One Terminal Pairing: Thomas/Francis - Drake's Venture
The Background:
Based on an obscure (aired twice, never released on video or dvd) 1980s British made-for-tv movie with an enormously bleak and cynical world-view, Drake’s Venture is a fandom that shouldn’t have happened, and yet it somehow spawned almost 300 fics in the first year of its LJ Community,
dv_squee. The initial lure is its status as a cult association item for Blakes 7 fans, since one of its major stars is the actor Paul Darrow (Avon in B7, Thomas Doughtie in this film). The fandom has yet to be discovered by admirers of the other major star, John Thaw (Inspector Morse, The Sweeney), who plays Francis Drake. For Avon fans, the movie isn’t pretty, let me tell you. Well, that’s not exactly accurate…the movie is exceedingly pretty, with its tall ships, remarkably accurate Tudor costuming, and principals who look amazingly hawt in beards. Nevertheless, the almost universal reaction upon first viewing this soul-crushingly depressing film is to want to jump through a plate glass window and in front of the next passing bus. However, a good number of those so affected stumble away from the scene of the accident vowing, “I’ve got to write me some fic.”
Beardpron!
The story is based on one of history’s most mysterious (and slashy!) incidents. You’re about to be spoiled…but the events of Drake’s “famous voyage” are well-known - and aren’t really the point. Every schoolchild knows that Francis Drake successfully circumnavigated the globe and was knighted for his trouble. If you’re really, really sharp, you might remember a footnote to that historic event, the “one black stain,” on Drake’s reputation, the Thomas Doughtie affair (FYI: the fandom has universally rejected the commonly regularized spelling “Doughty,” choosing instead to use the form used by Doughtie himself on all his legal records). Drake’s Venture is simply one in a sea of histories and fictional treatments which attempts to uncover the motivations behind that much disputed episode.
Picture this: a man has a friend. ONE friend. Both his admirers and detractors seem to agree that this is the only close friendship of his entire life. The friendship is archetypal, idyllic. They go to war together, dream up one of the most audacious adventures in history together. In their own words, they are closer than brothers, than wives; they are extensions of each other. Put bluntly: they are screaming to be slashed.
How much of this vision of friendship-as-romance truly represents what happened, and how much is the propaganda of later historians, will probably never be known for sure. What is known is that these friends set out upon their great dream - a daring raid on the “silver ship” of Spain undertaken by crossing through the perilous Straits of Magellan - and something went horribly, horribly wrong.
In the end, Francis Drake accused Thomas Doughtie of mutiny, sedition, treason and - get this - witchcraft. The degree of the real Doughtie’s guilt is highly debatable (based on the available evidence, it’s probably close to non-existent). In the movie, he stirs up dissent amongst the men and makes amulets for protection against the ague. In retaliation, Drake ties him to the mast, sets up a kangaroo court, falsifies evidence, bullies the jury, lies about his intentions and finally gets what he wants - a death sentence for his former friend.
If this isn’t enough grist for the fanfic mill, what happens next is even stranger - and the details are generally agreed upon by all accounts regardless of partisanship. Drake and Doughtie take communion together (and, BTW, Doughtie insists at his confession that he is innocent), eat a banquet during which they act as if nothing had ever come between their friendship, each “cheering up” the other, and then they speak alone together for a mysterious “halfe a quarter of a howre.” All this time, Doughtie is completely joyful, according to an eyewitness account by one of his friends, happier than he has ever been in his life. He prays for the success of the voyage, commends himself to his friends in England, and embraces Drake.
He is beheaded.
And of course, Drake goes on to circumnavigate the globe, becoming rich, famous, and the subject of endless grade school essays in the process.
WTF?????
The Ship:
No, not that ship!
There’s never really a question of whom to ship with whom in this fandom. The ship is the movie. Even Drake biographers complain that after the Doughtie incident the rest of the circumnavigation lacks its dramatic center, and Drake’s return home seems somewhat of an anticlimax. Although Drake’s Venture fanfic does occasionally wander into the realm of minion fic, prequels or the very occasional rare pairing, about 95% in some way concerns the relationship between Drake and Doughtie, be it love, hate, or some messed up combination of the two.
It concerns itself primarily with two questions:
1. What went wrong?
2. Was anything right to begin with?
But really, really, really, what it’s about is
3. Can this mess be saved?
This is the reason why the fandom is oozing with AUs and ARs and a positive obsession with the idea of reincarnation. You’ll see Drake as a truck driver, a ballet impresario, a colonel in the American Civil War, a Cathar heretic, a caveman, a bull. And, of course, Doughtie is a Confederate soldier, an Inquisitor, a matador. It’s surprising how often these outrageous fantasies work. The authors in the fandom are masters of picking up the nuances of character and transplanting them into various scenarios, always asking the question, “What if?”
And sometimes the answer is not a happy one.
But none of this, from the straightest canon fic to the most outrageous AR would work without returning to the first two central questions. What drew Drake to Doughtie, and what pulled them apart?
First, it’s necessary to examine them as individuals. The movie presents us with certain portrayals, but we’ve already been, to a certain extent, spoiled by our knowledge of history. For reasons which will become apparent, the fandom has been sucked into an absolute fascination with the details of the Tudor period. We call it “histon,” meaning a sort of subsidiary canon drawn from historical events. The problem is that sometimes “canon” contradicts “histon.” Partly an effort to fit the events into the scope of a 90 minute movie, partly an effort to placate the backing organization (Westward Entertainment, whose logo was the Golden Hinde and who wanted a movie commemorating the 400th anniversary of the circumnavigation) the movie omits certain events, distorts others. So the writer is faced with a choice: follow the movie, follow history, or work some middle path. It isn’t an easy choice, especially since some of the events most important to understanding the Doughtie affair have been left out - most infamously, the “dispute on the Mary,” which is probably the big breaking point between Drake and Doughtie. That being said, the spirit of the movie is to realistically represent history. It isn’t a wild, overdramatized fantasy, which makes the writer’s choices that much more difficult. Should fic be more canonical than canon?
Supreme Commander
Let’s start with Francis Drake. Once upon a time, Sir Francis Drake was every little boy’s hero. Current revisionism paints him as paranoid, greedy, a pirate. His greatest exploit, the circumnavigation, was probably unplanned and undertaken of necessity when it became clear he couldn’t return to England through the Straits of Magellan. In his second greatest, the defeat of the Spanish Armada, he was used as a figurehead to frighten the Spanish and did very little to actually advance the battle.
In the movie, he’s a little of both hero and cad. Most people come away from Drake’s Venture completely loving Doughtie (infamous fangirl quote: “Who cares if he’s guilty? If you kill him, you can’t make out with him!”) But there’s a peculiar conversion that happens over time: upon repeated viewings, Drake grows on the viewer. He’s a lying bastard, completely amoral and self-serving, a megalomaniac. And yet, he’s sexy, determined, a member of a lost breed of men. And there’s something in him which is almost childlike, needing acceptance. The real Francis Drake grew up without his father in the home, and it’s my take that the reason he squanders most of his money trying to impress powerful people is that he desperately wants the love and acceptance of authority.
This insecurity leads him to the worst class pretensions of the nouveau riche - everything from bringing musicians and silver plate on his voyage of piracy to dousing himself in rosewater. On land, he curries favor with the beautiful people. At sea, he’s a tyrant who will brook no disobedience from anyone, no matter their status. And yet, his men are loyal despite everything - despite Drake’s lie that they are going to Alexandria instead of Peru, despite weathering 40 days of brutal storm in the Straits of Magellan, Drake holds his crew together through sheer force of will. It’s like watching a force of nature. Reincarnating him as a bull is not so far-fetched.
Puppie!!!!
Could there be a man more opposite in temperament from Francis Drake than Thomas Doughtie? Doughtie is a gentleman, secretary to Christopher Hatton, schooled in law at London’s Inner Temple, fluent in multiple languages, a soldier, a courtier, and, rumor has it, a sorcerer, the disciple of the infamous Doctor John Dee. He is also, despite all this, or perhaps because of this, an enormously devout Anglican.
What little we know about the historical Doughtie can be found in the exhaustive essay “Doubting Thomas: the Dought(ie) Affair in Fictive History and Historical Fiction.” It runs to around 80 pages printed, so I’ll summarize: Doughtie was probably a terrific fellow, and the charges against him were greatly exaggerated, at best. But historians, especially in the Victorian Era, tended to portray Doughtie as an Eeevil Manipulator, relying on quoting each other and on the logic that “Drake was a hero so Doughtie must be a villain” rather than consulting the source documents of the period. A bit of the villainous Doughtie is found in the Doughtie of the movie. But Drake’s Venture remains well-balanced: there are times when Doughtie is a treacherous bastard, but his complaints are ultimately valid. From the moment he sets foot on the Pelican, Drake begins to bully and insult him. And it is easy to forget, in the light of Drake’s great exploit, that the Golden Hinde returned home with 40 of 160 men who began the voyage. If Doughtie actually did wish to abandon the passage through Magellan and seek safer pickings in the northern seas, it would have been a damn sensible idea to the men on board who would have preferred survival instead of a place as a footnote in history books.
The movie’s Doughtie schemes, uses his tongue and intellect where Drake uses force of will. Perhaps the most emblematic symbol of their contrasting personas is the way in which they wear their cloaks. Drake’s is a practical garment, worn over both shoulders to keep him protected from the elements. Doughtie wears his rakishly over one shoulder, in the manner of a fashionable gentleman, a constant reminder of status in even the direst circumstances. And yet, strangely, it’s Doughtie who is the democratic one. He is an enormously proud man, and yet he treats his friend as an “equal companion,” even though Drake is below him on the social ladder. In the movie, one of the first signs of trouble is Doughtie’s proclamation that they are “partners,” (which he could well expect, seeing as he greatly financed the voyage and advocated it to the members of the privy council). Drake won’t have it. Despite the fact that Doughtie commands a regiment of soldiers, Drake insists that he is the leader of the expedition. (It is beyond the scope of this essay to examine maritime history in depth: suffice it to say that Doughtie’s execution established the precedent for the captain being sole master of the ship - at the time, Drake did not have the right to countermand someone who was his social better.)
Given the disparate temperaments, lifestyles and experiences of these men, what is the basis of friendship, let alone slash fiction? The movie gives us only tantalizing hints: an embrace of joy when they are given permission to leave England, a celebratory toast to the success of their venture. But the screenshots!
Flirty...flirtyflirtyflirty!
Oh, Teh Luurve!
But from here on in, the relationship deteriorates with amazing rapidity. What happened? What went before? The writer of fanfic inevitably turns to history, to “histon,” only to discover that the story is even more mysterious, more problematic. For one, we actually know very little of the relationship between Drake and Doughtie before they leave Plymouth. The pair met in Ireland, when Doughtie was a servant of Walter Devereux, Earl of Essex. Drake was hired by Essex to ferry some soldiers to what turned out to be the Rathlin Island massacre. Exactly how Drake and Doughtie came to know each other is uncertain. Doughtie claims to have introduced Drake to Essex, Drake claims that Doughtie was no longer in Essex’s retinue at the time. Both had reason to lie, but perhaps Drake more so.
It is during their stay in Ireland that their legendary friendship was formed. Almost all historians agree on the existence of said friendship even if some argue against its reciprocal sincerity (it seems clear that Drake could be using Doughtie for his connections, less clear exactly what Doughtie could gain from association with Drake…and yet, there is a long tradition of assuming that Doughtie was the manipulator!) Even after Doughtie’s death, Drake insists on the reality of that friendship, begins to tell people that he sacrificed his closest friend because his loyalty to the state had to outweigh his personal affection (which was clearly not what happened at the time.) Over the years, it seems that Drake may have looked back at the event with regret, his friendship with nostalgia. Perhaps it isn’t quite as cynical as it sounds when the Drake of the movie tells Queen Elizabeth, “He was to me as my other hand, your majesty. I loved him well, and would that he were here to share our triumph.”
The ficcer is faced with a choice of three basic paradigms for the relationship. One, the one best supported by the evidence, has Drake as a paranoid rotter who used his friend, and Doughtie either as innocent victim or a simply less-adept rotter. Strict movie canon opts for the latter, there are a handful of fics which portray the former, unforgiving of Drake in light of the unspeakably moving portrayal of the martyrdom of Thomas Doughtie (arguably Paul Darrow’s best performance.)
The Most Beautifullest Thing EvAR
The second path is the beautiful illusion: Drake and Doughtie share an idyllic friendship in Ireland, but are split by circumstances for a year. They end up with opposing political loyalties. Doughtie is working for William Cecil Lord Burghley to sabotage the voyage, which they feel will be detrimental to England’s relationship with Spain (this interpretation was a standard assumption for many years, and that there is no evidence to support it has never deterred historians.) At the end, the friends reconcile, understanding that each man has played his part in a story much larger than their own personal considerations.
The third path is the one (for obvious reasons) most popular in fanfiction: they were In Luurve. It’s amazing, actually, to look at the historical narrative in that light. Actions which seem incomprehensible were Drake and Doughtie comrades at arms or business partners suddenly make perfect sense if the events are seen as a lover’s quarrel spun out-of-control. Certain phrases which appear over and over in reference to the historical Doughtie - “conjuror,” “Italianate gentleman” - are basically period euphemisms for “sodomite.” The question which historians skirt around - what was Doughtie expecting to gain from a close friendship with a man of a lower class? - is answered by the one of the assumptions of the period: a gentleman too familiar with a social inferior is obviously getting hawt mansex. And one of the major incidents which the movie chooses to leave out involves a bit of roughhousing between the men - a “cobbey,” a common sort of hazing at sea. Despite being roundly thumped by his friends, the trumpeter, John Brewer, chooses to take great offense that Doughtie has lightly slapped him on the buttock. For this slight accusation, the historical Drake relieves Doughtie of his command. Was Drake being homophobic - or jealous?
The movie’s interpretation is clearly not this one. In it, it’s fairly apparent that bad weather and scurvy have made Drake paranoid, and also that, offended by Drake’s high-handed treatment, Doughtie is trying to reassert his authority in a dangerous and disruptive way. But then we have the sequence surrounding Doughtie’s last meal at St. Julian’s Bay:
A loaf of bread, a jug of wine, and thou...
Drake: How would you die, Thomas, by me with a firearm or by the executioner’s axe?
Doughty: Wouldst kill me thyself, Francis?
Drake: If that be thy wish, yes I would.
Doughty: But it would give you no pleasure.
Drake: By God’s own truth Thomas, no pleasure at all.
Doughty: Thank you, good captain, but not by your hand, by the axe if you will.
Drake: So be it.
Doughty: You still intend to go through Magellan? And when you are done, return by the Straits of Anian, the Northwest Passage that Frobisher seeks?
Drake: Aye if there be one.
Doughty: You will be famous then.
Drake: Aye, and you go to a better place.
The dynamic between the principals, their tones of voice, the strangely flirtatious way that they banter over the manner of Doughtie’s death is bathed in subtext. [And for the real language geek - they slip into the familiar “thy!”] Drake’s Venture is not the first historical fiction to see the incident this way; the second half of “Doubting Thomas” discusses the “romance” of the Drake/Doughtie story at length. There is even one poem, Alfred Noyes’ Drake: an English Epic, where Drake cradles Doughtie’s decapitated head in his arms throughout a midnight vigil, staring into the dead face like a Patagonian Salome. Fanfiction has not added the romantic elements to the story, simply made overt - very explicitly so! - the sexual ones.
The Doughtie-Drake Dynamic in Fanfiction:
Drake/Doughtie is a disturbing ship. There are many fandoms where one can speak of dangerous liaisons between the characters, but few where it is so very clear that the happiest, healthiest thing for one partner is to stay half a world away from the other. It can never be far from the ficcer’s mind that if Doughtie makes the wrong move, the canonically disastrous ending will result. Arguably, it’s messed up to ship them at all…and yet…and yet.
We keep circling back to the friendship, the very great friendship which, if not sexual, clearly falls into the period paradigm of “romantic.” There’s no basis for this friendship at all. The two men have nothing in common. “Opposites attract,” we can say with some glibness, but sometimes opposites combust - and I think that’s the crux of the story.
Thomas Doughtie is everything Drake wants to be - sophisticated, eloquent, well-bred, handsome. Francis Drake is everything Thomas Doughtie wants to be - bold, authoritative, experienced. They look at each other and see a mirror of their own desires. It is a significant irony that “Thomas” literally means “twin” (and that legends concerning the foundation of empire often involve the sacrifice of a twin or a ritual beheading!) Drake and Doughtie are spiritual twins, closer than brothers in their opposition. It is significant for a number of reasons (including the avoidance of an impossibly complex plethora of Johns and Toms on the Pelican) that the movie eliminates two very important historical figures, Drake’s brother Tom, and Doughtie’s brother John. The choice to eliminate Tom Drake is interesting considering that he was one of the major movers in the anti-Doughtie faction. As a replacement, the movie increases the role of Drake’s nephew, John, and makes him about 10 years older than he was historically (mid-twenties instead of teens). The elimination of John Doughtie is, on the other hand, really necessary for the film to function. Doughtie’s passion is already pathetic enough - add the element of his little brother watching his beheading, and all sympathy for Drake is lost forever.
But the real reason the brothers vanish in Drake’s Venture is that there is no need for them. The polarity, the brotherhood, is between Drake and Doughtie. And when looking at a self both so desirable and yet so alien, there are only two possible responses: absolute adoration or absolute loathing. The relationship between the two is so archetypal that the writer is ensnared, as if reconciling Drake and Doughtie would somehow right all the divisions in the universe.
But how to accomplish it? The historical Francis Drake was very much the sort of man who would destroy what he could not have. Add that to the palpable UST of the movie, and one has a recipe for working backward. Assume that Drake’s loathing is provoked by Doughtie’s pride, his unavailability. If Doughtie can be made available, Drake turns into a doting lover, the kind of man who offered oranges to little boys in the streets of Plymouth.
One question leads to another. If Doughtie is unavailable, why is that so? Is it his religious piety which keeps him from sin? Such potential here, ending in guilty angst if he submits. Then again, we’re told so much about “Italianate” leanings that perhaps he isn’t afraid of sin so much as disdainful of consorting with a member of the lower class. Then the fic can be about learning to reconcile one’s pride to love - or a brutal breaking of that pride. Perhaps one man, or the other, or both are too deeply closeted to consider consummating their relationship. Will it be a tragedy of circumstance, or an AU where love and tolerance triumph? Perhaps it’s Drake, enamored with the ideal of manhood, who denies the physical attraction, even to the point of killing its object. This ship can take the writer to the darkest recesses of the heart, where pride and jealousy end in murder.
There are even fics which read the Drake-Doughtie dynamic as a twisted dom-sub relationship: Doughtie is topping from below and is only truly happy when he accepts his role as the subordinate. It is to the credit of the writers in the fandom that this trope rarely seems exploitive. Doughtie and Drake are nuanced characters; neither is an angel. The key to these stories is an understanding of Drake as much as an understanding of Doughtie, of having empathy for a man who won wealth and fame, and never made another friend. (Of course, what kind of fool would want to be Drake’s new BFF considering what he did to the first one?) The historical Drake died embittered and lonely; glimpses of his occasionally endearing childlike gestures remind the writer of what might have been if only Doughtie were the perfectly sympathetic companion he was supposed to be.
Other premises lead to easier, more comfortable answers. There are a handful of fics where Doughtie actually does something deserving of his fate, many more where Drake is set up in some way into believing in his friend’s betrayal (and there is a good deal of historical evidence that much of the trouble between Drake and Doughtie was provoked by Ned Bright, John Brewer and Drake’s younger brother, Tom). The easiest, happiest way to resolve the ship is to assume that there was some hidden, plot-based complication which forced events to turn out tragically, but which could have been repaired…and very often, these fics portray Drake’s reaction (given what he knows or is faced with) as being more reasonable than what we find in canon/histon. In this case, we leave Thomas Doughtie sleeping safely in his lover’s arms, not having to worry that a misstep will have him back on the chopping block. These stories make us feel warm all over, and yet…and yet.
Go out with style!
We keep circling back to the tragedy, the horror, and Doughtie’s glorious, glorious death. Isn’t any attempt to mitigate it also to diminish it?
Ah, the reincarnation fic, where we can have our cake and eat it too. Drake and Doughtie get a second chance, or a third, or a fourth…the game is to preserve the characters and put them into an entirely new situation. Was it circumstance that made them the way they were? Make Drake a playwright and Thomas an actor in 17th century Japan, where homosexuality is openly accepted, and suddenly their conflict begins upon the stage and ends on a futon. But this could also be accomplished through a simple AR fic. No, the real attraction of the reincarnation trope is the memory, is in all the emotional baggage they carry. Do they know who they were? How do they know? They had damn well better find out! And then the fireworks fly, the game starts over again. Have they learned anything at all?
And here, to me, is the point: in the movie, in history, the Drake/Doughtie ship is a fatal attraction, a poison. In fiction, it has a chance to be transformed into the amrita, the nectar of immortality, of an eternal love that transcends mortal enmity. Reconciliation of opposites is possible, even inevitable. Their bitter hate smolders in the ashes of a love of equal heat. With our words, we coax and coo until we loose the phoenix.
Till we meet again...
Resources
There is a transcript of the movie here. In addition, although the movie has never been commercially available, and has never appeared on DVD, copies have been known to mysteriously appear…
There are two Live Journal communities dedicated to DV fandom.
dv_squee is the general comm., containing manymanymany historical references, announcements of new fics, icons and general merriment.
dv_ficarchive is what it says - an archive of Drake’s Venture fiction. Fics posted to the archive are collected quarterly in a .pdf ‘zine called Fquie (that's "squee" in Elizabethan orthography). The original issue was a simple LJBook attempt to produce a lasting copy of the archive…when yours truly was quite disappointed in the way it looked, I began to format it myself. Fquie 1-3 are available as downloads for the asking.
The dv_squee FAQ is an extensive overview of facts and resources about both the history and the fandom. Another great resource is the
crack_van overview written by
alinewrites.
Fic recs are available on crack_van as well…but since
alinewrites drove the van, she couldn’t rec her own fics. To remedy this deficit, might I suggest the following…
“ Saudade” - a reincarnation fic where all the old issues of class distinction and meddling friends come back to haunt our heroes.
“ Worn Out” - part of an AU series where Thomas is Tomas Valiente, a Spaniard captured by Drake. You don’t need to read the rest of the series to appreciate this very hawt fic - but you’ll want to anyways. It’s a lovely, sexy read with a happy ending for a change.
“ Playing Games” - a crossover into the Sweeney Universe. Rough cops and rough sex - what more do you want?
“ Vae Victis” - a preincarnation fic this time - absolutely devastating.
But really, anything by
alinewrites is worth reading - hot and angsty.
Based on an obscure (aired twice, never released on video or dvd) 1980s British made-for-tv movie with an enormously bleak and cynical world-view, Drake’s Venture is a fandom that shouldn’t have happened, and yet it somehow spawned almost 300 fics in the first year of its LJ Community,
dv_squee. The initial lure is its status as a cult association item for Blakes 7 fans, since one of its major stars is the actor Paul Darrow (Avon in B7, Thomas Doughtie in this film). The fandom has yet to be discovered by admirers of the other major star, John Thaw (Inspector Morse, The Sweeney), who plays Francis Drake. For Avon fans, the movie isn’t pretty, let me tell you. Well, that’s not exactly accurate…the movie is exceedingly pretty, with its tall ships, remarkably accurate Tudor costuming, and principals who look amazingly hawt in beards. Nevertheless, the almost universal reaction upon first viewing this soul-crushingly depressing film is to want to jump through a plate glass window and in front of the next passing bus. However, a good number of those so affected stumble away from the scene of the accident vowing, “I’ve got to write me some fic.”
Beardpron!
The story is based on one of history’s most mysterious (and slashy!) incidents. You’re about to be spoiled…but the events of Drake’s “famous voyage” are well-known - and aren’t really the point. Every schoolchild knows that Francis Drake successfully circumnavigated the globe and was knighted for his trouble. If you’re really, really sharp, you might remember a footnote to that historic event, the “one black stain,” on Drake’s reputation, the Thomas Doughtie affair (FYI: the fandom has universally rejected the commonly regularized spelling “Doughty,” choosing instead to use the form used by Doughtie himself on all his legal records). Drake’s Venture is simply one in a sea of histories and fictional treatments which attempts to uncover the motivations behind that much disputed episode.
Picture this: a man has a friend. ONE friend. Both his admirers and detractors seem to agree that this is the only close friendship of his entire life. The friendship is archetypal, idyllic. They go to war together, dream up one of the most audacious adventures in history together. In their own words, they are closer than brothers, than wives; they are extensions of each other. Put bluntly: they are screaming to be slashed.
How much of this vision of friendship-as-romance truly represents what happened, and how much is the propaganda of later historians, will probably never be known for sure. What is known is that these friends set out upon their great dream - a daring raid on the “silver ship” of Spain undertaken by crossing through the perilous Straits of Magellan - and something went horribly, horribly wrong.
In the end, Francis Drake accused Thomas Doughtie of mutiny, sedition, treason and - get this - witchcraft. The degree of the real Doughtie’s guilt is highly debatable (based on the available evidence, it’s probably close to non-existent). In the movie, he stirs up dissent amongst the men and makes amulets for protection against the ague. In retaliation, Drake ties him to the mast, sets up a kangaroo court, falsifies evidence, bullies the jury, lies about his intentions and finally gets what he wants - a death sentence for his former friend.
If this isn’t enough grist for the fanfic mill, what happens next is even stranger - and the details are generally agreed upon by all accounts regardless of partisanship. Drake and Doughtie take communion together (and, BTW, Doughtie insists at his confession that he is innocent), eat a banquet during which they act as if nothing had ever come between their friendship, each “cheering up” the other, and then they speak alone together for a mysterious “halfe a quarter of a howre.” All this time, Doughtie is completely joyful, according to an eyewitness account by one of his friends, happier than he has ever been in his life. He prays for the success of the voyage, commends himself to his friends in England, and embraces Drake.
He is beheaded.
And of course, Drake goes on to circumnavigate the globe, becoming rich, famous, and the subject of endless grade school essays in the process.
WTF?????
The Ship:
No, not that ship!
There’s never really a question of whom to ship with whom in this fandom. The ship is the movie. Even Drake biographers complain that after the Doughtie incident the rest of the circumnavigation lacks its dramatic center, and Drake’s return home seems somewhat of an anticlimax. Although Drake’s Venture fanfic does occasionally wander into the realm of minion fic, prequels or the very occasional rare pairing, about 95% in some way concerns the relationship between Drake and Doughtie, be it love, hate, or some messed up combination of the two.
It concerns itself primarily with two questions:
1. What went wrong?
2. Was anything right to begin with?
But really, really, really, what it’s about is
3. Can this mess be saved?
This is the reason why the fandom is oozing with AUs and ARs and a positive obsession with the idea of reincarnation. You’ll see Drake as a truck driver, a ballet impresario, a colonel in the American Civil War, a Cathar heretic, a caveman, a bull. And, of course, Doughtie is a Confederate soldier, an Inquisitor, a matador. It’s surprising how often these outrageous fantasies work. The authors in the fandom are masters of picking up the nuances of character and transplanting them into various scenarios, always asking the question, “What if?”
And sometimes the answer is not a happy one.
But none of this, from the straightest canon fic to the most outrageous AR would work without returning to the first two central questions. What drew Drake to Doughtie, and what pulled them apart?
First, it’s necessary to examine them as individuals. The movie presents us with certain portrayals, but we’ve already been, to a certain extent, spoiled by our knowledge of history. For reasons which will become apparent, the fandom has been sucked into an absolute fascination with the details of the Tudor period. We call it “histon,” meaning a sort of subsidiary canon drawn from historical events. The problem is that sometimes “canon” contradicts “histon.” Partly an effort to fit the events into the scope of a 90 minute movie, partly an effort to placate the backing organization (Westward Entertainment, whose logo was the Golden Hinde and who wanted a movie commemorating the 400th anniversary of the circumnavigation) the movie omits certain events, distorts others. So the writer is faced with a choice: follow the movie, follow history, or work some middle path. It isn’t an easy choice, especially since some of the events most important to understanding the Doughtie affair have been left out - most infamously, the “dispute on the Mary,” which is probably the big breaking point between Drake and Doughtie. That being said, the spirit of the movie is to realistically represent history. It isn’t a wild, overdramatized fantasy, which makes the writer’s choices that much more difficult. Should fic be more canonical than canon?
Supreme Commander
Let’s start with Francis Drake. Once upon a time, Sir Francis Drake was every little boy’s hero. Current revisionism paints him as paranoid, greedy, a pirate. His greatest exploit, the circumnavigation, was probably unplanned and undertaken of necessity when it became clear he couldn’t return to England through the Straits of Magellan. In his second greatest, the defeat of the Spanish Armada, he was used as a figurehead to frighten the Spanish and did very little to actually advance the battle.
In the movie, he’s a little of both hero and cad. Most people come away from Drake’s Venture completely loving Doughtie (infamous fangirl quote: “Who cares if he’s guilty? If you kill him, you can’t make out with him!”) But there’s a peculiar conversion that happens over time: upon repeated viewings, Drake grows on the viewer. He’s a lying bastard, completely amoral and self-serving, a megalomaniac. And yet, he’s sexy, determined, a member of a lost breed of men. And there’s something in him which is almost childlike, needing acceptance. The real Francis Drake grew up without his father in the home, and it’s my take that the reason he squanders most of his money trying to impress powerful people is that he desperately wants the love and acceptance of authority.
This insecurity leads him to the worst class pretensions of the nouveau riche - everything from bringing musicians and silver plate on his voyage of piracy to dousing himself in rosewater. On land, he curries favor with the beautiful people. At sea, he’s a tyrant who will brook no disobedience from anyone, no matter their status. And yet, his men are loyal despite everything - despite Drake’s lie that they are going to Alexandria instead of Peru, despite weathering 40 days of brutal storm in the Straits of Magellan, Drake holds his crew together through sheer force of will. It’s like watching a force of nature. Reincarnating him as a bull is not so far-fetched.
Puppie!!!!
Could there be a man more opposite in temperament from Francis Drake than Thomas Doughtie? Doughtie is a gentleman, secretary to Christopher Hatton, schooled in law at London’s Inner Temple, fluent in multiple languages, a soldier, a courtier, and, rumor has it, a sorcerer, the disciple of the infamous Doctor John Dee. He is also, despite all this, or perhaps because of this, an enormously devout Anglican.
What little we know about the historical Doughtie can be found in the exhaustive essay “Doubting Thomas: the Dought(ie) Affair in Fictive History and Historical Fiction.” It runs to around 80 pages printed, so I’ll summarize: Doughtie was probably a terrific fellow, and the charges against him were greatly exaggerated, at best. But historians, especially in the Victorian Era, tended to portray Doughtie as an Eeevil Manipulator, relying on quoting each other and on the logic that “Drake was a hero so Doughtie must be a villain” rather than consulting the source documents of the period. A bit of the villainous Doughtie is found in the Doughtie of the movie. But Drake’s Venture remains well-balanced: there are times when Doughtie is a treacherous bastard, but his complaints are ultimately valid. From the moment he sets foot on the Pelican, Drake begins to bully and insult him. And it is easy to forget, in the light of Drake’s great exploit, that the Golden Hinde returned home with 40 of 160 men who began the voyage. If Doughtie actually did wish to abandon the passage through Magellan and seek safer pickings in the northern seas, it would have been a damn sensible idea to the men on board who would have preferred survival instead of a place as a footnote in history books.
The movie’s Doughtie schemes, uses his tongue and intellect where Drake uses force of will. Perhaps the most emblematic symbol of their contrasting personas is the way in which they wear their cloaks. Drake’s is a practical garment, worn over both shoulders to keep him protected from the elements. Doughtie wears his rakishly over one shoulder, in the manner of a fashionable gentleman, a constant reminder of status in even the direst circumstances. And yet, strangely, it’s Doughtie who is the democratic one. He is an enormously proud man, and yet he treats his friend as an “equal companion,” even though Drake is below him on the social ladder. In the movie, one of the first signs of trouble is Doughtie’s proclamation that they are “partners,” (which he could well expect, seeing as he greatly financed the voyage and advocated it to the members of the privy council). Drake won’t have it. Despite the fact that Doughtie commands a regiment of soldiers, Drake insists that he is the leader of the expedition. (It is beyond the scope of this essay to examine maritime history in depth: suffice it to say that Doughtie’s execution established the precedent for the captain being sole master of the ship - at the time, Drake did not have the right to countermand someone who was his social better.)
Given the disparate temperaments, lifestyles and experiences of these men, what is the basis of friendship, let alone slash fiction? The movie gives us only tantalizing hints: an embrace of joy when they are given permission to leave England, a celebratory toast to the success of their venture. But the screenshots!
Flirty...flirtyflirtyflirty!
Oh, Teh Luurve!
But from here on in, the relationship deteriorates with amazing rapidity. What happened? What went before? The writer of fanfic inevitably turns to history, to “histon,” only to discover that the story is even more mysterious, more problematic. For one, we actually know very little of the relationship between Drake and Doughtie before they leave Plymouth. The pair met in Ireland, when Doughtie was a servant of Walter Devereux, Earl of Essex. Drake was hired by Essex to ferry some soldiers to what turned out to be the Rathlin Island massacre. Exactly how Drake and Doughtie came to know each other is uncertain. Doughtie claims to have introduced Drake to Essex, Drake claims that Doughtie was no longer in Essex’s retinue at the time. Both had reason to lie, but perhaps Drake more so.
It is during their stay in Ireland that their legendary friendship was formed. Almost all historians agree on the existence of said friendship even if some argue against its reciprocal sincerity (it seems clear that Drake could be using Doughtie for his connections, less clear exactly what Doughtie could gain from association with Drake…and yet, there is a long tradition of assuming that Doughtie was the manipulator!) Even after Doughtie’s death, Drake insists on the reality of that friendship, begins to tell people that he sacrificed his closest friend because his loyalty to the state had to outweigh his personal affection (which was clearly not what happened at the time.) Over the years, it seems that Drake may have looked back at the event with regret, his friendship with nostalgia. Perhaps it isn’t quite as cynical as it sounds when the Drake of the movie tells Queen Elizabeth, “He was to me as my other hand, your majesty. I loved him well, and would that he were here to share our triumph.”
The ficcer is faced with a choice of three basic paradigms for the relationship. One, the one best supported by the evidence, has Drake as a paranoid rotter who used his friend, and Doughtie either as innocent victim or a simply less-adept rotter. Strict movie canon opts for the latter, there are a handful of fics which portray the former, unforgiving of Drake in light of the unspeakably moving portrayal of the martyrdom of Thomas Doughtie (arguably Paul Darrow’s best performance.)
The Most Beautifullest Thing EvAR
The second path is the beautiful illusion: Drake and Doughtie share an idyllic friendship in Ireland, but are split by circumstances for a year. They end up with opposing political loyalties. Doughtie is working for William Cecil Lord Burghley to sabotage the voyage, which they feel will be detrimental to England’s relationship with Spain (this interpretation was a standard assumption for many years, and that there is no evidence to support it has never deterred historians.) At the end, the friends reconcile, understanding that each man has played his part in a story much larger than their own personal considerations.
The third path is the one (for obvious reasons) most popular in fanfiction: they were In Luurve. It’s amazing, actually, to look at the historical narrative in that light. Actions which seem incomprehensible were Drake and Doughtie comrades at arms or business partners suddenly make perfect sense if the events are seen as a lover’s quarrel spun out-of-control. Certain phrases which appear over and over in reference to the historical Doughtie - “conjuror,” “Italianate gentleman” - are basically period euphemisms for “sodomite.” The question which historians skirt around - what was Doughtie expecting to gain from a close friendship with a man of a lower class? - is answered by the one of the assumptions of the period: a gentleman too familiar with a social inferior is obviously getting hawt mansex. And one of the major incidents which the movie chooses to leave out involves a bit of roughhousing between the men - a “cobbey,” a common sort of hazing at sea. Despite being roundly thumped by his friends, the trumpeter, John Brewer, chooses to take great offense that Doughtie has lightly slapped him on the buttock. For this slight accusation, the historical Drake relieves Doughtie of his command. Was Drake being homophobic - or jealous?
The movie’s interpretation is clearly not this one. In it, it’s fairly apparent that bad weather and scurvy have made Drake paranoid, and also that, offended by Drake’s high-handed treatment, Doughtie is trying to reassert his authority in a dangerous and disruptive way. But then we have the sequence surrounding Doughtie’s last meal at St. Julian’s Bay:
A loaf of bread, a jug of wine, and thou...
Drake: How would you die, Thomas, by me with a firearm or by the executioner’s axe?
Doughty: Wouldst kill me thyself, Francis?
Drake: If that be thy wish, yes I would.
Doughty: But it would give you no pleasure.
Drake: By God’s own truth Thomas, no pleasure at all.
Doughty: Thank you, good captain, but not by your hand, by the axe if you will.
Drake: So be it.
Doughty: You still intend to go through Magellan? And when you are done, return by the Straits of Anian, the Northwest Passage that Frobisher seeks?
Drake: Aye if there be one.
Doughty: You will be famous then.
Drake: Aye, and you go to a better place.
The dynamic between the principals, their tones of voice, the strangely flirtatious way that they banter over the manner of Doughtie’s death is bathed in subtext. [And for the real language geek - they slip into the familiar “thy!”] Drake’s Venture is not the first historical fiction to see the incident this way; the second half of “Doubting Thomas” discusses the “romance” of the Drake/Doughtie story at length. There is even one poem, Alfred Noyes’ Drake: an English Epic, where Drake cradles Doughtie’s decapitated head in his arms throughout a midnight vigil, staring into the dead face like a Patagonian Salome. Fanfiction has not added the romantic elements to the story, simply made overt - very explicitly so! - the sexual ones.
The Doughtie-Drake Dynamic in Fanfiction:
Drake/Doughtie is a disturbing ship. There are many fandoms where one can speak of dangerous liaisons between the characters, but few where it is so very clear that the happiest, healthiest thing for one partner is to stay half a world away from the other. It can never be far from the ficcer’s mind that if Doughtie makes the wrong move, the canonically disastrous ending will result. Arguably, it’s messed up to ship them at all…and yet…and yet.
We keep circling back to the friendship, the very great friendship which, if not sexual, clearly falls into the period paradigm of “romantic.” There’s no basis for this friendship at all. The two men have nothing in common. “Opposites attract,” we can say with some glibness, but sometimes opposites combust - and I think that’s the crux of the story.
Thomas Doughtie is everything Drake wants to be - sophisticated, eloquent, well-bred, handsome. Francis Drake is everything Thomas Doughtie wants to be - bold, authoritative, experienced. They look at each other and see a mirror of their own desires. It is a significant irony that “Thomas” literally means “twin” (and that legends concerning the foundation of empire often involve the sacrifice of a twin or a ritual beheading!) Drake and Doughtie are spiritual twins, closer than brothers in their opposition. It is significant for a number of reasons (including the avoidance of an impossibly complex plethora of Johns and Toms on the Pelican) that the movie eliminates two very important historical figures, Drake’s brother Tom, and Doughtie’s brother John. The choice to eliminate Tom Drake is interesting considering that he was one of the major movers in the anti-Doughtie faction. As a replacement, the movie increases the role of Drake’s nephew, John, and makes him about 10 years older than he was historically (mid-twenties instead of teens). The elimination of John Doughtie is, on the other hand, really necessary for the film to function. Doughtie’s passion is already pathetic enough - add the element of his little brother watching his beheading, and all sympathy for Drake is lost forever.
But the real reason the brothers vanish in Drake’s Venture is that there is no need for them. The polarity, the brotherhood, is between Drake and Doughtie. And when looking at a self both so desirable and yet so alien, there are only two possible responses: absolute adoration or absolute loathing. The relationship between the two is so archetypal that the writer is ensnared, as if reconciling Drake and Doughtie would somehow right all the divisions in the universe.
But how to accomplish it? The historical Francis Drake was very much the sort of man who would destroy what he could not have. Add that to the palpable UST of the movie, and one has a recipe for working backward. Assume that Drake’s loathing is provoked by Doughtie’s pride, his unavailability. If Doughtie can be made available, Drake turns into a doting lover, the kind of man who offered oranges to little boys in the streets of Plymouth.
One question leads to another. If Doughtie is unavailable, why is that so? Is it his religious piety which keeps him from sin? Such potential here, ending in guilty angst if he submits. Then again, we’re told so much about “Italianate” leanings that perhaps he isn’t afraid of sin so much as disdainful of consorting with a member of the lower class. Then the fic can be about learning to reconcile one’s pride to love - or a brutal breaking of that pride. Perhaps one man, or the other, or both are too deeply closeted to consider consummating their relationship. Will it be a tragedy of circumstance, or an AU where love and tolerance triumph? Perhaps it’s Drake, enamored with the ideal of manhood, who denies the physical attraction, even to the point of killing its object. This ship can take the writer to the darkest recesses of the heart, where pride and jealousy end in murder.
There are even fics which read the Drake-Doughtie dynamic as a twisted dom-sub relationship: Doughtie is topping from below and is only truly happy when he accepts his role as the subordinate. It is to the credit of the writers in the fandom that this trope rarely seems exploitive. Doughtie and Drake are nuanced characters; neither is an angel. The key to these stories is an understanding of Drake as much as an understanding of Doughtie, of having empathy for a man who won wealth and fame, and never made another friend. (Of course, what kind of fool would want to be Drake’s new BFF considering what he did to the first one?) The historical Drake died embittered and lonely; glimpses of his occasionally endearing childlike gestures remind the writer of what might have been if only Doughtie were the perfectly sympathetic companion he was supposed to be.
Other premises lead to easier, more comfortable answers. There are a handful of fics where Doughtie actually does something deserving of his fate, many more where Drake is set up in some way into believing in his friend’s betrayal (and there is a good deal of historical evidence that much of the trouble between Drake and Doughtie was provoked by Ned Bright, John Brewer and Drake’s younger brother, Tom). The easiest, happiest way to resolve the ship is to assume that there was some hidden, plot-based complication which forced events to turn out tragically, but which could have been repaired…and very often, these fics portray Drake’s reaction (given what he knows or is faced with) as being more reasonable than what we find in canon/histon. In this case, we leave Thomas Doughtie sleeping safely in his lover’s arms, not having to worry that a misstep will have him back on the chopping block. These stories make us feel warm all over, and yet…and yet.
Go out with style!
We keep circling back to the tragedy, the horror, and Doughtie’s glorious, glorious death. Isn’t any attempt to mitigate it also to diminish it?
Ah, the reincarnation fic, where we can have our cake and eat it too. Drake and Doughtie get a second chance, or a third, or a fourth…the game is to preserve the characters and put them into an entirely new situation. Was it circumstance that made them the way they were? Make Drake a playwright and Thomas an actor in 17th century Japan, where homosexuality is openly accepted, and suddenly their conflict begins upon the stage and ends on a futon. But this could also be accomplished through a simple AR fic. No, the real attraction of the reincarnation trope is the memory, is in all the emotional baggage they carry. Do they know who they were? How do they know? They had damn well better find out! And then the fireworks fly, the game starts over again. Have they learned anything at all?
And here, to me, is the point: in the movie, in history, the Drake/Doughtie ship is a fatal attraction, a poison. In fiction, it has a chance to be transformed into the amrita, the nectar of immortality, of an eternal love that transcends mortal enmity. Reconciliation of opposites is possible, even inevitable. Their bitter hate smolders in the ashes of a love of equal heat. With our words, we coax and coo until we loose the phoenix.
Till we meet again...
Resources
There is a transcript of the movie here. In addition, although the movie has never been commercially available, and has never appeared on DVD, copies have been known to mysteriously appear…
There are two Live Journal communities dedicated to DV fandom.
dv_squee is the general comm., containing manymanymany historical references, announcements of new fics, icons and general merriment.
dv_ficarchive is what it says - an archive of Drake’s Venture fiction. Fics posted to the archive are collected quarterly in a .pdf ‘zine called Fquie (that's "squee" in Elizabethan orthography). The original issue was a simple LJBook attempt to produce a lasting copy of the archive…when yours truly was quite disappointed in the way it looked, I began to format it myself. Fquie 1-3 are available as downloads for the asking.
The dv_squee FAQ is an extensive overview of facts and resources about both the history and the fandom. Another great resource is the
crack_van overview written by
alinewrites.
Fic recs are available on crack_van as well…but since
alinewrites drove the van, she couldn’t rec her own fics. To remedy this deficit, might I suggest the following…
“ Saudade” - a reincarnation fic where all the old issues of class distinction and meddling friends come back to haunt our heroes.
“ Worn Out” - part of an AU series where Thomas is Tomas Valiente, a Spaniard captured by Drake. You don’t need to read the rest of the series to appreciate this very hawt fic - but you’ll want to anyways. It’s a lovely, sexy read with a happy ending for a change.
“ Playing Games” - a crossover into the Sweeney Universe. Rough cops and rough sex - what more do you want?
“ Vae Victis” - a preincarnation fic this time - absolutely devastating.
But really, anything by
alinewrites is worth reading - hot and angsty.