Drake's fiery, uncompromising Protestantism, stamped on him by his father Edmund Drake — who reinvented himself as a preacher after escaping the law and Catholic mobs in Devon — was arguably his most salient characteristic and the mainspring of his entire career.
The speaker traces Drake's origins in Devon and how his father's blend of intense religiosity and criminality — including horse theft and mugging — gave young Francis a fervent anti-papist Protestantism that motivated his tempestuous career over mere commercial or national hostility. ✦ AI generated
Tom Holland · The Rest Is History · 2026-08-03 · original ↗
starts at this moment · 9:10
Edmund Drake, who is already kind of in trouble with the law, thinks, well, I don't want to be, you know, strung up by um angry Catholics, so I'm going to scar her. And so he escapes both the law and Catholic mobs by heading to the opposite end of of southern England to Kent. And there he reinvents himself as a preacher man, as a man of God, totally casting a veil over his career as a as a criminal. And the young Francis grows up absolutely stamped by his father's religious convictions. ... He said of Drake that that his profound faith was arguably his most salient characteristic and it provided the mainspring of his tempestuous career.
verbatim transcript · starts at 9:10
9:10born around 1540. We don't know the precise date. Um at Crowndale Farm outside the town of Tavveristock in Devon and he's the grandson of a Yman farmer. >> Um and he's not even the uh the son of that Yman farmer's first son. So he's the son of a second son. And to be the son of a second son is is never a good start in life. Um, and this this second
9:33son, Edmund Drake, so Francis's dad, he's kind of weird mix of intense religiosity and outright criminality. Um, so in 1548, Edmund Drake was indicted for stealing a horse and for mugging a traveler on the Queen's Highway for his purse. >> So he's in trouble with the law. And then in 1549, so that's the following year while he's trying to keep his kind of legal problems at bay, um he's
10:01embroiled in the outbreak of some very violent sectarian conflict, um and this is an anti-protestant uprising in Devon and Cornwall, kind of protesting against changes to the prayer book and all of that. And Edmund Drake, >> who is already kind of in trouble with the law, thinks, well, I don't want to be, you know, strung up by um angry Catholics, so I'm going to scar her. And
10:23so he escapes both the law and Catholic mobs by heading to the opposite end of of southern England to Kent. And there he reinvents himself as a preacher man, as a man of God, totally casting a veil over his career as a as a criminal. And the young Francis grows up with the consciousness obviously of his father as a man of the gospel um preaching to public congregations. Francis grows up
10:50absolutely stamped by his father's religious convictions which we have no reason to doubt. You know they're they're um they're very devoutly held and as an adult um Drake's Protestantism will be very fiery, very uncompromising, very passionately held. So to quote very much friend of the show John Sugdan. >> Wow. Great to have him back on the show. author of the two volume biography of Nelson, which we both we drew on a lot
11:18for our series on Nelson. >> Yeah. >> He said of Drake that that his profound faith was arguably his most salient characteristic and it provided the mainspring of his tempestuous career. And I think that's right. Drake has an incredible appetite for adventure, but that adventure is always in the cause of his understanding of the gospel. And so like a lot of the figures that we've been talking about in this series um
11:40William Ceell who becomes Lord Burley or Francis Walssingham um Drake grows up a very very committed anti-apist you know he is opposed to everything that smacks of the pope's rule right >> um and that may be even more important to him than than the sense he has of himself as a committed enemy of Spain. I mean, I think that the hostility to to Spain and to the Pope are lied in Drake,