Why was Francis Drake so anxious when he returned to England in September 1580, fresh from circumnavigating the globe?
Drake was deeply worried about Elizabeth I's reaction to his homecoming because he was persona non grata in Spain following years of raids on Spanish territories and ships. Crucially, during the three years he had been at sea, Philip II's power had grown enormously — Philip had become king of Portugal in January 1580, uniting the whole of Iberia and both colonial empires under one crown. Drake feared that Elizabeth, facing a far stronger Spain, might choose to appease Philip II by returning the treasure and handing Drake over as a diplomatic sacrifice.
The stakes could hardly have been higher. The haul Drake returned with aboard the Golden Hind — some £400,000 in treasure — exceeded the entire annual income of the English Crown. Returning it to Spain would have been a significant gesture of appeasement, and Drake had every reason to worry that the Privy Council, calculating the risks of provoking a Spain now swollen with Portuguese power and wealth, might recommend exactly that. Alexander Farnese, Prince of Parma, commanded a battle-hardened army of 30,000 troops in the Low Countries, directly across the sea from England — a constant reminder of what Spanish displeasure could mean. You can hear the full episode's treatment of this moment on The Rest Is History on Listenly.
Context: Philip II's expanded power
In January 1580, Philip II of Spain became king of Portugal, absorbing not only the Iberian peninsula but Portugal's vast overseas empire. This made him by far the most powerful monarch in the world — and made England's position, and Drake's personal safety, considerably more precarious.
Elizabeth chose a very different path. Rather than returning the treasure or surrendering Drake, she engineered an ingenious settlement that satisfied almost no one entirely but kept the peace. She secretly allowed Drake to keep £10,000 for himself, permitted £14,000 to be distributed among his crew, quietly received £100,000 as an off-the-books donation to the Crown, and licensed £30,000 to be returned to Spanish merchants who could prove legitimate claims in London. The rest stayed firmly in English hands. Then, on 1 April 1581, she staged his knighting ceremony aboard the Golden Hind at Deptford — turning a deeply anxious privateer into a celebrated national hero in a single, calculated act.
"A war is easily begun, but not so soon ended."— The Rest Is History, Episode 694: Elizabeth I vs The Catholics (Part 4)
That warning, hanging over every decision Elizabeth made in this period, captures precisely why Drake's anxiety was so rational. The Queen understood the danger of open confrontation with Philip II, but she also understood that surrendering Drake and his haul would signal weakness at the worst possible moment. She chose defiance — dressed, characteristically, as pragmatism.