str8thinker
10th December 2010, 07:20
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9a/Sir_Francis_Drake_And_His_Coat_Of_Arms.gif
(Text quoted from multiple references listed below, with thanks to the authors.)
Sir Francis Drake, Vice Admiral (1540 – 27 January 1596) was an English sea captain, privateer, navigator, slaver, a renowned pirate, and a politician of the Elizabethan era. Elizabeth I of England awarded Drake a knighthood in 1581. He was second-in-command of the English fleet against the Spanish Armada in 1588, subordinate only to Charles Howard and the Queen herself. He died of dysentery in January 1596[1] after unsuccessfully attacking San Juan, Puerto Rico.
Great Britain’s rise as a major sea power began with Drake, the most famous of the country’s three earliest circumnavigator-buccaneers (the others were Thomas Cavendish and William Dampier). The eldest of twelve sons born to Edmund Drake, tenant farmer, and his wife, Mary Mylwaye, in Devon, England, Drake started his sea career before he was thirteen, as an apprentice aboard a bark plying the trade across the English Channel. By twenty, he was master of the ship; before thirty he had voyaged to the New World several times on ships owned by his relatives, the Hawkins family of Plymouth. In 1568, he suffered a harrowing escape from a treacherous Spanish attack on the Hawkins’s fleet in the Mexican port of San Juan de Ulúa. Drake’s reaction was a lifelong hatred of the Spanish. In the next few years, he took his revenge by plundering Spanish settlements, shipping, and gold-laden mule trains in Panama, sometimes teaming up with local pirates. He was a wealthy man when he returned to Plymouth in 1573. He is famous for (among other things) leading the first English circumnavigation of the world, from 1577 to 1580.
His exploits were legendary, making him a hero to the English but a pirate to the Spaniards to whom he was known as El Draque, 'Draque' being the Spanish pronunciation of 'Drake'.
Francis Drake was reportedly named after his godfather Francis Russell, 2nd Earl of Bedford, and throughout his cousins' lineages are direct connections to royalty and famous personages, such as Sir Richard Grenville, Ivor Callely, Amy Grenville and Geoffrey Chaucer. However, James Froud states, "He told Camden that he was of mean extraction. He meant merely that he was proud of his parents and made no idle pretensions to noble birth. His father was a tenant of the Earl of Bedford, and must have stood well with him, for Francis Russell, the heir of the earldom, was the boy's godfather."
In accordance with the custom of translating books and maps into universally accepted Latin, Drake's first association with dragons began when Theodore De Bry latinized his name to Franciscus Draco ('Francis the Dragon'). Theodor De Bry was the first to prepare detailed copper plate engravings of travels to the Americas that exhibited any accuracy of detail or scope. Through the De Bry illustrations, we see the first images of American Indians as presented to much of Europe.
http://i55.tinypic.com/28md95j.png
In 1581, in gratitude for his heroic accomplishment of circumnavigating the globe, Queen Elizabeth knighted Sir Francis Drake, and through her heralds, granted him arms. These are the arms as granted by the Queen.
http://www.wyverngules.com/Documents/ArmsofSFD/Fig.%2001.jpg
This grant might be seen as the beginning of a controversy which has now lasted for over 400 years. In point of fact, the problem of Drake’s arms actually antedates the 1581 grant, for prior to this he claimed and displayed arms, whose design can only be inferred, but to which his right has been questioned. Sir Francis, descended from the Drake family centered near Tavistock in west Devon, claimed the arms of an ancient armigerous family of Drakes centered at the manor of Ashe, in the parish of Musbury, in east Devon. Their arms were Argent, a wyvern Gules, and the crest A dexter arm Proper grasping a battle axe Sable, headed Argent.
http://www.wyverngules.com/Documents/ArmsofSFD/Fig.-02.jpg
A wyvern is a legendary winged reptilian creature with a dragon's head, the hindquarters of a snake or lizard with two legs or none, and a barbed tail. The wyvern was often found in mediaeval heraldry. The word is derived from Middle English wyvere, from Old North French wivre "viper". Wyverns are mentioned in Dante's Inferno (Canto XVII) as the body for one of his creatures in hell.
Because Sir Francis’s right to the arms of the Drakes of Ashe has been challenged, his actions in claiming those arms have been seen by many historians and heraldists as armorial usurpation. Prince, in his Worthies of Devon, relates that after Sir Francis Drake received his knighthood, he appropriated the arms of the Drakes of Ashe and was reprimanded at court by Sir Bernard Drake. In retribution, he reports, the Queen then gave Sir Francis a new coat-of-arms and ordered that the wyvern gules be hanged by the heels in the rigging of the ship appearing in the new crest.
The historian R. N. Worth summed up the thoughts of many when he said, "…Sir Francis Drake, like many a parvenu of modern times, was not content to be the founder of his own fortunes, but was weakly anxious to assert hereditary claims to a position in polite society."
The matter was presented quite humorously by C. W. Scott-Giles in a poem published in his Motley Heraldry:
Sir Bernard said to Sir Francis,
'You're making a grave mistake
If, now you're a knight,
You think you've a right
To the wyvern gules of Drake.'
Sir Francis said to Sir Bernard,
'Your wyvern gules you can keep.
At the Queen's behest
I'll have such a crest
As will make your arms look cheap.'
Queen Elizabeth said to the heralds,
'Draw Frankie a coat of worth,
And thereon between
Pole Stars be seen
His wavy course round the earth;
And upon a globe on his helmet
The good ship Golden Hind show,
With a dragon to fame
El Draco's name.'
And the heralds made it so.
Sir Francis said, 'Look, Sir Bernard!'
And Sir Bernard proudly spake,
'Grand arms you've got,
I allow, but they're not
The ancient wyvern of Drake.'
There are a number of surviving documents relating to the grant of arms to Sir Francis Drake. Two copies of a proposed text for letters patent exist in the hand of Robert Glover. In addition to these, additional material exists by Robert Cooke, Clarenceux, and his certificate also occurs in two versions. In the first draft the stars are Or, but in the second the tincture is changed to Argent. In the first draft the crest contains a demi-dragon, and in the second a complete dragon. Here's a Trick of grant by Robert Cooke.
http://www.wyverngules.com/Documents/ArmsofSFD/Fig.-05.jpg
From studying this series of documents, what was going on between Sir Francis and the heralds seems obvious. The process started out as a new grant to a "new man," and ended up as something more nearly akin to an augmentation on existing arms. Sir Francis was evidently dissatisfied with the initial document, which failed to admit his right to the arms of the armigerous Drakes of Devon. He seems to have pressed for what he wanted, for the second certificate by Cooke contains the phrase giving permission for him to bear the ancient Drake arms as a cadet. Furthermore, the dragon or wyvern became added to the crest as the process evolved, which is another reference to the Ashe arms. In the process the tincture of the stars was also altered to argent, which seems an improvement.
Whether he obtained official permission to use the wyvern arms or not, Sir Francis did indeed use them. He sealed several documents with the wyvern arms quartered with the new coat. He seems to have abandoned the impossible crest of globe, ship and wyvern, using an ancient Drake crest of an eagle displayed. Among several portraits, one which was probably rendered in life displays the wyvern in the first and fourth quarters. Drake’s Drum, which depicts the arms and was obviously painted after 1581, does not display the quartering. A coconut cup given to Sir Francis by the Queen does depict a demi-wyvern in the crest. Here are the Arms as Sir Francis Drake used them.
http://www.wyverngules.com/Documents/ArmsofSFD/Fig.-07.jpg
By the time of Sir Francis, the Drakes of Ashe were one of the wealthiest private families in Devon. They later acquired several knighthoods and at least two baronetcies, though these were lost through failure of male heir. The daughter of John Drake of Ashe married Sir Winston Churchill in 1643, and their son, John, later the first Duke of Marlborough, was born at Ashe House. The Drakes lent their wyvern to the Churchills as a supporter for their arms. The Churchill duke’s sister Arabella became one of the mistresses of King James II.
http://www.wyverngules.com/Documents/ArmsofSFD/Fig.-14.jpg
Arms of Churchill, Dukes of Marlborough
This evidence demonstrates that not only was there a geographical separation between the Drakes of Ashe and the Drakes of Tavistock, but there was also an economic disparity. These points, as well as the lack of any definite evidence to the contrary, have led many historians and genealogists to discount a family connection. However, new genealogical evidence supports the right of Sir Francis Drake to the arms featuring the wyvern gules. A likely common descent can be demonstrated for both the Drakes of Ashe and the Drakes of Tavistock, of which family Sir Francis was a member. The sigillographic evidence demonstrates that those who should now be termed the Drakes of Devon used arms featuring a wyvern at a date prior to the separation of the pedigree into the broad lines of Dartington, Ashe, and Tavistock branches.
Now return to the first picture in this post (the portrait of Drake next to his coat of arms), and if you look closely you will see the little wyvern peeping over the deck of the ship!)
(Continued next post)
(Text quoted from multiple references listed below, with thanks to the authors.)
Sir Francis Drake, Vice Admiral (1540 – 27 January 1596) was an English sea captain, privateer, navigator, slaver, a renowned pirate, and a politician of the Elizabethan era. Elizabeth I of England awarded Drake a knighthood in 1581. He was second-in-command of the English fleet against the Spanish Armada in 1588, subordinate only to Charles Howard and the Queen herself. He died of dysentery in January 1596[1] after unsuccessfully attacking San Juan, Puerto Rico.
Great Britain’s rise as a major sea power began with Drake, the most famous of the country’s three earliest circumnavigator-buccaneers (the others were Thomas Cavendish and William Dampier). The eldest of twelve sons born to Edmund Drake, tenant farmer, and his wife, Mary Mylwaye, in Devon, England, Drake started his sea career before he was thirteen, as an apprentice aboard a bark plying the trade across the English Channel. By twenty, he was master of the ship; before thirty he had voyaged to the New World several times on ships owned by his relatives, the Hawkins family of Plymouth. In 1568, he suffered a harrowing escape from a treacherous Spanish attack on the Hawkins’s fleet in the Mexican port of San Juan de Ulúa. Drake’s reaction was a lifelong hatred of the Spanish. In the next few years, he took his revenge by plundering Spanish settlements, shipping, and gold-laden mule trains in Panama, sometimes teaming up with local pirates. He was a wealthy man when he returned to Plymouth in 1573. He is famous for (among other things) leading the first English circumnavigation of the world, from 1577 to 1580.
His exploits were legendary, making him a hero to the English but a pirate to the Spaniards to whom he was known as El Draque, 'Draque' being the Spanish pronunciation of 'Drake'.
Francis Drake was reportedly named after his godfather Francis Russell, 2nd Earl of Bedford, and throughout his cousins' lineages are direct connections to royalty and famous personages, such as Sir Richard Grenville, Ivor Callely, Amy Grenville and Geoffrey Chaucer. However, James Froud states, "He told Camden that he was of mean extraction. He meant merely that he was proud of his parents and made no idle pretensions to noble birth. His father was a tenant of the Earl of Bedford, and must have stood well with him, for Francis Russell, the heir of the earldom, was the boy's godfather."
In accordance with the custom of translating books and maps into universally accepted Latin, Drake's first association with dragons began when Theodore De Bry latinized his name to Franciscus Draco ('Francis the Dragon'). Theodor De Bry was the first to prepare detailed copper plate engravings of travels to the Americas that exhibited any accuracy of detail or scope. Through the De Bry illustrations, we see the first images of American Indians as presented to much of Europe.
http://i55.tinypic.com/28md95j.png
In 1581, in gratitude for his heroic accomplishment of circumnavigating the globe, Queen Elizabeth knighted Sir Francis Drake, and through her heralds, granted him arms. These are the arms as granted by the Queen.
http://www.wyverngules.com/Documents/ArmsofSFD/Fig.%2001.jpg
This grant might be seen as the beginning of a controversy which has now lasted for over 400 years. In point of fact, the problem of Drake’s arms actually antedates the 1581 grant, for prior to this he claimed and displayed arms, whose design can only be inferred, but to which his right has been questioned. Sir Francis, descended from the Drake family centered near Tavistock in west Devon, claimed the arms of an ancient armigerous family of Drakes centered at the manor of Ashe, in the parish of Musbury, in east Devon. Their arms were Argent, a wyvern Gules, and the crest A dexter arm Proper grasping a battle axe Sable, headed Argent.
http://www.wyverngules.com/Documents/ArmsofSFD/Fig.-02.jpg
A wyvern is a legendary winged reptilian creature with a dragon's head, the hindquarters of a snake or lizard with two legs or none, and a barbed tail. The wyvern was often found in mediaeval heraldry. The word is derived from Middle English wyvere, from Old North French wivre "viper". Wyverns are mentioned in Dante's Inferno (Canto XVII) as the body for one of his creatures in hell.
Because Sir Francis’s right to the arms of the Drakes of Ashe has been challenged, his actions in claiming those arms have been seen by many historians and heraldists as armorial usurpation. Prince, in his Worthies of Devon, relates that after Sir Francis Drake received his knighthood, he appropriated the arms of the Drakes of Ashe and was reprimanded at court by Sir Bernard Drake. In retribution, he reports, the Queen then gave Sir Francis a new coat-of-arms and ordered that the wyvern gules be hanged by the heels in the rigging of the ship appearing in the new crest.
The historian R. N. Worth summed up the thoughts of many when he said, "…Sir Francis Drake, like many a parvenu of modern times, was not content to be the founder of his own fortunes, but was weakly anxious to assert hereditary claims to a position in polite society."
The matter was presented quite humorously by C. W. Scott-Giles in a poem published in his Motley Heraldry:
Sir Bernard said to Sir Francis,
'You're making a grave mistake
If, now you're a knight,
You think you've a right
To the wyvern gules of Drake.'
Sir Francis said to Sir Bernard,
'Your wyvern gules you can keep.
At the Queen's behest
I'll have such a crest
As will make your arms look cheap.'
Queen Elizabeth said to the heralds,
'Draw Frankie a coat of worth,
And thereon between
Pole Stars be seen
His wavy course round the earth;
And upon a globe on his helmet
The good ship Golden Hind show,
With a dragon to fame
El Draco's name.'
And the heralds made it so.
Sir Francis said, 'Look, Sir Bernard!'
And Sir Bernard proudly spake,
'Grand arms you've got,
I allow, but they're not
The ancient wyvern of Drake.'
There are a number of surviving documents relating to the grant of arms to Sir Francis Drake. Two copies of a proposed text for letters patent exist in the hand of Robert Glover. In addition to these, additional material exists by Robert Cooke, Clarenceux, and his certificate also occurs in two versions. In the first draft the stars are Or, but in the second the tincture is changed to Argent. In the first draft the crest contains a demi-dragon, and in the second a complete dragon. Here's a Trick of grant by Robert Cooke.
http://www.wyverngules.com/Documents/ArmsofSFD/Fig.-05.jpg
From studying this series of documents, what was going on between Sir Francis and the heralds seems obvious. The process started out as a new grant to a "new man," and ended up as something more nearly akin to an augmentation on existing arms. Sir Francis was evidently dissatisfied with the initial document, which failed to admit his right to the arms of the armigerous Drakes of Devon. He seems to have pressed for what he wanted, for the second certificate by Cooke contains the phrase giving permission for him to bear the ancient Drake arms as a cadet. Furthermore, the dragon or wyvern became added to the crest as the process evolved, which is another reference to the Ashe arms. In the process the tincture of the stars was also altered to argent, which seems an improvement.
Whether he obtained official permission to use the wyvern arms or not, Sir Francis did indeed use them. He sealed several documents with the wyvern arms quartered with the new coat. He seems to have abandoned the impossible crest of globe, ship and wyvern, using an ancient Drake crest of an eagle displayed. Among several portraits, one which was probably rendered in life displays the wyvern in the first and fourth quarters. Drake’s Drum, which depicts the arms and was obviously painted after 1581, does not display the quartering. A coconut cup given to Sir Francis by the Queen does depict a demi-wyvern in the crest. Here are the Arms as Sir Francis Drake used them.
http://www.wyverngules.com/Documents/ArmsofSFD/Fig.-07.jpg
By the time of Sir Francis, the Drakes of Ashe were one of the wealthiest private families in Devon. They later acquired several knighthoods and at least two baronetcies, though these were lost through failure of male heir. The daughter of John Drake of Ashe married Sir Winston Churchill in 1643, and their son, John, later the first Duke of Marlborough, was born at Ashe House. The Drakes lent their wyvern to the Churchills as a supporter for their arms. The Churchill duke’s sister Arabella became one of the mistresses of King James II.
http://www.wyverngules.com/Documents/ArmsofSFD/Fig.-14.jpg
Arms of Churchill, Dukes of Marlborough
This evidence demonstrates that not only was there a geographical separation between the Drakes of Ashe and the Drakes of Tavistock, but there was also an economic disparity. These points, as well as the lack of any definite evidence to the contrary, have led many historians and genealogists to discount a family connection. However, new genealogical evidence supports the right of Sir Francis Drake to the arms featuring the wyvern gules. A likely common descent can be demonstrated for both the Drakes of Ashe and the Drakes of Tavistock, of which family Sir Francis was a member. The sigillographic evidence demonstrates that those who should now be termed the Drakes of Devon used arms featuring a wyvern at a date prior to the separation of the pedigree into the broad lines of Dartington, Ashe, and Tavistock branches.
Now return to the first picture in this post (the portrait of Drake next to his coat of arms), and if you look closely you will see the little wyvern peeping over the deck of the ship!)
(Continued next post)