Sir Francis Drake Legends
The following verse, though little more than doggerel, is of interest because it includes two legends related to Sir Francis Drake. The first is that of his famous game of bowls, which he insisted on finishing, prior to meeting the Armada, and the other, that he used occult means to defeat it.
From Lays and Legends of English Life by Camilla Toulmin, Routledge 1852
Contributed by S. T. Whiteford to Notes and Gleanings,
15 May 1888
The next tale they tell
may match very well
With that I have just related
Another great deed
In the time of need
Which is something in this way narrated:
And by which we suspect
Or rather detect
A trivial mistake
Grave history did make
When she wrote so that every one understands
That form’d by the common labour of hands
Were the ships that oppos’d on the British main
The mighty Armada from haughty Spain.
No such thing: Francis Drake, on the very same day
When they told him the fleet like a huge crescent lay
In the deep purple water far out of the bay.
At skittles or bowls was indulging in play
On fine Plymouth Hoe–so the good people say:
And he stopped not his game
For lucre or fame;
But when it was finish’d
He call’d for some wood
And there, where he stood
Crying only "once more trust in me"
Chopped it up in small blocks,
Then over the rocks
he threw them far into the sea:
And each rose from its dip
A stately fine ship,
Mann’d and armed for a blue water trip
And these were the vessels that certainly scatter’d
The fleet that at last by the tempest was shatter’d!