Birth and Early Years

Francis Drake was born in Tavistock, Devon, the son of Mary Mylwaye and her husband Edmund Drake (1518–1585), a Protestant farmer who later became a preacher, grandson of John Drake and Margret Cole. He is often confused with his nephew Francis Drake (1573–1634), the son of Richard Drake and Ursula Stafford, grandson of John Drake (1500–1558) – Edmund's older brother – and Amy Grenville (1510–1577), and great-grandson of John Drake and Margaret Cole (cf. John White, note 2). His maternal grandfather was Richard Mylwaye.

Drake was reportedly named after his godfather Francis Russell, 2nd Earl of Bedford, and throughout his cousins' lineages are direct connections to the Royalty and famous people such as Sir Richard Grenville, through Amy Grenville, and Geoffrey Chaucer, through Ursula Stafford. Ursula's line may be traced to royalty within four generations.

John Drake and Margaret Cole were also great-grandparents of Sir Walter Raleigh.

As with many of Drake's contemporaries, the exact date of his birth is unknown and could be as early as 1535, the 1540 date being extrapolated from two portraits: one a miniature painted by Nicholas Hilliard in 1581 when he was allegedly 42, the other painted in 1594 when he was alleged to be 53 according to the 1921/22 edition of the Dictionary of National Biography, which quotes Barrow's Life of Drake (1843) p. 5. Francis was the second eldest of 12 children; as he was not granted legal right to his father's farm, he had to find his own career.

During the Roman Catholic uprising of 1549, the family was forced to flee to Kent. At about the age of 13 Francis took to the sea on a cargo barque, becoming master of the ship at the age of 20. He spent his early career honing his sailing skills on the difficult waters of the North Sea, and after the death of the captain for whom he was sailing he became master of his own barque. At age 23, Drake made his first voyage to the New World under the sails of the Hawkins family of Plymouth, in company with his cousin, Sir John Hawkins. Together, Hawkins and Drake made the first English slave-trading expeditions.