John Hopkins

He feels a light touch on his arm and sees the chaplain has come to stand beside him.

With trembling fingers, from fear or cold or both, Doughty takes off his cloak and passes it to the chaplain.

He unlaces the collar of his snowy white linen shirt, baring his neck.

Then he falls to his knees and prays once more.

For the queen, for the success of the voyage, for his friends, and finally for his own soul.

When he has finished his final words, he gently places his neck upon the block, the wooden surface rough against his cheek.

The last things he hears are a set of approaching footsteps and the relentless screams of seabirds wheeling high overhead.

Doughty's death sentence is primarily handed down for the charge of mutiny, something against which Drake always takes a hard line.

Doughty's execution does not restore calm for long.

In August 1578, Drake leads the fleet through the treacherous Strait of Magellan, a navigable sea route between the Atlantic and Pacific, at the southernmost tip of South America.

But once in the Pacific, violent storms scatter the ships.

The Marigold is lost, the Elizabeth turns back for England, and the Golden Hind is left to press north alone.

But it is a brutal voyage, with men lost to cold, hunger, and disease.

By February 1579, the crew of 80 has been reduced to less than 70, with only 30 fit enough to fight.

Drake, though, presses on, whether his remaining men like it or not.

The Golden Hind sails up the Pacific American coast to California, raiding Spanish settlements along the way.

Unarmed merchant ships offer little resistance, and the crew captures gold and silver, wine and exquisite silks and linens, as well as a number of enslaved individuals.

The Golden Hind then charts a course across the Pacific to Indonesia.

It is here that Drake commits an act even more shocking than his execution of Gauti.

Almost nothing is known about the stricken woman, except that her name is Maria.