Golden Hind Golden Hind Golden Hind was an English galleon best known for her privateering circumnavigation of the globe between 1577 and 1580, captained by Sir Francis Drake. She was originally known as "Pelican", but was renamed by Drake mid-voyage in 1578, in honour of his patron, Sir Christopher Hatton, whose crest was a golden 'hind' (a female red deer). Hatton was one of the principal sponsors of Drake's world voyage. One full-sized, still sailable reconstruction containing original pieces of the galleon exists in London, on the south bank of the Thames. Queen Elizabeth I partly sponsored Sir Francis Drake as the
Francis Drake de Marchaumont, who was negotiating for Elizabeth to marry the King of France's brother, Francis, Duke of Anjou. By getting the French diplomat involved in the knighting, Elizabeth was gaining the implicit political support of the French for Drake's actions. During the Victorian era, in a spirit of nationalism, the story was promoted that Elizabeth I had done the knighting. After receiving his knighthood Drake unilaterally adopted the armorials of the ancient Devon family of Drake of Ash, near Musbury, to whom he claimed a distant but unspecified kinship. These arms were: "Argent, a wyvern wings displayed and tail nowed