Desire (ship) Desire (ship) The Desire was the 120 ton flagship Thomas Cavendish built for his highly successful 1586-1588 circumnavigation of the globe. The "Desire" was only the third ship to circumnavigate the globe after the "Victoria" of Ferdinand Magellan (journey completed by Juan Sebastián Elcano) and the "Golden Hind" of Francis Drake. After this expedition Cavendish was knighted by Queen Elizabeth I of England who was invited to a dinner aboard the "Desire". The ship was later captained by John Davis on the second, unsuccessful, Cavendish expedition. On that same expedition it was the ship he captained when he probably discovered
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