John Hopkins

There is no doubt, however, that the religious tensions of the time are formative to Francis' childhood and adolescence in Kent.

Henry VIII's break with the Catholic Church occurred shortly before Francis' birth, but during his teenage years, Mary I takes England back into the Roman fold.

Then, after her death, the accession of her younger sister Elizabeth sees the firm restoration of Protestantism, the faith to which Francis Drake will cleave.

As with his childhood, a precise picture of Drake's early manhood and training as a sailor is hard to paint precisely.

He seems to have learned the trade that will make him famous both in Kent and back in Devon.

The Hawkins family are kin to the Drakes, and their patriarch, William Hawkins, is a renowned trader and seafarer, the first Englishman to sail to Brazil.

Drake likely gains experience as a mariner alongside William's sons, but this upbringing imbues him with more than the practicalities of sailing.

On land he is taught to read, write, and count.

At sea he is exposed to people from a variety of backgrounds, and he learns to discuss trade, politics, and foreign affairs, and to dress, talk, and act like a gentleman.

These are lessons that Drake, an ambitious social climber, readily absorbs.

It is from the 1560s that we can chart Francis Drake's movements with greater certainty.

In this decade, he sails on a series of voyages commanded by his older relative, John Hawkins.

But they're not just any voyages.

Hawkins is notorious nowadays for his involvement in the burgeoning transatlantic slave trade.

Drake sails on a number of such expeditions, each following a similar pattern.

Hawkins buys or captures people in West Africa before shipping them to the Americas and selling them to Spanish colonists.

In this period, seven decades after Columbus first reached the so-called New World, Spain's empire is vast, encompassing most of the Caribbean as well as much of Central and South America.

And though the Spanish crown disapproves of unlicensed English merchants trading with its colonies tax-free, it is to these Spanish possessions that Hawkins and Drake ship the Africans they have enslaved.

Hawkins pioneers English involvement in the slave trade at a very early date, and is estimated to have trafficked 1,500 Africans to the Americas.

And though some historians have sought to downplay Drake's culpability in this abhorrent practice, there is no doubt that he participates in and profits from the ventures.