Drake's circumnavigation — the first English voyage around the globe and the second in history — was an astonishing feat of navigation and survival, returning with treasure exceeding England's entire annual royal revenue.

68:27this of Nelson but even more impressive. Yeah. >> I mean my guess is that local people are rowing out and giving them papaya or whatever. [snorts] That that's my hunch. >> Okay. That's great fruit knowledge Tom. Well done. Thanks. >> Callum points out that they would have been eating the cloves. I mean, you can get clove scented toothpaste. >> Be like eating silver, wouldn't it? >> I guess. Yeah. Eat the treasure. Wow.

68:48Anyway, so so by the you know, by the time they reach the west coast of of Africa, they're relatively they know where they are. They can now sail up the the west coast of Europe. And on the 26th of September, the Golden Hind heads into Plymouth Sound. And as we've been saying, Drake's achievements are stupifying. The voyage has lasted 1,046 days. It was the first by an English

69:10ship, the second in history to circumn the globe. He has survived appalling weather. Drake has returned with enormous amounts of treasure, more than the entire annual revenue of Queen Elizabeth. I mean, stupifying. And he's not only plundered the Spanish, he's outsmarted them and made them look foolish. But all that being said, Drake has good reason to be nervous. You know, what's his reception going to be? Will

69:34the queen really have his back? that ship that he'd been separated from by the Straits of Miguel and that will have returned to England with news of Douty's fate. So will Douty's relatives be out to get him? Surely. >> What about the Spanish? I mean, you know, they will doubtless have been complaining to Elizabeth. So, all of this is a worry as is the possibility that perhaps while he's been gone,

69:55Elizabeth has died or been assassinated or whatever. And maybe Mary, Queen of Scots is on the throne, and she certainly won't be a Francis Drake fan. So rather than sail directly for Plymouth Harbor, um Drake first of all makes sure to hail a passing fisherman and to ask this fisherman, "Is the queen alive and well?" And the fisherman replies to Drake's relief, "Yes, Queen Elizabeth still sits on the throne and

70:17is very well." And so then he continues into Plymouth, but even now he doesn't disembark because the the city is ravaged by plague and Drake is still nervous about the reception that he's going to get from the queen. His wife and the mayor of Plymouth are rode out to greet him and they are able to give him a briefing and Drake is informed that during his absence England's

70:39strategic situation has got worse. Philillip has become the king of Portugal as well as Spain which means that he now rules an even more global empire. All Portugal's possessions are now his as well as all those kind of possessions that Spain had won. Philip has also been backing that invasion of Ireland that we talked about in the previous episode. And most ominously of all from Drake's point of view,

71:08Philillip is demanding that Elizabeth punish Drake for quote his piratical acts. >> And so the question is what will the queen do? And so Drake decides that he is going to stay on the golden hind, wait to find out, and hope for the best. So what will the queen do? Is the Francis Drake straight going to be punished, or is he going to be free to resume his life of plundering the