Walter Ralegh
Sir Walter Ralegh (1554?—1618) was an English courtier, explorer, colonizer, adventurer, poet, and historian. He was born near East Budleigh in Devon, and Aubrey said that he retained a Devon accent all his life.[1] Aubrey, Naunton,[2] and Fuller[3] have various anecdotes about him, but the difficulty of knowing the assumptions of a past age make it difficult to judge his character.
The courtier and politician
Walter was the fourth son in his family, and it is uncertain how he was introduced to the court of Elizabeth, but by 1583 he had an acknowledged position there, and was soon very influential. He destroyed this influence by his marriage to one of the queen's maids of honour, and although he was eventually reinstated at court he never regained the same influence, and he never became a member of the Privy council, which may indicate that his judgment was not much valued. He was a Member of Parliament for various seats, all in the West Country.[4] The main thrust of his politics was opposition to Spain and he was considered a leader of the anti-Spanish party. His prominent position at court was enough to make him generally hated, but his prosecution for treason, and imprisonment under James VI and I, who was conspicuously pro-Spanish, helped to make him a popular (Protestant) hero.[5]
Soldier, colonizer and explorer
Ralegh appears to have served as a volunteer in the Huguenot wars in France, and was certainly part of the English army in Ireland. Here he was granted estates in the plantation of Munster, where one of his neighbouring settlers was Edmund Spenser. As a military man, he was one of the two leaders of the successful English raid on Cadiz in 1596. He attempted unsuccessfully to found two colonies in Virginia, but never settled there himself.
His principal exploration on his own account was in two expeditions, to Guiana (now Venezuela). After the first he claimed to have discovered gold. Released from prison in 1596 to make the second expedition, forces under his command attacked and sacked Spanish settlement, whether with Ralegh's authority is not known. This and the failure of the expedition revived the treason charges against him, and he was executed.
References
- ↑ Aubrey's Brief Lives ed. O L Dick. Secker & Warburg 1949 (earlier editions are said to have been bowdlerised)
- ↑ Naunton, Robert. Fragmenta Regalia: or Observations on the late Queen Elizabeth, her times and favourites. 1641
- ↑ Fuller, T. History of the Worthies of England. 1662
- ↑ Nicholls, M and Williams, P. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
- ↑ Hill, C. Intellectual Origins of the English Revolution. Oxford University Press. 1965