Sir Walter Raleigh was born about 1554 near Budleigh Salterton in Devonshire, England. He was a soldier, poet, historian, scientist, and explorer.
Raleigh’s birth near the sea turned his thoughts to adventure at an early age. He fought in the wars with France in his youth, and attended Oriel College in Oxford. He soon won the favor of Queen Elizabeth I, and was made Captain of her Guard. Soon Raleigh was knighted and held various posts in her government.
In 1584, Sir Raleigh was granted a charter to found a colony in the New World, having been inspired by the failed efforts of his half brother, Sir Humphrey Gilbert, to plant a colony in the New World. In 1585, the first colonists of about 100 men were sent out. Raleigh named the new land Virginia, in honor of Queen Elizabeth I, the virgin Queen. Raleigh sent the expedition to Roanoke Island, off the coast of North Carolina, where the 100 men lived about a year.
This group of 100 men was the first attempt by England to plant a colony in the New World. The men gathered information about the Indians, the plant and animal life, and the land in general. But the settlers seemed more interested in searching for gold than colonizing, and the area was abandoned within a year.
In 1587, Raleigh sent out another group of about 120 persons, with men, women, and children to the Roanoke site. But war soon broke out with Spain in 1588 and by the time another ship could come from England with supplies, all the colonists had disappeared. Discouraged, Sir Raleigh gave up his efforts to colonize America. He could not have known that this lost colony was not really lost, that the colonists had probably joined with the local friendly Indians in order to survive.
Sir Raleigh turned his attention to other matters. In 1595, he explored Orinoco River in what is now present day Venezuela for gold. Also he became interested in colonizing southern Ireland, where he hoped to establish English colonies. Here he became friends with Edmund Spenser, who was then writing “Faerie Queen”. Raleigh was already an established poet himself by this time. One of his better known poems is “The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepherd”, and his longest poem, “Book of the Ocean to Cynthia” was never finished.
The unfinished poem told of Raleigh’s devotion to Queen Elizabeth. Sadly, Raleigh lost the Queen’s favor when he married one of the Queen’s ladies-in-waiting, Elizabeth Throckmorton, secretly. But in 1596 during the war with Spain, Sir Raleigh played a leading part in the capture of the Spanish city of Cadiz, and was once again in the Queen’s favor.
Queen Elizabeth I died in 1603, and James I ascended to the throne. James was an enemy of Sir Raleigh’s because Raleigh had been accused of conspiring against James. For this reason, James condemned Sir Raleigh to death. The sentence was thrown out, yet Sir Raleigh still spent most of the remainder of his life in the Tower of London imprisoned.
It was there that Sir Raleigh wrote “The History Of The World” and carried out chemical experiments. He was let out of his imprisonment in 1616, with his mind set on Guiana. He led a voyage there the same year.
But instead of finding gold, Raleigh clashed with the Spaniards, and his eldest son, who had went with him on the voyage, was killed. Raleigh was executed October 29, 1618 to satisfy Spain. Raleigh’s death caused a great outcry among the English, and the public turned against King James I. Sir Raleigh became a hero with his death.
The efforts that Sir Walter Raleigh made changed history, even after his death. He had introduced Ireland to potatoes from the New World. His literature and poetry is still well known. Perhaps one the now known sadder things Raleigh did was to make smoking tobacco popular.
