J. F. Huxford, "Francis
Drake,"
from
Honour and Arms: The Story
of Some Augmentations of Honour
The augmentation to Sir Francis Drake was unusual in that it was granted as a completely new coat of arms by Queen Elizabeth I. The story goes that Drake had been using the arms of another family of the same name, the head of which complained to the Queen, calling Drake an upstart, whereupon the Queen said she would grant to Sir Francis arms which would outrival those of his namesake.
Drake was born about 1540. In 1567 he commanded the "Judith" in Sir John Hawkin’s unsuccessful expedition to the Spanish Main. He himself led three expeditions to the West Indies in 1570, 1571 and 1572 and after his return in 1573 he served under the Earl of Essex in Ireland and reduced Rathlin Island, in what has been called a useless and cruel raid. In 1577 he started his famous circumnavigation of the globe. He sailed through the Straits of Magellan in 1578, plundered Valparaiso and by 1579 had crossed the Pacific to Mindanao in the Philippines. Thence, sailing through the Indian Archipelago, he crossed the Indian Ocean and rounded the Cape of Good Hope. In 1580 he touched at Sierra Leone, returning to England the following year when he was knighted by the Queen at Deptford.
In 1582 Drake was Mayor of Plymouth and in 1584-85 was a Member of Parliament for Bossiney in Cornwall. In 1585 he was back again at sea and was then commissioned by Queen Elizabeth to command a fleet. In this year he burnt St. Iago and plundered Vigo and assisted in the capture of San Domingo and Cartagena. In 1587 he "singed the King of Spain’s beard" when he destroyed a Spanish fleet at Cadiz, an action for which, without his knowledge, authority had been withdrawn. The following year he was unsuccessful in persuading the Queen to forestall a Spanish invasion by attacking the King of Spain at home. This year, 1588, was the year of the defeat of the Spanish Armada, and the story is too well-known to repeat here. This threat out of the way, Drake once again turned his attention to attacking the coasts of Spain and Portugal.
For a short period from 1590 until his final expedition to the West Indies, where he died in 1596, he was concerned with more peaceful pursuits, being engaged in regulating the water supply of Plymouth, of which City he was now Member of Parliament, by bringing the water of the River Meavy into the town.
The arms granted to Sir Francis Drake may be blazoned, I think accurately, as: "Sable a fess wavy between two estoiles irradiated argent." Some blazons refer to the estoiles as "stars" and specify particularly that they represent the two Pole stars. Thus John Guillim, using the jewels to indicate the tinctures, gives: "The Field is diamond, a Fesse wavey between two Pole Stars, Arctick and Antarctick , Pearle." In his illustration he does not show the stars as being irradiated, that is having short beams of light between each ray usually however this is how they are depicted.
Controversy surrounds the exact form of the complicated and impracticable crest. Possibly the most authoritative version is the one which appears in one of the stained glass panels of the Drake Lantern at the Middle Temple Hall.
A blazon often given is: "A ship drawn round the glove with a cable-rope by a hand issuing out of clouds all proper, and in the ship a dragon gules regarding the hand." Above the hand appears the motto "Auxilio Divino."
This blazon, unfortunately, omits a number of points concerning the lay-out. For instance, in C. W. Scott-Giles’s book "The Romance of Heraldry" the ship sails to the dexter, and A. C. Fox-Davies describes the ship as being under reef, nor is there any mention of the dragon or the exact position of the hand. Some versions show the dragon facing in the direction the ship is sailing.
Sir Colin Cole, Garter King of Arms, when Windsor Herald, supported the design which appears on the lantern, although he mentions a divergence of view regarding the position of the dragon, in that it shows the dragon standing on the stern-castle or poop, while a sketch, dated 1581, at the Bodleian shows it in the well deck; in both cases, however, it faces aft.
If the lantern crest is taken as an accurate representation of what was originally intended, the points of doubt can be clarified. So, the ship, a representation of the "Golden Hind", is under full sail and sailing to the sinister. The cable, of gold, is attached to the bow and circles the base of the globe, being drawn by a hand which appears above the ship’s stern and on the dexter side. The dragon gules, with wings addorsed, stands on the stern-castle looking upwards towards the hand.
It is interesting that Sir Colin Cole states that, if the dragon does not refer to Drake’s first command [Drake’s first ship was called "The Dragon"], it is the only public concession that Clarenceux made to Drake’s claim to be of the Drakes of Ash, who bore: "Argent a wyvern gules."