As with his earlier The Siege of Rhodes (1656) and The Cruelty of the Spaniards in Peru (1658), Davenant cast The History of Sir Francis Drake as a musical drama to avoid the Puritan prohibition of stage plays during the English Commonwealth era.
The three Davenant works were important in the evolution of English opera and musical theatre, and heralded the coming revival of drama with the Restoration of 1660.
[1] Like The Cruelty, Davenant's Drake was not only tolerated but even encouraged by Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell, for its value as anti-Spanish propaganda.
He drew his narrative materials from Philip Nichols's Sir Francis Drake Revived (1626; reprinted 1652).
At one point, Davenant shows Drake allying himself with the "Symerons" or Cimaroons, escaped slaves of Surinam who had formed their own independent society.