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.

The richest pirates of all time