drake achieved in just 14. And as the first Englishman ever to sail from the Atlantic to the Pacific, Drake could now apply himself to the true purpose of his mission, piracy. The Spanish New World colonies were a source of vast wealth. The assault by the conquistadors on the indigenous empires of America had yielded huge amounts of silver and gold, all loaded onto galleons ready to be shipped home to Europe. Yet capturing these ships intact wouldn't be easy. Elizabethan naval combat often relied on sinking ships at distance with cannon fire. But to capture their treasure, Drake needed to board enemy ships. To discover what kind of tactics Drake might have used in preparing for this close-quarters combat, I've come to Portland Castle. Paul Patterson is an expert in Elizabethan naval combat. When you think of Drake's voyage on the Golden Hind and the kind of encounters he was having with the Spanish ships, it wasn't all about large artillery. It was small arms fire, was it? Yeah, especially when you come to that crucial time of you're going to board a ship, you need to As you're coming in close? Yeah. And this weapon here was the weapon of choice for that, was it? That's exactly right. It's called a matchlock musket. And it's called a matchlock because it uses match, which is this length of broth-like material, which is soaked in a solution which makes it burn very, very slowly. So when that was lit, that was called the match? That's the match. Once lit, the match worked as a smouldering wick to light the gunpowder. Yet making this complex device ready to fire was no quick and easy process. So that's when you put the match, which is burning, in the correct position, yeah, in the jaws there. You wrap the rest around so it's out of the way, open the pan, and then when you pull the trigger, the match comes onto the burning pan, ignites that powder, gun fires. Bang. Bang. It's a bit fiddly, isn't it? Well, actually yes, and that's why it's a good boarding weapon, because you fire it once and then you're exposed. After my brief musketry masterclass, it's time to put theory into practice. All right, Paul, so open the pan and then pull the trigger. Simple as that. All right, take aim. Let's do it. Right in your face. Firing a gun like this for myself is a reminder that correctly loading and aiming a matchlock musket during a messy sea battle would have taken considerable skill. It's quite fun firing that in this calm environment, but imagining that on Golden Hind in the heat of battle, I mean, it's a completely different story. People firing back. People firing back. Yeah, yeah. The matchlock musket wasn't the only weapon used to clear the decks of an enemy ship during boarding. Sailors on board ships like the Golden Hind would also have used bows and arrows, but before they could take aim, the archers first had to make a perilous journey. The best vantage point for giving covering fire was right up there on the fighting tops. From there you could get a clear shot at sailors both on enemy ships alongside as well as anyone trying to board the Hind itself. But getting up there wasn't easy. There's no ladders or stairways here. Sailors would have had to climb up the ropes at speed carrying their weapons. Now, I've got way more safety equipment than they would have had, so I'm going to boycott them myself, try and see what it was like. Now, this may not look that high, but let me assure you, it certainly feels it, especially when you look out over the bow of the ship there. It is a long way down. But having to climb up here without any kind of safety equipment, carrying my weapon, possibly being shot at, you'd have needed nerves of steel. For the crew charged with this daunting task, it looked like they'd soon get a chance to put their skills to the test. As she sailed up the Pacific coast, the Golden Hind was finally ready to fulfil her primary mission, robbing unsuspecting Spanish treasure ships. Drake found a treasure ship going up the west coast, nicknamed the Cacafuego. It is often translated by historians as spitfire. Actually, you have to change the letter. It was s***fire. Cacafuego was a big, large carrack with high bow, high stern, but crucially, virtually unarmed. Whereas Drake's ship was an armed small galleon, very manoeuvrable, very well-armed, and with a lot of people on board who were capable of boarding and entering the other ship. Yet in this encounter, Drake's main weapon wasn't force of arms, but stealth. The key point in this incident is that the Spanish are not expecting a piratical ship or an enemy warship to be anywhere in the vicinity. So therefore, they can be taken completely by surprise. When Drake spots the Spanish ship, he tries to disguise his presence. He has some of the Spanish speakers on board say that he's not who he is. When it seems clear to the Spaniards that he is who he is, then he opens fire. The ship is boarded from two sides, and the still slightly nonplussed Spanish crew, who weren't expecting any hostile ships in the vicinity, are rapidly overcome. When Drake hauled the treasure from the Cacafuego back on board the Golden Hind, he couldn't believe his eyes. Now this is the hold where Drake would have stored all his loot from the Cacafuego, and there was a lot of it to store. From that one ship alone, he took away 26 tons of silver bars, 13 chests full of silver coins, 80 pounds of gold, and pile upon pile of jewels and pearls. There was so much of it, it took Drake and his men four days to transfer it all onto the Hind. Over the course of his voyage, Drake picked up so much booty, he even had to pull up the floor of the hold here, throw the existing ballast overboard, and replace it with silver. On its return journey, the Golden Hind had become one giant nautical treasure store. For Drake, the capture of the Cacafuego was a huge triumph, but the Spanish were now on high alert. It meant that if he returned the way he came, he would almost certainly encounter Spanish ships out for revenge. It was a challenge that was to inspire his greatest achievement yet. With the Golden Hind now groaning under the weight of Spanish gold, Drake had completed the secret mission that had inspired his voyage. Now all he needed to do was find his way home. Perhaps Drake's most famous feat is being the first Englishman to circumnavigate the globe. What's less well known is that this is something he never intended to do. The most obvious route home for him would have been back the way he came, through the Magellan Straits, but he was worried that the Spanish would be waiting here for him. So instead, he decided to sail north to find the fabled Northwest Passage across the top of North America and then back across the Atlantic. It was only when he failed to find this that he took the step that would seal his place in history. As a last resort, he decided to sail west across the Pacific and this would mean becoming the first Englishman ever to sail all the way around the world. This bold new route also gave Drake another opportunity to fill his coffers. On his way were the legendary Spice Islands. It was here that Drake would discover his richest prize yet. The Moluccas were islands in the East Indies where it was known spices came from and given the lack of ability to preserve meat and other things at that time, spices were absolutely crucial to make things edible and therefore spices were very valuable indeed. When Drake arrived at the islands, he received a surprisingly warm welcome. When Golden Hind approaches the coast, he's met by some large canoes containing a welcoming party of musicians. Drake himself had an orchestra on board. He seems to be being quite musical and so therefore we have this exchange of music and this exchange of confidence and in fact the whole thing is going to go extremely well. Drake meets the who has the nickname Babu and some sources say gets on quite well with him. Soon this unlikely friendship led to a business deal. Drake picked up a large cargo of cloves. They were extremely valuable, perhaps worth more than their weight in gold. If you could bring cloves back, you were going to get very rich indeed. With his hold full of treasure and spices, it was finally time for Drake to return home. Sailing across the Indian Ocean, he rounded the southern tip of Africa in June 1580 and on the 26th of September, three years after he'd left England, he arrived at Plymouth Sound with his 59 remaining crew. Considering what he'd achieved, you'd have thought he'd have been ecstatic preparing himself for a hero's welcome. In fact, he was terrified. Drake had gone out with the secret covert support of Elizabeth. If she wasn't in power when he came home, he might be in deep trouble. Even worse, as he'd been carrying on something of an anti-Catholic crusade, if Mary Queen of Scots, a Catholic successor, was now in power, he would be in very deep trouble indeed. When the Golden Hind finally approached the English south coast, she was met by a small fleet of fishing boats. Having called out to their crews, Drake was relieved to discover that the reigning monarch was still Queen Elizabeth. After Drake sent word to the Queen of his successful voyage, he faced an anxious wait for her reply. He knew she was in a delicate situation. By this time, word had got back to Spain of Drake's piracy, and Philip II was furious. If Elizabeth was seen to publicly condone Drake's actions, it could spark a war. Finally, however, the wait was over. The Queen asked Drake to meet her, bringing samples of his labours, and Drake was only too happy to oblige. Drake's booty was eventually stored here at the Tower of London. The stash of gold, silver and jewels that he presented to the Queen was estimated by one contemporary historian to be worth over £320,000, well over £65 million in modern money. I've come to meet Tudor historian Joanne Poole to find out how this vast haul transformed the fortunes of both Elizabeth and Drake. What did Elizabeth then do with all this wealth that she'd brought? A lot of it went to pay off her foreign debt from various wars and so on. Some of it went to continuing exploration under the British crown and really, in some sense, founding the British empire. Drake was now a wealthy man, but he wasn't yet famous in quite the way he might have wished. Elizabeth and her spin doctors put it around that Drake's mission had failed entirely, that he'd brought nothing back, that he hadn't circumnavigated the globe, that he'd come back essentially in ruin in order to put the Spanish off the case. That must have been enormously frustrating for him to have come back and not be able to be celebrated publicly. Did Queen Elizabeth ever publicly acknowledge Drake's achievements? Yeah, it took her a little while to do so, but she did. Elizabeth came down to Deptford. The Golden Hind had been placed there as a sort of monument to Drake's success. They all gathered there. Elizabeth hands this beautiful jeweled sword to the French ambassador and has him do the knighting ceremony in this sort of public performance of French support for Drake's exploits. At a stroke, Drake the pirate had become Drake the national hero. The real Golden Hind has long since rotted away, but her legend lives on. Few British ships have ever seen such adventure, from daring acts of piracy, to the threat of mutiny, and the first circumnavigation of the globe by an Englishman. The voyage of the Golden Hind showed how England could project her power far beyond her borders, to lands undreamt of just a generation before. It meant that this small ship not only helped lay the foundation of empire, but also set Britain on a path towards eventually becoming the world's greatest naval power.