Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 15.djvu/430

  [Authorities quoted above; Musical Recollections of the Last Half Century, i. 202, ii. 97; Evans's Cat. of Engraved Portraits; Guide to the Loan Collection, South Kensington, 1885; information from Mr. Julian Marshall.]  DRAKARD, JOHN (1775?–1854), newspaper proprietor and publisher, commenced business at Stamford as a printer and book-seller at the beginning of this century. On 15 Sept. 1809 he started a weekly newspaper called ‘The Stamford News.’ On 13 March 1811 he was tried at Lincoln before Baron Wood and a special jury on an ex-officio information for libel, and was sentenced to eighteen months' imprisonment in Lincoln Castle, and fined 200l. The subject-matter of the libel was an article published in Drakard's paper for 24 Aug. 1810, entitled ‘One Thousand Lashes,’ which dealt with the question of corporal punishment in the army. Drakard was defended by Brougham, but neither his eloquence, nor the fact that the Hunts, as proprietors of the ‘Examiner,’ had been previously acquitted on the charge of libel for publishing the greater portion of the very same article, were of any avail. Drakard was also the proprietor of the ‘Stamford Champion,’ a weekly newspaper which first appeared on 5 Jan. 1830, under the name of the ‘Champion of the East.’ In 1834 both newspapers ceased to exist, and Drakard retired to Ripley, Yorkshire, where he lived in necessitous circumstances. He died at Ripon on 25 Jan. 1854, aged 79. In politics he was an advanced radical. Drakard was a defendant in several libel suits, and is said to have been horsewhipped in his own shop by Lord Cardigan for some remarks which had appeared in the ‘Stamford News.’ The authorship of the two following works (both of which were published by him) has been attributed to Drakard, but it is more than doubtful whether he had any share in their compilation: 1. ‘Drakard's Edition of the Public and Private Life of Colonel Wardle. … Introduced by an original Essay on Reform,’ &c., Stamford [1810?], 8vo. 2. ‘The History of Stamford, in the County of Lincoln, comprising its ancient, progressive, and modern state; with an Account of St. Martin's, Stamford Baron, and Great and Little Wothorpe, Northamptonshire,’ Stamford, 1822, 8vo.

[Biog. Dict. of Living Authors (1816), p. 98; Howell's State Trials (1823), xxxi. 495–544; Burton's Chronology of Stamford (1846), pp. 229–230; Lincoln, Rutland, and Stamford Mercury, 3 Feb. 1854; Notes and Queries, 7th ser. iii. 89, 176, 196, 235, 375; Brit. Mus. Cat.]  DRAKE, BERNARD (d. 1586), naval commander, was the eldest son of John Drake of Ashe, in the parish of Musbury, Devonshire, by his wife Amy, daughter of Sir Roger Grenville, knight, of Stowe, Cornwall. He is the subject of a well-known and oft-repeated anecdote by Prince (Worthies of Devon, p. 245). His story is that Sir Bernard Drake meeting Sir Francis Drake at court, gave him a box on the ear for assuming the red wyvern for his arms, and that the queen, resenting the affront, bestowed on Sir Francis ‘a new coat of everlasting honour,’ and, to add to the discomfiture of Sir Bernard, caused the red wyvern ‘to be hung up by the heels in the rigging of the ship’ on Sir Francis's crest. This story received some final touches at the hands of Miss Agnes Strickland, who transformed the solitary wyvern into three (Queens of England, iv. 451). Barrow first discredited it (Life of Sir Francis Drake, 1843, pp. 179–81), and it has since been demolished by H. H. Drake in the ‘Archæological Journal,’ xxx. 374, and in the ‘Transactions of the Devonshire Association,’ xv. 490. The simple fact is that Sir Francis Drake asked his kinsman for the family arms, of which he was himself ignorant. On 20 June 1585 Drake was commissioned ‘to proceed to Newfoundland to warn the English engaged in the fisheries there of the seizure of English ships in Spain, and to seize all ships in Newfoundland belonging to the king of Spain or any of his subjects, and to bring them into some of the western ports of England without dispersing any part of their lading until further orders’ (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1581–90, p. 246). He performed his mission so successfully that the queen knighted him at Greenwich 9 Jan. 1585–6 (, A Book of Knights, p. 136). On his return he had captured off the coast of Brittany ‘a great Portugal ship’ called the Lion of Viana, and brought her into Dartmouth (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1581–90, p. 295). The crew were sent to the prison adjoining Exeter Castle, in order to be tried at the ensuing spring assizes. On the day appointed a ‘noisom smell’ arose from the dock, ‘wherof died soone after the judge, Sir Arthur Bassett, Sir John Chichester, Sir Barnard Drake, and eleven of the jury.’ Drake had just strength to reach Crediton, and, dying there 10 April 1586, was buried in the church (Transactions of Devonshire Association, xv. 491 n.) Administration of his estate was granted in P. C. C., 3 May 1587, (Administration Act Book, 1587–91, f. 18). By his wife, Gertrude, daughter of Bartholomew Fortescue of Filleigh, Devonshire, he had six children: John, his heir, of Ashe; Hugh, whose estate was