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H by Stow (Survey of London, vol. i. lib. ii. p. 45). In the English verses there is an error, presumably of transcription, which makes them unintelligible. According to Stow— Dame Katharine his first religious wife Saw years thrice ten and two of mortal life, Leaving the world the sixth, the seventh ascending. Married should probably be read for mortal in the second line, the third line implying that at her death she was between 42—6 times 7—and 49—7 times 7. Sir Richard Hawkyns [q. v.], her son, was born in or about 1561 or 1562, and Dame Katharine died after a lingering illness in the first days of July 1591 (Hist. MSS. Comm. 12th Rep. App. pt. i. pp. 14, 15). By the special permission of her husband she executed a will on 23 June 1591 (, p. xi;, p. 72). Hawkyns married secondly Margaret, daughter of Charles Vaughan of Hergest Court in Herefordshire, but had by her no issue. She died in 1619. Besides his son Richard, a ‘base son’ is spoken of as captain of the ship sent out to countermand Drake's orders in 1587 (Lansdowne MS. vol. lii. cap. 43). Neither the name of this ship nor of her captain can now be traced, nor yet any other mention of this ‘base son;’ and it has been suggested that the expression merely refers to Richard, the legitimate son, whose conduct may have been disapproved of by the writer of the manuscript, a man full of rancour towards Hawkyns and his family.

Hawkyns's reputation no doubt stands higher than it otherwise would have done by reason of his association with Drake, not only in the last voyage, which proved fatal to both, but in the defeat of the Armada and in their cruel experience at San Juan de Lua. But the characters of the two men were very different. While Drake was winning fame and fortune by unsurpassed feats of daring, Hawkyns was enriching himself as a merchant, shipowner, and admiralty official, whose integrity was suspected. ‘He had,’ says a writer who claims to have known him well, ‘malice with dissimulation, rudeness in behaviour, and was covetous in the last degree’ (R. M., probably Sir Robert Mansell, in Purchas his Pilgrimes, iv. 1185;, Naval History, p. 312). But, whatever his faults, history has condoned them, rightly considering him one of the great men who broke the power of Spain, and established England's maritime supremacy.

So-called portraits of Hawkyns are not uncommon, but few seem genuine. Of these one is in the Sir John Hawkyns's Hospital at Chatham, where it is said to have hung ever since the hospital was first built. Another now in the possession of Mr. C. Stuart Hawkins of Hayford Hall, Buckfastleigh, Plymouth, has not an unbroken tradition, but is believed to be genuine: it bears the arms of Sir John Hawkyns and the date ‘Ætatis suæ 58; Anno Domini 1591.’ It was exhibited in the Armada exhibition at Drury Lane Theatre in October 1888, and is reproduced as a frontispiece to Miss Hawkins's ‘Plymouth Armada Heroes.’ A group, said to be Drake, Hawkyns, and Cavendish, ascribed to Mytens, has been at Newbattle, the seat of the Marquis of Lothian, for at least 250 years. A copy, presented by the seventh Marquis of Lothian, is in the Painted Hall at Greenwich. Other portraits, such as the miniature ascribed to Peter Oliver, now belonging to the Countess of Rosebery, or the ivory bust belonging to the Rev. B. D. Hawkins (, pp. 17, 76), both of which were lent to the Drury Lane exhibition of 1888, cannot be identified with Hawkyns, and are, more especially the miniature, utterly unlike the better authenticated portrait. The name, though now commonly written Hawkins, was by Sir John himself, as well as by his brother William, his son Richard, and his nephew William, invariably written Hawkyns. The Spaniards, their contemporaries, preferred Aquinas or Achines, or occasionally Acle: in Portuguese Latin it appears as de Canes. 

HAWKINS, JOHN, M.D. (fl. 1635), translator and grammarian, was younger brother of Sir Thomas Hawkins (d. 1640) [q. v.], and of Henry Hawkins the jesuit [q. v.] He probably took his degree of M.D. at Padua. He was a staunch catholic, and appears in Gee's list of ‘Popish