Walter Raleigh

Who was Walter Raleigh?

• English writer

• Poet

• Explorer

• Established 1st English Colony

• Associated with Roanoke Island

• Was beheaded

Religion

• Raleigh's family was strongly Protestant

• Experienced a number of near-escapes during the reign of the Catholic Queen Mary I of England.

• In the most notable of these, Raleigh's father had to hide in a tower to avoid being killed.

Smerwick

• He was present at the siege of Smerwick

• Oversaw the slaughter of some 700 Italian soldiers after they had surrendered unconditionally

• Received 40,000 acres including 2 coastal walled towns

• Made him a principal landowner

Myrtle Grove

• He enjoyed limited success in inducing English tenants to settle on his estates.

• Credited with having planted the first potatoes in Ireland

• His town mansion, Myrtle Grove, is assumed to be the setting for the story that his servant doused him with a bucket of water after seeing clouds of smoke coming from Raleigh's pipe, in the belief he had been set alight

Virginia

• Raleigh's plan for colonization in the "Colony and Dominion of Virginia" (which included the present-day states of North Carolina and Virginia) in North America ended in failure at Roanoke Island

• Paved the way for subsequent colonies• Voyages were funded primarily by himself and

his friends• Never providing the steady stream of revenue

necessary to start and maintain a colony in America.

Sir Walter Raleigh

• Raleigh was knighted in 1585

Secret Marriage

• In 1591, Raleigh was secretly married to Elizabeth Throckmorton

• She was eleven years his junior

• She was one of the Queen's ladies-in-waiting

Secret Baby

• She gave birth to a child who was given to a wet nurse at Durham House

• Baby does not seem to have survived, and Bess resumed her duties.

• When, during the following year, the unauthorized marriage was discovered, the Queen ordered Raleigh imprisoned and Bess dismissed from court.

Sons

• It would be several years before Raleigh returned to favor. The couple remained devoted to each other and during Raleigh's absences; Bess proved a capable manager of the family's fortunes and reputation. They had two sons, Walter (known as Wat) and Carew.

Execution

• Raleigh was beheaded with an axe at Whitehall in 1618.

• "Let us dispatch," he asked his executioner. "At this hour my ague comes upon me. I would not have my enemies think I quaked from fear."

• After he was allowed to see the axe that would behead him, he mused: "This is a sharp Medicine, but it is a Physician for all diseases and miseries".

• According to many biographers Sir Walter's final words (as he lay ready for the axe to fall) were: "Strike man, strike!"

His Widow

• His widow claimed the corpse and had it buried in the local church

• "The Lords," she wrote, "have given me his dead body, though they have denied me his life. God hold me in my wits”

• His execution was seen by many, both at the time and since, as unnecessary and unjust.