Chapter Ten - The Future

Summary

Although interest in Sir Francis Drake has fluctuated in the four hundred years since his leaden coffin slipped beneath the waves of the Caribbean Sea, his reputation as one of England's greatest heroes has survived largely intact. Only in very recent years has his heroic status been subjected to revision, and even now there is little evidence that Drake will be relegated to the role of a peripheral historical character.Yet there is no single reason why Sir Francis has been held in such high regard for so long. Each age has identified and emphasized what it has found desirable in the Drake narrative.The many ways in which Drake has been constructed reflect the broad historical and cultural developments of the time of production. Sir Francis has found himself represented as a great navigator, the Protestant champion, a hero of commerce, a moral exemplum, a pioneer of English expansionism and empire, the single-handed victor over the Spanish Armada, the founder of the Royal Navy and, just occasionally, a pirate. No doubt each transformation has appeared to disclose the ‘real’ Sir Francis Drake. I have tried to show that there is no ‘authentic’ Drake to be discovered but rather a series of interpretations that are determined by the dominant culture of the day. But what can we expect from the future?

Commercial exploitation is one of the reasons for the high profile Sir Francis maintains in his native Devon, and it is almost certain that this will continue on a popular cultural level.The myths that came to prominence in the nineteenth century are still widely disseminated; games of bowls will continue to be re-enacted on Plymouth Hoe. More generally, what I have termed the commercialisation of Drake shows no sign of abating. In 2007 a PlayStation computer game titled Uncharted: Drake's Fortune was released. Players seek a treasure that Drake has supposedly hidden on the fabled island of El Dorado. Clearly, the prospect of acquiring gold in exotic locations continues to excite the imagination just as it did for the audiences of Davenant's The History of Sir Francis Drake or the readers of Sir Francis Drake Revived.