Name Index

To

Drake - The arms of his family and surname: Argent, a waver-dragon gules

Trans. Devon. Assoc. Vol 15, Trans. Devon. Assoc. (1883), pp. 487-493.

by

H.H. Drake

Prepared by Michael Steer

The paper, delivered at the Association's July 1883 Exmouth meeting explores the early origins of the Drake surname, associating it with "Dragon". After receiving his knighthood Sir Francis unilaterally adopted the armorials of the ancient Devon family of Drake of Ash, to whom he claimed a distant but unspecified kinship. These arms were: Argent, a wyvern wings displayed and tail nowed gules, and the crest, a dexter arm proper grasping a battle axe sable, headed argent. The head of that family, Sir Bernard Drake (d.1586), angrily refuted the claimed kinship and his right to bear his family's arms. Queen Elizabeth, to assuage matters, awarded Sir Francis his own coat of arms. He continued to quarter his new arms with the wyvern gules. Those adopted by his nephew Sir Francis Drake, 1st Baronet (1588-1637) of Buckland were the arms of Drake of Ash, but the wyvern without a "nowed" (knotted) tail. Google with the Archive Organization has sponsored the digitisation of books from several libraries. The Internet Archive makes available, in its Community Texts Collection (originally known as Open Source Books), books that have been digitised by Google from a number of libraries. These are books on which copyright has expired, and are available free for educational and research use. This rare book was produced from a copy held by the Princeton University Library, and is available from the Internet Archive.