Biography of Sir Walter Raleigh

Janelle A. Resplandor

Grade 10 - Gift of Faith

Mount Carmel School of Infanta

English Literature 10

Mrs. Abigalle C. San Pedro

February 13, 2023

Sir Walter Raleigh, Raleigh also spelled Ralegh,

(born 1554?, Hayes Barton, near Budleigh
Salterton, Devon, England—died October 29, 1618,
London), English adventurer and writer, a favourite of
Queen Elizabeth I, who knighted him in 1585.
Accused of treason by Elizabeth’s successor, James I, he was imprisoned in the Tower of
London and eventually put to death.

Raleigh was a younger son of Walter Raleigh (d. 1581) of Fardell in Devon, by his third
wife, Katherine Gilbert (née Champernowne). In 1569 he fought on the Huguenot (French
Protestant) side in the Wars of Religion in France, and he is known later to have been at Oriel
College, Oxford (1572), and at the Middle Temple law college (1575). In 1580 he fought against
the Irish rebels in Munster, and his outspoken criticism of the way English policy was
being implemented in Ireland brought him to the attention of Queen Elizabeth. By 1582 he had
become the monarch’s favourite, and he began to acquire lucrative monopolies, properties, and
influential positions. His Irish service was rewarded by vast estates in Munster. In 1583 the
queen secured him a lease of part of Durham House in the Strand, London, where he had a
monopoly of wine licenses (1583) and of the export of broadcloth (1585); and he became
warden of the stannaries (the Cornish tin mines), lieutenant of Cornwall, and vice admiral of
Devon and Cornwall and frequently sat as a member of Parliament. In 1587, two years after he
had been knighted, Raleigh became captain of the queen’s guard. His last appointment under
the crown was as governor of Jersey (one of the Channel Islands) in 1600.

In 1592 Raleigh acquired the manor of Sherborne in Dorset. He wanted to settle and
found a family. His marriage to Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Nicholas Throckmorton, possibly as
early as 1588, had been kept a secret from the jealous queen. In 1592 the birth of a son

betrayed him, and he and his wife were both imprisoned in the Tower of London.
Raleigh bought his release with profits from a privateering voyage in which he had invested,
but he never regained his ascendancy at court. The child did not survive; a second son, Walter,
was born in 1593 and a third son, Carew, in 1604 or 1605.

Although Raleigh was the queen’s favourite, he was not popular. His pride and
extravagant spending were notorious, and he was attacked for unorthodox thought. A Jesuit
pamphlet in 1592 accused him of keeping a “School of Atheism,” but he was not an  atheist in
the modern sense. He was a bold talker, interested in skeptical philosophy, and a serious
student of mathematics as an aid to navigation. He also studied chemistry
and compounded medical formulas. The old idea that William Shakespeare satirized Raleigh’s
circle under the name of the "School of Night" is now entirely discredited.

Raleigh’s breach with the queen widened his personal sphere of action. Between

1584 and 1589 he had tried to establish a colony near Roanoke Island (in present North
Carolina), which he named Virginia, but he never set foot there himself. In 1595 he led an
expedition to what is now Venezuela, in South America, sailing up the Orinoco River in the
heart of Spain’s colonial empire. He described the expedition in his book The Discoverie of
Guiana (1596). Spanish documents and stories told by Indians had convinced him of the
existence of Eldorado (El Dorado), the ruler of Manoa, a supposedly fabulous city of gold in the
interior of South America. He did locate some gold mines, but no one supported his project for
colonizing the area. In 1596 he went with Robert Devereux, 2nd earl of Essex, on an
unsuccessful expedition to the Spanish city of Cádiz, and he was Essex’s rear admiral on the
Islands voyage in 1597, an expedition to the Azores.

Raleigh survives as an interesting and enigmatic personality rather than as a force in

history. He can be presented either as a hero or as a scoundrel. His vaulting imagination, which
could envisage both North and South America as English territory, was supported by
considerable practical ability and a persuasive pen, but some discrepancy between the vision
and the deed made him less effective than his gifts had promised.

QUESTIONS:

1. What was Sir Walton Raleigh best known for?

 Sir Walton Raleigh was a English Statesman, an author, soldier, and a explorer. He is among
the well-known individuals from the Elizabethan period. He is also renowned for
popularizing tobacco and the indispensable potato.

2. What motivate him to write his poems?

 His poems served as the outward expression of his public persona and his aspirations. He
thought of his own life as a grandiose epic gestures.

3. Who is/are his contemporaries? How did they influenced him?

 The Queen favored him for his bravery and lovely beauty and she lavishly awarded him. A
royal patent was given to him so he could travel the globe.
 Reference

Agnes M.C. Latham. (2019). Sir Walter Raleigh | Biography & Facts. In Encyclopædia Britannica.
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Walter-Raleigh-English-explorer