Bernard Drake

Sir Bernard Drake (c.1537 – 10 April 1586) was an Elizabethan sea captain, and a distant kinsman of Sir Francis Drake.

He was the eldest son of John Drake, gentleman, of Ash in the parish of Musbury, Devon, and his wife, Amy, daughter of Sir Roger Grenville. Richard Drake was his brother. He was a first cousin of Roger Grenville, who was captain of the Mary Rose when it sank in 1545 and father of Sir Richard Grenville, the Elizabethan explorer. Sir Bernard's aunt, Alice Drake, married Walter Raleigh and became the step-mother of Sir Walter Raleigh, the explorer and poet. Bernard Drake was a second cousin of William Pole, the antiquary. Bernard was possibly also a distant kinsman of Sir Francis Drake, the circumnavigator; the existence of such a kinship was a controversy even during their lifetimes. Bernard succeeded his father in 1558.

His life was uneventful until he became associated with Sir Humphrey Gilbert, perhaps through his relatives Richard Grenville and Walter Raleigh. Thus Bernard was first attracted to American ventures and, in December, 1582, he was among the adventurers in a corporation established by Gilbert to exploit his royal grant in North America, although Drake’s involvement seems to have been limited to his investment; Drake undertook to lead a party of adventurers to settle whatever part of North America Gilbert had sold him on paper. He did not participate in any overseas ventures, however, so far as is known, until 1585, by which time he had joined with Raleigh and Humphrey Gilbert’s brother, John, in activities connected with the Roanoke Island Colony, in present-day North Carolina. When, on 26 May, the Spanish government placed an embargo on English shipping in Bilbao harbour, Raleigh commissioned Drake to warn English fishermen in Newfoundland of the embargo and to seize Spanish shipping. Dropping plans for a privateering voyage to the West Indies en route for Roanoke, where a colony was to be settled by Sir Richard Grenville who had left Plymouth in April, Drake left for Newfoundland in July.

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