The myth

Sir Francis Drake - pirate, terrorist and hero - was playing bowls on Plymouth Hoe when told that the Spanish Armada had arrived. He coolly declared that there was time to finish the match and then to defeat the Spanish; he lost the game, but won the battle.

The "truth"

Depending on which source you prefer, there is either "no evidence" or "no reliable evidence" for the bowls story. Most modem historians don't even bother to debunk the legend, and if they mention it at all it is only in passing. Drake - who was not in command of the English fleet, but second-in-command to Lord Howard of Effingham - was indeed keen on bowls (or possibly on "Devon boules," a skittles game played in pubs). But the idea that he would have delayed responding to La Felicissima Armada - Philip ll's "invincible" fleet, the largest assembled in Europe up to that time - rather than interrupt his sport, or as a display of bravado, is plainly absurd. Some versions of the myth get around this by suggesting that Drake knew the Tamar tide meant that the fleet could not, in any case, immediately leave Devonport. Incidentally, the mighty Battle of the Armada itself was a bit of a washout: not a single vessel on either side was actually sunk by enemy action, or destroyed by Drake's famous fire-ships.