'That Golden Knight': Drake and His Reputation

To find one of England's best loved heroes described during his voyage of circumnavigation as a 'tyranous and cruell tirant', guilty of ‘murder, ... venome, ... conceyved hatred' and 'moaste tyranicall blud spillyng' is startling; one might expect such a view from a Spaniard, but not from an English companion of Drake in the initial stage of the voyage. John Cooke wrote these words after he had returned to England in John Wynter's ship the Elizabeth, which had lost contact with the Golden Hinde in a storm; he probably thought that Drake was dead. Similar criticism, however, was voiced in later years by more distinguished figures who knew Drake to be very much alive.