The History of Sir Francis Drake

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The History of Sir Francis Drake was a hybrid theatrical entertainment, a

Restoration of 1660.[1]

History and propaganda

Like The Cruelty, Davenant's Drake was not only tolerated but even encouraged by Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell, for its value as anti-Spanish propaganda. (The English had been at war with Spain since 1655.) Davenant exploited Drake as an English national hero and a symbol of an expansionist foreign policy. He drew his narrative materials from Philip Nichols's Sir Francis Drake Revived (1626; reprinted 1652).[2]

Davenant's text deals with Drake's adventures on the northeastern coast of South America during his expedition of 1572. At one point, Davenant shows Drake allying himself with the "Symerons" or

Cimaroons, escaped slaves of Surinam who had formed their own independent society.[3]
(Though Davenant's Drake has been classified as "pseudo-history," this part of the story is based on fact — though Davenant displaces the Cimaroons to Peru.) As in The Cruelty, the English in Drake are presented as a humane alternative to the brutal and rapacious Spanish.

Music

Only one piece of music from the score of Drake has survived — a "Symeron" dance composed by Matthew Locke. Locke was one of the composers who worked on The Siege of Rhodes, and perhaps on The Cruelty too.[4]

References

  1. ^ Terence P. Logan and Denzell S. Smith, eds., The Later Jacobean and Caroline Dramatists: A Survey and Bibliography of Recent Studies in English Renaissance Drama, Lincoln, NE, University of Nebraska Press, 1978; pp. 194, 197-8, 201, 203-4.
  2. ^ Susan Wiseman, Drama and Politics in the English Civil War, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1998; p. 150.
  3. ^ Derek Hughes, Versions of Blackness: Key Texts on Slavery from the Seventeenth Century, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2007; pp. 307-12.
  4. ^ Ian Spink, Henry Lawes: Cavalier Songwriter, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2000; p. 111.