British navigator Francis Drake was known as Britain’s most feared "Sea Dog", a ruthless privateer who preyed on Spanish shipping in the New World. Although his knighthood was a reward for completing history’s second circumnavigation, the actual details of his voyage are a little more scandalous.

He had a secret agreement with Queen Elizabeth I to raid Spanish shipping. For several months, he plundered unsuspecting galleons and sacked ports along the Chilean and Peruvian coasts. In 1579, Drake seized his biggest prize – the Spanish treasure ship Nuestra Señora de la Concepción – and took a dozen chests of coins, 80 pounds of gold and 26 tonnes of silver. This made him the world’s richest pirate at the time.

History's most infamous pirates and their staggering fortunes