Francis Drake

Sir Francis Drake (c. 1540–1596) was a Devon-born seaman who made the second circumnavigation of the globe and became the terror of Spanish America. After a Spanish fleet destroyed most of John Hawkins's ships at San Juan de Ulúa in 1568, he took to raiding Spanish possessions, leading his first independent expedition to the Spanish Main in 1572.

From 1577 he sailed the Golden Hind around the globe, plundering Spanish ports and ships along the Pacific coast, and returned in 1580. Elizabeth I knighted him in 1581, and the Spanish called him El Draque, the Dragon. In 1588 he was vice admiral repulsing the Armada.

After the 1589 English Armada failed, he had no command until a failed 1595 expedition. Drake died of dysentery on 28 January 1596, aged about 56, off Portobelo; asking to be dressed in full armour, he was buried at sea in a lead-lined coffin.