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By William E. Steinman:
Part 109, Sir Walter Raleigh:
April 25, 2005
Another man of the Elizabethan era was Sir Walter Raleigh (1552 -1618). This guy, while not as notorious or famous as Drake, did have the adventuring spirit. He was also something of a writer. He wrote for example "The Discoverie of Guiana" which described an expedition to Venezuela where he sailed up the Orinoco River. A bright intellectual adventurer Raleigh's literature went in several directions including poetry and a world history of sorts.
Although Born in Devon, Raleigh went adventuring early on. In 1569 he fought on the side of the Huguenots in the French Wars of Religion. In between wars, he went to college for a time. Then the Irish rebellion found him against the Irish in Munster in 1580. It was there he began to loudly criticize English policy in that war. Now, that kind of thing can get a fellow beheaded or promoted. In Raleigh's case, Liz took a liking to him and he became one of her favorites. From that, he made out like a bandit with properties, monopolies, and positions of influence. Because of what he did in Ireland, he acquired large estates in Ireland and, somewhere along the way he was knighted. He received many other honors and sat as a member of Parliament. He also became Captain of the Queen's Guard.
All of this came his way because the queen thought he was true to her. In fact, he had been married quite a while, but had neglected to tell Liz about it. When his wife produced a son, the cat was out of the bag and Raleigh went into the clink. He an his wife ended up in that infamous Tower of London. Well, it turned out Raleigh had invested some money with a privateer to finance a voyage which paid off handsomely. He was able to buy his way out of the clink, but his political career was pretty much over. Liz was, at bottom, a jealous queen.
Raleigh liked to shoot off his mouth which made him unpopular even while he was the Queen's favorite. Once out of favor he was fair game and a Jesuit accused him of teaching atheism. Actually, he did no such thing, but he was what we could call a philosophical skeptic. He was also a student in its true sense and studied mathematics and chemistry. His main interest with math was to support attempts to understand navigation.
With no more to gain from Liz, Raleigh sponsored a colonizing effort to establish a colony on Roanoke Island. This is an island off the coast of North Carolina. It became the so called "Lost Colony." Although the first expedition landed then returned to England, the second one did not fair so well. The group landed in 1587 then disappeared without a trace. One of the leaders , John White, returned to England and became embroiled in the war with Spain. By the time he returned to Roanoke in 1591 the colony was gone. 117 people had vanished without a trace.
Later, in 1595, Raleigh led his expedition to Venezuela and the Orinoco River. This was right in the middle of the Spanish colonial empire, but the lure of gold is an ever powerful stimulant to men of all ages. Raleigh had heard stories of the legendary city of El Dorado. This was the fabulous city of gold. He did find some gold mines, but no magical city. Raleigh also took part in some expeditions (raids) to Spain.
In 1603 James came to power and Raleigh was in trouble. James was a bit of a pacifist, or wimp depending on who you ask, and he did not like Raleigh mucking around and annoying Spain. As a guy who shot off his mouth, Raleigh had acquire more than his share of enemies. These second raters were all too happy to bring him down. He was accused and convicted of plotting to dethrone James on trumped up evidence. He got a reprieve from James and instead of execution he went to that good old Tower of London.
In 1616 he was release, but not pardoned. He then managed to get the King's permission to mount an expedition to Venezuela to get some of the gold he knew was there. He promised he could do that without ticking off the Spaniards. Unfortunately, his second in command decided to trash a Spanish town while Raleigh was down with fever. Worse yet, they found no gold. That pretty much tore it. James decided to invoke the original death sentence which had never been lifted. Raleigh was executed in 1618.
After his death, Raleigh became popular again, wouldn't you
know. He literary efforts were collected and published without
much verification. Some are most certainly his. For others we
cannot be sure. the major works are "The Discoverie of Guiana"previously
mentioned, "The Last Fight of the Revenge", and "The
History of the World."
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