Thursday, April 16, 2009

Sir Francis Drake Revived, 1653






















Sir Francis Drake is interesting to me. Not because he defeated the Spanish Armada, or because he circumnavigated the globe or anything boring like that. He interests me because he is one of Queen Elizabeth's 4 main boyfriends--which is so scandalous!! I've dealt with the famous Essex before, and of course Robert Dudley was her first love. However, she definitely went through an "exciting world explorers" phase, which featured Drake (he's kind of hot, isn't he? He's no Essex, but not bad) and my personal favorite and most crush-worthy royal boyfriend, Sir Walter Raleigh . Incidentally, when I'm not writing copious important notes, I am drawing beautifully nuanced and sophisticated portraits like this in my notebook:















I am a very good artist.

4 comments:

Megs said...

Your talent is absolutely phenomenal! I can't decide who's hotter, Drake or Raleigh? Hmmm.

Sarah Redmond said...

Raleigh is hotter in my book...and he named Virginia after Queen Elizabeth, the "virgin queen."

Also, when he writes about Virginia, it sometimes delves into thinly veiled sexual innuendo about him "penetrating" the wilderness and "conquering" the "virgin" territory. It's what I like to call "environmental porn." What else would you expect from an explorer-poet? Oooh la la! And Clive Owen played him in a movie, so he's easy to have a crush on.

Doug said...

Did you know?

Puff Daddy's classic "Been Around the World" is actually a reference to Sir Francis Drake.
He has:
1) Been around the world
2) na na na
3) Has been player hated (the Spanish)
4) Doesn't know why they want him faded (Ok, so maybe he knows...but then so does Puff Daddy)
5) Wonders if they hate him because of his lady (the Queen)

I would point out the other many parallels, but I think I've made my case with the chorus alone.

danielle said...

http://www.elizabethan-era.org.uk/famous-elizabethan-pirates.htm

So I was looking up pirate stuff and came across the Web site that calls both Drake and Raleigh Elizabethan Pirates.

I think you may need to look into the voracity of this...and technically they could be considered civilised pirates (perhaps?).