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Walter Raleigh

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: British History
1500-1750; Historical figures

   Portrait of Walter Raleigh, near age 32, by Nicholas Hilliard, c.1585
   Portrait of Walter Raleigh, near age 32, by Nicholas Hilliard, c. 1585

   Sir Walter Raleigh ( 1552 or 1554 – 29 October 1618), is a famed
   English writer, poet, courtier and explorer. He was responsible for
   establishing the first English colony in the New World, on June 4,
   1584, at Roanoke Island in present-day North Carolina. When the
   settlement failed, the ultimate fate of the colonists was never
   authoritatively ascertained, and it became known as "The Lost Colony".

Early life

   Raleigh was born in the year 1552 in the house of Hayes Barton, not far
   from Budleigh Salterton in Devon. He was a half brother of Sir Humphrey
   Gilbert, and also had a full brother named Carew Raleigh. Raleigh's
   family was strongly Protestant in religious orientation and experienced
   a number of near-escapes during the reign of the Catholic Queen Mary I
   of England. In the most notable of these, Raleigh's father had to hide
   in a tower to avoid being killed. Thus, during his childhood, Raleigh
   developed a hatred of Catholicism, proving himself quick to express it
   after the Protestant Queen Elizabeth I came to the throne in 1558.

   In 1568 or 1572, he was registered as an undergraduate at Oriel
   College, Oxford, but does not seem to have taken up residence, and in
   1575 he was registered at the Middle Temple. His life between these two
   dates is uncertain but from a reference in his History of the World he
   seems to have served with the French Huguenots at the battle of Jarnac,
   13 March 1569. At his trial in 1603 he stated that he had never studied
   law.

   In 1578, as captain of the ship Falcon, Raleigh went on an expedition
   with Humphrey Gilbert against the Spanish. He was also perhaps with him
   on an unsuccessful voyage the following year.

Ireland

   Between 1579 and 1583, Raleigh took part in the suppression of the
   Desmond Rebellions. He was present at the siege of Smerwick, where he
   oversaw the slaughter of some 700 Italian soldiers after they had
   surrendered unconditionally. Upon the seizure and distribution of land
   following the attainders arising from the rebellion, Raleigh received
   40,000 acres (160 km²), including the coastal walled towns of Youghal
   and Lismore. This made him one of the principal landowners in Munster,
   but he enjoyed limited success in inducing English tenants to settle on
   his estates.

   During his seventeen years as an Irish landlord, Raleigh made the town
   of Youghal his occasional home, where he was mayor from 1588 to 1589.
   He is credited with having planted the first potatoes in Ireland, but
   it is far more likely that the plant arrived in Ireland through trade
   with the Spanish. His town mansion, Myrtle Grove, is assumed to be the
   setting for the story that his servant doused him with a bucket of
   water after seeing clouds of smoke coming from Raleigh's pipe, in the
   belief he had been set alight. But this story is also told of other
   places related to Raleigh: the Virginia Ash inn in Henstridge near
   Sherborne, Sherborne Castle, and South Wraxall Manor in Wiltshire, home
   of Raleigh's friend, Sir Walter Long.

   Amongst Raleigh's acquaintances in Munster was another Englishman who
   had been granted land there, the poet Edmund Spenser. In the 1590s, he
   and Raleigh travelled together from Ireland to the court at London,
   where Spenser presented part of his allegorical poem, the Faerie
   Queene, to Elizabeth I.

   Raleigh's management of his Irish estates ran in to difficulties, which
   contributed to a decline in his fortunes. In 1602, he sold the lands to
   Richard Boyle, 1st Earl of Cork. Boyle subsequently prospered under
   kings James I and Charles I, such that following Raleigh's death,
   Raleigh family members approached Boyle for compensation on the basis
   that Raleigh had struck an improvident bargain.

The New World

   Engraved portrait of Raleigh.
   Engraved portrait of Raleigh.

   Raleigh's plan for colonization in the " Colony and Dominion of
   Virginia" (which included the present-day states of North Carolina and
   Virginia) in North America ended in failure at Roanoke Island, but
   paved the way for subsequent colonies. His voyages were funded
   primarily by himself and his friends, never providing the steady stream
   of revenue necessary to start and maintain a colony in America.
   (Subsequent colonization attempts in the early 17th century were made
   under the joint-stock Virginia Company which was able to pull together
   the capital necessary to create successful colonies.)

   Raleigh put together several voyages to travel to and explore the New
   World. The first English colony in the new world was established by Sir
   Walter Raleigh on 4 June 1584 at Roanoke Island of old Virginia (now
   North Carolina). The settlement was forced to abandon the island for a
   number of reasons. Most of the first settlers were not skilled farmers
   or gardeners; the soil on the island is very sandy, dry and infertile;
   and the settlers' primary motivation for venturing to America was to
   seek fortune in gold or other precious products. When it became obvious
   that this was not going to happen, they wanted to leave. Relations
   broke down between the settlers and the local native tribes as the
   colonists placed heavy demands on the natives' crops.

   In 1587, Raleigh attempted a second expedition again establishing a
   settlement on Roanoke Island. This time, a more diversified group of
   settlers was sent, including some entire families, under the governance
   of John White. After a short while in America, White was recalled to
   England in order to find more supplies for the colony. He was unable to
   return the following year as planned, however, because the Queen had
   ordered that all vessels remain at port in case they were needed to
   fight the Spanish Armada. It was not until 1591 that the supply vessel
   arrived at the colony, 4 years later, only to find that all colonists
   had disappeared. The only clue to their fate was the word "CROATOAN"
   and letters "CRO" carved into separate tree trunks, suggesting the
   possibility that they were either massacred, absorbed or taken away by
   Croatoans or perhaps another native tribe. Other speculation includes
   their being swept away or lost at sea during the stormy weather of 1588
   (credited with aiding in the defeat of the Spanish Armada). However, it
   is worth noting that a hurricane prevented John White and the crew of
   the supply vessel from actually visiting Croatoan to investigate the
   disappearance, and no further attempts at contact were recorded for
   some years. Whatever the fate of the settlers, the settlement is now
   remembered as the "Lost Colony of Roanoke Island".

Later life

   Raleigh and his son Walter in 1602.
   Raleigh and his son Walter in 1602.

   In December 1581 Raleigh came back to England from Ireland with
   despatches as his company had been disbanded. He took part in Court
   life and became a favourite of Queen Elizabeth. The various colourful
   stories told about him at this period are unlikely to be literally
   true. In 1592, Raleigh was given many rewards by the Queen, including
   Durham House in the Strand and the estate of Sherborne, Dorset. He was
   appointed Captain of the Guard, and as Lord Warden of the Stannaries of
   Devon and Cornwall. Raleigh was knighted in 1585. However, he was not
   given any of the great offices of state. In the Armada year of 1588 he
   was employed as Vice Admiral of Devon, looking after the coastal
   defenses and military levies. He does not seem to have taken part in
   the sea battles.

   In 1591, Raleigh was secretly married to Elizabeth ("Bess")
   Throckmorton (or Throgmorton), eleven years his junior, one of the
   Queen's ladies-in-waiting and pregnant for the third time. She gave
   birth to a child who was given to a wet nurse at Durham House, but does
   not seem to have survived, and Bess resumed her duties. When, during
   the following year, the unauthorized marriage was discovered, the Queen
   ordered Raleigh imprisoned and Bess dismissed from court. He was
   released from prison to divide the spoils from a captured Spanish ship,
   the Madre de Dios ("Mother of God").

   It would be several years before Raleigh returned to favour. The couple
   remained devoted to each other and during Raleigh's absences, Bess
   proved a capable manager of the family's fortunes and reputation. They
   had two sons, Walter (known as Wat) and Carew. Raleigh retired to his
   estate at Sherborne where he built a new house, completed in 1594,
   known then as Sherborne Lodge but is now extended and known as
   Sherborne (new) Castle. He made friends with the local gentry, such as
   Sir Ralph Horsey of Clifton Maybank and Charles Thynne of Longleat.
   During this period at a dinner party at Horsey's, there was a heated
   discussion about religion which later gave rise to charges of atheism
   against Raleigh. He was elected to Parliament, speaking on religious
   and naval matters.

   A year after coming into possession of a Spanish account of a great
   golden city at the headwaters of the Caroni River in 1594, he explored
   South America in search of Manoa, the golden city. Once back in
   England, he published an account of his voyage claiming to have found
   the city when in fact, he never even made it all the way up the river.
   Raleigh took part in the capture of Cadiz in 1596, where he was
   wounded. He also participated in a voyage to the Azores in 1597.

   From 1600 to 1603, Raleigh was the Governor of the Channel Island of
   Jersey, and he was responsible for modernizing the defenses of the
   island. He named the new fortress protecting the approaches to Saint
   Helier Fort Isabella Bellissima — or, in the less ebullient English
   version, Elizabeth Castle.
   Raleigh's "cell", Bloody Tower, Tower of London
   Raleigh's "cell", Bloody Tower, Tower of London

   Though royal favour with Elizabeth had been restored by this time, it
   did not last. Elizabeth died in 1603, and Raleigh was imprisoned in the
   Tower of London on 19 July. Later that year, on 17 November, Raleigh
   was tried in the converted Great Hall of Winchester Castle for treason
   due to his supposed involvement in the Main Plot against King James. He
   was left to languish in the Tower of London until 1616. While
   imprisoned, he wrote many treatises and the first volume of The
   Historie of the World, about the ancient history of Greece and Rome.

   In 1616, Sir Walter was released from the Tower of London in order to
   conduct a second expedition to the Orinoco River in South America, in
   search of El Dorado. In the course of the expedition, Raleigh's men,
   under the command of Lawrence Keymis, sacked the Spanish outpost of San
   Thome. During the initial attack on the town, Raleigh's son Walter was
   struck by a bullet and killed. On Raleigh's return to England, the
   outraged Diego Sarmiento de Acuña, the Spanish ambassador, demanded
   that King James reinstate Raleigh's death sentence.

Death

   The Spanish ambassador's demand was granted. Raleigh was beheaded with
   an axe at Whitehall on 29 October 1618. "Let us dispatch," he asked his
   executioner. "At this hour my ague comes upon me. I would not have my
   enemies think I quaked from fear." After he was allowed to see the axe
   that would behead him, he mused: "This is a sharp Medicine, but it is a
   Physician for all diseases and miseries". According to many biographers
   — Raleigh Trevelyan in his book Sir Walter Raleigh (2003) for instance
   — Sir Walter's final words (as he lay ready for the axe to fall) were:
   "Strike man, strike!"

   His widow claimed the corpse and had it buried in the local church in
   Beddington, Surrey, the home of Lady Raleigh. "The Lords," she wrote,
   "have given me his dead body, though they have denied me his life. God
   hold me in my wits".

   Although his popularity had waned considerably since his Elizabethan
   heyday, his execution was seen by many, both at the time and since, as
   unnecessary and unjust. It has been suggested that any involvement in
   the Main Plot appears to have been limited to a meeting with Lord
   Cobham.

Poetry

   Walter Raleigh is generally considered one of the foremost poets of the
   Elizabethan era. His poetry is generally written in the relatively
   straightforward, unornamented mode known as the plain style. C. S.
   Lewis considered Raleigh one of the era's "silver poets," a group of
   writers who resisted the Italian Renaissance influence of dense
   classical reference and elaborate poetic devices. In poems such as
   "What is Our Life" and "The Lie" Raleigh expresses a contemptus mundi
   (contempt of the world) attitude more characteristic of the Middle Ages
   than of the dawning era of humanistic optimism. However, his
   lesser-known long poem "The Ocean to Cynthia" combines this vein with
   the more elaborate conceits associated with his contemporaries Spenser
   and Donne, while achieving a power and originality that justifies
   Lewis' assessment, and contradicts it by expressing a melancholy sense
   of history reminiscent of "The Tempest" and all the more effective for
   being the product of personal experience. Raleigh is also Marlovian in
   terms of the terse line, e.g. "She sleeps thy death that erst thy
   danger sighed".

Raleigh in culture

     * The 1955 film, The Virgin Queen, starring Bette Davis, Richard
       Todd, and Joan Collins, dramatizes the relationships between Queen
       Elizabeth, Raleigh, and his wife.
     * Sir Walter Raleigh appears as a secondary character (bass) in
       Benjamin Britten's 1953 opera Gloriana.
     * Raleigh's name is quoted in The Beatles' White Album song I'm So
       Tired, where the lyrics chide him for bringing the tobacco plant to
       England - "Although I'm so tired, I'll have another cigarette. And
       curse Sir Walter Raleigh. He was such a stupid git!". (A northern
       English expression meaning idiot).
     * Raleigh, North Carolina, takes its name from Sir Walter. The Hayes
       Barton neighbourhood takes its name from his birthplace. There are
       other cities and towns in the New World named "Raleigh", and a
       misspelling of it in Rolla, Missouri
     * Raleigh County in southern West Virginia is named for Sir Walter
       Raleigh.
     * There is a noted brand of American pipe tobacco called "Sir Walter
       Raleigh".
     * The name "Sir Walter Raleigh" is sometimes used in the odd Prince
       Albert in a can joke.
     * In February 2006, a bronze statue of Raleigh by sculptress Vivien
       Mallock was unveiled in the Devonshire village of East Budleigh.
       Costing some £30,000, it was a source of controversy as it had been
       part-funded by the British American Tobacco company.
     * The title of his comedy History of the World, Part I by Mel Brooks
       is a reference to Raleigh having finished only the first volume of
       his Historie of the World at the time he was executed.
     * Raleigh plays an important part in Anthony Burgess's novel A Dead
       Man in Deptford in which he is suggested as one of the persons who
       might have been responsible for the murder of Christopher Marlowe.
     * In the second series of the television program Blackadder, Lord
       Blackadder tells Queen Elizabeth that he'll sail around the Cape of
       Good Hope to show up, as Blackadder calls him, Walter "Ooh What A
       Big Ship I've Got" Raleigh. Blackadder also refers to him as "Sir
       Walter Rather-a-Wally Raleigh". Raleigh is played by Simon Jones.
     * One of Bob Newhart's stand-up comedy routines depicts one side of a
       telephone conversation between a skeptical businessman in London
       (played by Newhart) and "Nutty Walt" Raleigh who tries
       unsuccessfully to convince him of the merits of tobacco.
     * Raleigh's relationship with Bess Throckmorton and Elizabeth I is
       the subject of a forthcoming film, The Golden Age starring Cate
       Blanchett as Elizabeth I, and Clive Owen as Raleigh.
     * Raleigh is the subject of a chapter in William Carlos Williams'
       historicist essay titled In the American Grain (1925). Other
       chapters in the book are devoted to Hernán Cortéz, Juan Ponce de
       Leon, Hernando De Soto, Samuel de Champlain, and figures of
       American culture and politics.
     * Raleigh's name is mentioned in the Brobdingnagian Bards song "If I
       Had a Million Ducats" (a parody of "If I Had A Million Dollars" by
       Barenaked Ladies).

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