raise reproach, breed war with the house of Burgundy, and cause embargo of the English ships and goods in Spain.' On the other hand, it was argued that the prize was lawful prize, obtained without offence to any christian prince or state, but only by fair reprisals; and that if war with Spain should ensue `the treasure of itself would fully defray the charge of seven years' wars, prevent and save the common subject from taxes, loans, privy seals, subsidies, and fifteenths, and give them good advantage against a daring adversary ' (ib, p. 807). It will easily be seen that this would be the popular view of the question; it was also the one to which, after full consideration, Elizabeth finally inclined. To the Spanish ambassador, who demanded restitution of the property and the punishment of the offender, she replied that the Spaniards, by ill-treatment of her subjects, and by prohibiting commerce, contrary to the law of nations, had drawn these mischiefs on themselves; that Drake should be forthcoming to answer for his misdeeds, if he should be shown to have committed any; that the treasure he had brought home should also, in that case, be restored, though she had spent a larger sum in suppressing the rebellions which the Spaniards had set on foot both in England and in Ireland; above all, that she denied the pretension of the Spaniards to the whole of America by virtue of the donation of the bishop of Rome; denied his or their right or power to prevent the people of other nations trading or colonising in parts where they had not settled, or `from freely navigating that vast ocean, seeing the use of the sea and air is common to all, and neither nature, nor public use, nor custom, permit any possession thereof ' (Camden, Annales, ii. 360). So, the Golden Hind having meantime been taken round to Deptford, on 4 April 1581 the queen made Drake a visit on board, and there, on the deck of the first English ship that had gone round the world, did she knight the first man of any nation who had commanded through such a voyage. Magellan's was the only previous circumnavigation, and Magellan had not lived to complete it. At the same time the queen conferred on Drake a coat of arms and a crest, the grant of which was finally signed on 21 June. The arms—Sable, a fess wavy between two stars argent—Drake afterwards used quartered with his paternal coat—Argent, a wyvern gules—and are still used, without the quartering, by Drake's representative. The crest—On a globe a ship trained about with hawsers by a hand issuing out of the clouds, with the motto 'Auxilio Divino'—Drake himself did not adopt, preferring the simpler and more purely heraldic crest of his family—An eagle displayed (Archæological Journal, xxx. 375; Notes and Queries, 5th ser. ii. 371). The point is of more than usual importance as proving that Drake openly claimed a direct relationship to the Drakes of Ash, which it was long the custom to deny. The story related by Prince (Worthies of Devon, p. 245) of a quarrel on this score between Sir Francis and Bernard Drake is utterly unworthy of credit. We have the evidence of Clarenceux that Bernard Drake allowed the relationship; the two Drakes seem to have been at all times very good friends; Richard Drake, Bernard's brother, is described as `one that Sir Francis Drake did specially account and regard as his trusty friend' (Notes and Queries 2nd ser. iii. 25); and, above all, the detail that the queen solaced Drake by adding to the crest a wyvern hung up by the heels in the rigging, is contrary to known fact (ib. 5th ser. ii. 371; Arch. Journ. xxx. 375). It was not only Drake that was honoured. The ship which had carried him to fame was held to be a sacred relic. One enthusiast proposed to place her bodily on the stump of the steeple of St. Paul's in lieu of the spire (Holinshed, iii. 1569); and, without going to such wild excesses, she was long preserved at Deptford as a monument of the voyage. After serving far into the next century as a holiday resort, a supper and drinking room (Barrow, p. 171), and having been patched and repatched till her hull contained but little of the timber that had gone round the world, she was at last allowed to fall into complete decay, and was broken up. Some few sound remnants were collected, and of them a chair was made which is still preserved in the Bodleian Library at Oxford (Notes and Queries, 6th ser. vi. 296, 3rd ser. ii. 492; Western Antiquary iii. 136, where there is a picture of the chair).
Drake had already been spoken of as likely to undertake another expedition `to intercept the Spanish galeons from the West Indies,' and this time with the queen's commission (Cal. State Papers, Dom., 5 March, 3 April 1581), but the year passed away without his being called on for any such service; though he is spoken of as having an interest in the expedition commanded by Edward Fenton [q. v.] and Luke Ward (ib. December 1581). During 1582 he was mayor of Plymouth (Hist. MSS. Comm. 9th Rep. App. pt. i. 277), but his term of office does not seem to have been in any way distinguished. In May a certain Patrick Mason was apprehended, and, being `compelled,' confessed to having acted as agent for Peter de Subiaur, a `merchant stranger,' who had at 'sundry times declared
