Sir Walter Raleigh: Being a True and Vivid Account of the Life and Times of the Explorer, Soldier, Scholar, Poet, and Courtier--The Controversial Hero of the Elizabethian Age

Sir Walter Raleigh: Being a True and Vivid Account of the Life and Times of the Explorer, Soldier, Scholar, Poet, and Courtier--The Controversial Hero of the Elizabethian Age

by Raleigh Trevelyan
Sir Walter Raleigh: Being a True and Vivid Account of the Life and Times of the Explorer, Soldier, Scholar, Poet, and Courtier--The Controversial Hero of the Elizabethian Age

Sir Walter Raleigh: Being a True and Vivid Account of the Life and Times of the Explorer, Soldier, Scholar, Poet, and Courtier--The Controversial Hero of the Elizabethian Age

by Raleigh Trevelyan

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Overview

An enthralling new biography of the most exciting and charismatic adventurer in the history of the English-speaking world

Tall, dark, handsome, and damnably proud, Sir Walter Raleigh was one of history's most romantic characters. An explorer, soldier, courtier, pirate, and poet, Raleigh risked his life by trifling with the Virgin Queen's affections. To his enemies—and there were many—he was an arrogant liar and traitor, deserving of every one of his thirteen years in the Tower of London.

Regardless of means, his accomplishments are legion: he founded the first American colony, gave the Irish the potato, and defeated Spain. He was also a brilliant operator in the shark pool of Elizabethan court politics, until he married a court beauty, without Elizabeth's permission, and later challenged her capricious successor, James I.

Raleigh Trevelyan has traveled to each of the principal places where Raleigh adventured—Ireland, the Azores, Roanoke Islands, and the legendary El Dorado (Orinoco)—and uncovered new insights into Raleigh's extraordinary life. New information from the Spanish archives give a freshness and immediacy to this detailed and convincing portrait of one of the most compelling figures of the Elizabethan era.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781466865990
Publisher: Holt, Henry & Company, Inc.
Publication date: 03/11/2014
Sold by: Macmillan
Format: eBook
Pages: 640
Sales rank: 888,787
File size: 4 MB

About the Author

Raleigh Trevelyan, a direct descendant of Sir Walter Raleigh, was for many years a distinguished publisher; his previous books include The Fortress and Rome 44. During the last two decades he has combed the British, Spanish, Italian, and his own family's archives to write this authoritative life story. He lives in London and Cornwall.


Raleigh Trevelyan, a direct descendant of Sir Walter Raleigh, was for many years a distinguished publisher; his previous books include The Fortress and Rome 44. For two decades he combed the British, Spanish, Italian, and his own family’s archives to write the authoritative life story of Sir Walter Raleigh, first published in 2002. He lives in London and Cornwall.

Read an Excerpt

Sir Walter Raleigh


By Raleigh Trevelyan

Henry Holt and Company

Copyright © 2002 Raleigh Trevelyan
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4668-6599-0



CHAPTER 1

Family and Childhood


'He hath been as a star at which the world has gazed; but stars may fall ...' These were the words of the Attorney-General when the final order was given for Raleigh's execution in 1618.

Sir Robert Naunton, who was Secretary of State at that time, used a different metaphor as he looked back at the span of Raleigh's career in the time of Queen Elizabeth. He called him 'Fortune's tennis-ball' – 'She tossed him up of nothing, and to and fro to greatness, and from thence down to little more than to that wherein she found him, a bare gentleman. Not that he was less, for he was well descended and of good alliance; but poor in his beginnings.' Raleigh descended from an old Devon family, and liked to claim that he could count on the support of 'more than a hundred gentlemen of my kindred', chiefly through his nearest relatives, the Champernownes, Carews and Grenvilles. As so little is known about his childhood, it is important to single out a few of those who had an influence on his upbringing. It must also be said that by no means all his supporters and relatives were from such backgrounds.

The reason for his own family's decline can be traced to the Cornish rising of 1497, in which his grandfather was somehow involved. This had meant not only a heavy fine but having to let the ancestral home Fardel Manor, that still stands in the lee of Dartmoor near Ivybridge and Cornwood.

His father, also called Walter, was married three times, and Raleigh was his youngest child. The first wife was Joan Drake, a step down socially maybe, though she was related to Francis Drake and was the daughter of a merchant with large shipping interests at Exmouth, sending tin and cloth to northern Spain and France, and in return bringing back wine, iron and glass. The Raleighs had manorial rights in the parish of Colaton Raleigh, not far from Exmouth and where the Drakes had land. For this reason Walter and Joan, no doubt with help from her father, acquired a lease on the farmhouse or barton of Hayes in the neighbouring parish of East Budleigh.

The future Sir Walter Raleigh loved Hayes Barton, as it became known, and in his years of affluence tried to buy it. The house – large, thatched with gabled wings, and mullioned windows – stands in rolling country and is well watered with a stream and pool. To the north is Woodbury Common, these days mostly covered with bracken and gorse. Possibly the original medieval building was modernized after his parents left – the windows for instance being glazed instead of shuttered. The red stone walls have now been mostly cemented over, and there is a general air of prosperity with several recent farm buildings. Pigs are bred here, or were in the 1990s. Perhaps the garden gnomes are not quite in character, but the flowerbeds appear weedless and the lawn is immaculate. A long narrow lane leads to East Budleigh, a traffic problem for the many pilgrims, who in any case obviously are a burden to the present owners.

There was not much land attached to Hayes Barton in Walter's and Joan's day, so presumably the family had grazing rights over part of Woodbury Common. Perhaps they were also able to farm some land at Colaton. Be that as it may, Walter was soon to join the Drakes in privateering, a sea-going activity little short of piracy – at any rate it was all very lucrative.

The modern village of East Budleigh, kept scrupulously tidy, has an unspoilt charm, and the massive sandstone tower of St Mary's rises above it like a castle keep. Walter senior must have been regarded as the squire, for in 1543 he was called upon to raise men for the French war and in 1547 he was made Justice of the Peace. At St Mary's he occupied the front left-hand pew, at the end of which his arms used to be carved, supported by two foxes and with an antlered helmet above, indicating no doubt a love of the chase. There is also a date, 1537. But the panel which contained the coat of arms has been cut away by some vandal or souvenir-seeker. There are many curiously carved bench-ends in the church, some grotesque and including the Green Man wreathed in leaves; and one does still have the Raleigh arms (five diamonds diagonally) impaled with those of Grenville, in deference to Walter senior's mother, who was a Grenville. As the family grew in size this is where the younger members would have sat.

Walter was an ardent supporter of the reformed religion, as was a new vicar who presided over the removal of the rood loft. Its not especially pleasant to record that in 1546 Walter was responsible for carrying off a cross of gold and silver, and that he refused to give it up, grinding it to pieces.

Walter and Joan had two sons, George born in 1527 and John about two years younger. Both boys seem to have grown into pretty rough characters and took up privateering with zest, sometimes in alliance with their father and the Drakes. We get the impression that Sir Walter Raleigh was not particularly close to these half-brothers, and was even ashamed of them, especially George. On the other hand his expert knowledge of shipbuilding and his love for the sea obviously had much to do with his connection with the Drakes of Exmouth.

Joan died in the late 1530s. There have been two theories about Walter's second marriage. One was that his wife was Italian, Elizabeth the daughter of Giacomo di Ponte of Genoa, the other – generally favoured and more likely – that she was Isabel Dorrell, daughter of a London merchant. Whoever she was, she died giving birth to a daughter named Mary, eventually to marry Hugh Snedall of Exeter, also a merchant. The Snedalls had a daughter, Margaret, who married the very rich William Sanderson, yet again a merchant, also a financier. Dorrells and Snedalls appear in the ups and downs of Raleigh's fortunes. Sanderson became Raleigh's financial agent and an important investor in his overseas ventures.

In 1548 or 1549, Walter married again, this time certainly a love match, and into the gentry. His third wife was Katherine, daughter of Sir Philip Champernowne of Modbury and Katherine Carew. Like Walter she was a strong Protestant, 'with a hatred of bigotry and the Spanish', and the widow of Otho Gilbert, owner of Compton Castle, a fortified manor house in a wooded valley near Newton Abbot. They had three children: a son called Carew, a daughter variously known as Margaret or Margery, and Walter the subject of this book.

The Champernownes were a leading Devon family, of Norman descent (like the Gilberts), from Cambernon (Campo Arnulfi), and one ancestor had married the daughter of an illegitimate son of Henry I. In Tudor times widows of the gentry and nobility were much sought after, and thus soon remarried. The Gilberts were well off, their money coming from ships and shipbuilding; in the 14th century, for instance, they had provided ships for conveying pilgrims to Santiago de Compostela. However, Katherine had three sons by Otho Gilbert, so it is unlikely that she would have wished to deprive them of any inheritance from their father, and thus she would not have brought her new husband much financial benefit.

These three Gilbert sons were all remarkable people. They had been born at Greenway, overlooking the river Dart, its tall dense woods reflected in the river. The eldest, John, later Sir John, went to live at Compton Castle, which still has a strong atmosphere of the period, with its portcullis, solar (drawing room), and chapel. He became Sheriff and a Vice-Admiral of Devon, with responsibilities for local defences against the Armada. The second, Humphrey, born in 1537, the great navigator and would-be colonizer, has a secure place in Elizabethan history; a brilliant and courageous man, though hot-tempered and at times cruel, he was also knighted, and was a great influence on the young Walter Raleigh. The third was Adrian, less extrovert, an astrologer and chemist, closely allied to the mysterious and controversial 'magus' Dr Dee. Adrian was also a garden designer and had mining interests. According to Aubrey he was 'very sarcastic, and the greatest buffoon [mocker] in the nation'; a suggestion has been made that he was a model for Falstaff in The Merry Wives of Windsor.

It has often been regretted that no portrait exists of Katherine Champernowne, who as Raleigh's mother and the mother of these Gilberts injected genius into this 'fighting clan'. A portrait does however exist of one of her aunts, which could have had some resemblance. This aunt was also called Katherine: 'Kat' Astley, who was the much loved governess and confidante of Elizabeth when she was a princess. Her face in this portrait is not especially handsome, but pleasant and calm, with dark eyes and dark straight hair parted at the middle. 'She bringeth me up from the cradle to the grave', Elizabeth once said.

Another of Raleigh's great-aunts was Joan Champernowne. She married Sir Anthony Denny, who had been Chief Gentleman of the Privy Chamber to Henry VIII and was also related to the Boleyns. At periods of particular stress in her youth Elizabeth stayed with the Dennys.

Whether Raleigh actually met these two great-aunts is unlikely, but their relationship with the Queen was to stand him in good stead. He certainly was close to his uncle, his mother's brother, Sir Arthur Champernowne of Dartington Hall, a powerful figure in the county who for a while was a Vice-Admiral of Devon.

* * *

There are two anecdotes worth telling about Raleigh's parents, both from before he was born. The first shows how Walter senior could behave in that thick-skinned way that so infuriated his son's enemies – and in his case leading to a nearly fatal result.

The year was 1549. There was serious unrest in Devon and Cornwall, where the old faith was still strong. The government of Edward VI had decreed that Cranmer's new prayer book should be used from Whit Sunday. In the ensuing explosion of fury, known afterwards as the Commotion but now as the Prayer Book Rebellion, barns were set on fire, trees were felled to block roads, and local grandees were threatened or went into hiding. A band of Cornishmen crossed the upper Tamar, where they were joined by Devonians. It was at this stage that Walter, riding to Exeter, came across an old woman telling her beads, on the way to Clyst St Mary outside the city. He scolded her, saying that telling beads was now illegal and she had better watch out. This put her into a fury, and off she dashed into the church crying out to the congregation that the gentry were getting ready to burn down their homes, adding 'many other speeches very false and untrue'. 'All in haste and like a sort of wasps', the people 'flung' themselves out of the church. 'They overtook Master Raleigh and were in such a choler, and so full of rage with him, that, if he had not shifted himself into the chapel there, and had been rescued by certain mariners [employees of his Drake father-in-law?] he had been in great danger of being murdered.' Barricades were put up and the bridge was fortified. Meanwhile Walter had tried to escape, but they caught him again and had him imprisoned in the tower of St Sidwell at Exeter, where he was 'many times threatened with death'.

Clyst St Mary became a focus for the rebels. Exeter was besieged, and food became scarce, which made it even more unpleasant for Master Raleigh. But there was not much hope for the rebels against the troops under Lord Grey of Wilton. 'The fighting was fierce and cruel and bloody.' Some of the rebels were put to the sword, some burnt alive in their houses, others drowned as they tried to escape across the river: all rather hard to visualize in respectable, present-day, Clyst St Mary, virtually a suburb of Exeter.

The story has a postscript. The repercussions of the Rebellion were felt in the next reign, on the accession of Queen Mary. Katherine Raleigh's cousin Sir Peter Carew was also a strong Protestant and had been a leading figure in quelling the revolt. Now, in 1553, he was one of those actively campaigning against Mary's marriage to Philip II of Spain. His arrest was ordered, and it was Walter who provided the bark to convey him, 'apparelled like a servant', to Weymouth with other dissidents. From there they crossed the Channel and were enthusiastically welcomed by Henri II of France. Afterwards Walter was locked up for three weeks in the Fleet prison in London, we assume for his part in Carew's escape.

The second, very different, anecdote concerns Katherine, and indeed is the only one we have concerning her. It appears in Foxe's Book of Martyrs and also occurred in the reign of Mary.

Agnes Prest of Launceston, 'a worthy gentlewoman,' though illiterate, was arrested for heresy and utterly refused to heed the views of her husband and children, who remained Catholic. She was taken to Exeter Castle and sentenced to be burnt. Many tried to reason with her, including her husband. Then Katherine Raleigh came – as Foxe tells us, a 'woman of noble wit, and of a good and godly opinion'. She said the creed to Agnes, but when she came to the words 'He ascended' told Agnes that 'God dwelleth not in temples made with hands; and that Sacrament to be nothing else but a remembrance of His blessed Passion'. On her return home Katherine told her husband that she had never heard a woman of such simplicity 'talk so godly, so sincerely, and so earnestly; insomuch that, if God were not with her, she could not speak such things. To which I am not able to answer her, who can read, and she cannot.' Soon afterwards Agnes went to the stake, determined on her martyrdom.

Here, it must be admitted, Katherine showed a humility rather different from that associated with any of her sons. Her visit to Agnes Prest, in the climate of those times, was certainly courageous.

* * *

Sir Walter Raleigh's age given on his portraits is by no means constant. As a result some biographies favour 1552 as his year of birth, and others, more usually, 1554. But then it could have been just as easily 1553. For this book it is taken as 1554.

His brother Carew was born in 1550. Aubrey tells us that he was musical and had a 'delicate clear voice and played singularly well on the olpharion (which was the instrument in fashion in those days) to which he did sing'. Like Walter he was tactless and quick-tempered. Carew's finances were enormously improved by his marriage to Dorothy Wroughton, daughter of a Mayor of London and widow of John Thynne of Longleat, to whom he had been 'gentleman of the horse'. Eventually knighted, he was not nearly so gifted as his brother, nor as handsome (if we assume that he is the subject of the ridiculously garbed portrait on the stairs at Longleat).

Not much is known of their sister Margaret/Margery, except that she married twice, first Lawrence Radford, second George Hall of Exeter. The latter was to hold a position of trust in the family, especially in the darkest days of her younger brother's life.

Nearly all is speculation about young Walter Raleigh's early years. We have for instance Charles Kingsley writing about this daring boy, fishing in the trout brooks, or going up with his father to the Dartmoor hills to hunt with hound or horse. If he did hunt deer, more likely it would have been on Woodbury Common. Certainly he would on occasions have accompanied his father and half-brothers on journeys by sea from Exmouth and Budleigh Salterton, and helped in the shipbuilding. No doubt he also listened to the yarns of ancient, and not so ancient, mariners/privateers/pirates about the Spanish Main and exotic lands full of strange beasts and fabulous treasure. The exploits of the Hawkins family of Plymouth certainly would have been a tremendous inspiration for boys such as the Raleighs; in 1562 and 1564 John Hawkins went on his two voyages to the Caribbean, trading in slaves and ivory acquired in Portuguese Guinea, 'partly by the sword and partly by other means'.


(Continues...)

Excerpted from Sir Walter Raleigh by Raleigh Trevelyan. Copyright © 2002 Raleigh Trevelyan. Excerpted by permission of Henry Holt and Company.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

Table of Contents

Contents

Title Page,
Copyright Notice,
Dedication,
List of illustrations,
List of maps,
A Preface,
Family and Childhood,
With the Huguenots: 1568–72,
Desirous of Honour: 1572–9,
Foothold at Court: 1580,
Ireland: 1580–81,
A Kind of Oracle: 1582–3,
Grandeur at Durham House: 1583,
The First Virginia Voyage: 1584,
The Roanoke Fort: 1585,
El Draque: 1586,
More Riches: 1586–7,
A Competition of Love: 1587,
Armada: 1588,
Two Shepherds Meet: 1589,
The Lost Colonists: 1590,
Grenville of the Revenge: 1591,
Scandal and the Tower: 1592,
The School of Night: 1593,
The Mind in Searching: 1594,
Arrival at Trinidad: 1595,
Guiana: 1595,
Drake's Last Voyage: 1595,
No Forgiveness Yet: 1596,
Cadiz: 1596,
An Uneasy Triumvirate: 1597,
The Islands Voyage: 1597,
Crisis in Ireland: 1598,
Age Like Winter Weather: 1599,
Rage and Rebellion: 1600,
Machiavelli and Parliament: 1601,
Malice and Betrayal: 1602,
The Main and the Bye: 1603,
The Trial: 1603,
Waiting for the End: 1603,
Life in the Bloody Tower: 1604,
Friendship with the Prince: 1605–7,
The Great History: 1608–9,
O Eloquent, Just and Mighty Death!: 1610–12,
The Overbury Affair: 1613–15,
Release: 1616,
Aboard the Destiny: 1617,
Chronicle of Death: 1617,
'My Brains are Broken': 1618,
'Piratas! Piratas!': 1618,
Cold Walls Again: 1618,
Even Such Is Time: 1618,
Afterwards,
Appendix: Family Background,
Notes,
Acknowledgements,
Bibliography,
Credits for Illustrations,
Index,
Also by Raleigh Trevelyan,
Copyright,

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