Drake's profound Protestant faith was arguably his most salient characteristic, providing the mainspring of his tempestuous career.
Drake's father, a devout Protestant preacher, shaped his fiery, uncompromising religious convictions, which fueled his hostility toward Spain and the Pope. ✦ AI generated
Tom Holland · The Rest Is History · 2026-08-03 · original ↗
starts at this moment · 18:22
Francis grows up absolutely 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. 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 William 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, but probably it's hostility to the Pope that is the real kind of motivation for him.
verbatim transcript · starts at 18:22
18:13the English are pirates and trespassers and criminals which I guess if you're Spanish you know is nothing less than the truth and the impact of this attack is devastating. So four English ships are sunk. Um over 300 um English sailors are killed. 114 are taken prisoner. Lots of these are sent to the galley. There is one poor guy, a man actually not from England but from Cork in Ireland who is
18:37burnt at the stake. Drake and Hawkins both managed to get away but their ships have been very badly mowled in this battle and Hawkins ends up taking a massive financial hit. So all that money that he had made slave trading has basically been lost. And the debacle leaves both men, but I think particularly Drake, feeling very badly bruised. And it has a profound impact on the future course of his life because
19:02Drake is left feeling very humiliated both by the defeat, the fact that the the English have been pulverized by the Spanish, but also because he had escaped the battle before Hawkins did. And so there are rumors that he had been guilty of cowardice. And it seems possible that Hawkins himself believed this. And certainly when they return, there's an element of bad blood between the the cousins. And I think Drake therefore
19:29feels he has massive amounts to prove. And it compounds the sense of anger and outrage that he feels specifically towards the Spanish. And he has a kind of gunslinger in a spaghetti western resolve to be avenged, right? you know, he he he wants to go back and take his anger and his frustration and his sense of shame out on the people that he blames for the humiliation that he'd
19:57experienced as San Juan dea. So he he he's returned to um to England kind of limping in in his battered ship >> the early weeks of 1569 and he's obviously hoping that maybe he could appeal to Elizabeth's government that maybe they would kind of rally around help him out financially um rally to the cause. But this is never going to happen because Elizabeth is very very nervous about offending the Spanish. She