This book report draws on two biographical sources — Charles Kingsley's Sir Walter Raleigh and His Times (2004) and James A. St. John's The Life of Sir Walter Raleigh, 1552 to 1618 (2005) — to survey the life of one of England's most celebrated Elizabethan figures. The paper covers Raleigh's origins in Devonshire, his early military service, his sponsorship of the first English settlements in North America, his search for El Dorado in South America, his repeated imprisonments in the Tower of London, and his eventual execution in October 1618. Together, the sources paint Raleigh as a soldier, poet, historian, and loyal servant of the Crown whose life was marked by both great ambition and dramatic misfortune.
Sir Walter Raleigh has long been considered one of the greatest British explorers of his time and is perhaps best remembered as a close friend and ally of Queen Elizabeth I. Raleigh was also a poet and historian who wrote extensively about his adventures and explorations in the New World, some of which has since passed into myth and legend. According to Charles Kingsley, the author of Sir Walter Raleigh and His Times (2004), the spelling of Raleigh's surname was originally "Ralegh," and he signed many official court documents as "Ralegh," never spelling his name any other way. The title "Sir" before his first name is the result of being knighted by Queen Elizabeth I in 1584; thus, his full given name is Sir Walter Ralegh (45).
Raleigh was born sometime around 1552 in the area of Budleigh Salterton Bay, located in the county of Devonshire, England, and was the son of Walter and Catherine Ralegh. Because the early years of his life are not precisely known, there is no firm proof regarding whether he ever married or had children. However, there is some evidence that he seduced one of the queen's handmaidens, named Elizabeth Throgmorton — an allegation Raleigh denied. When the queen heard of the alleged affair, she sent Raleigh to the Tower of London as punishment. As Kingsley points out, this story is quite possibly pure fiction, since the queen's handmaidens were not permitted to marry without her consent — not to mention that the queen herself may have been in love with Raleigh (75).
In 1568, at the age of sixteen, Raleigh attended university but apparently stayed for less than a year without receiving any degree. Shortly afterward, he became involved in the military as an English volunteer and allegedly fought in the Battle of Jarnac in 1569, and was present in Paris during the Massacre of St. Bartholomew in 1572. None of this can be proven conclusively, yet it is clear that Raleigh always considered himself a soldier above all else.
In The Life of Sir Walter Raleigh, 1552 to 1618, author James A. St. John (2005) examines what is perhaps the most significant dimension of Raleigh's career: his adventures and explorations in the New World, primarily along what is now the eastern coast of North America. Raleigh had close connections with the earliest English settlements in Virginia. In 1584, he instructed two captains, Amadas and Barlowe, to explore the region now known as Florida and then northward into North Carolina. The following year, in 1585, Raleigh sent Sir Richard Grenville and a group of English settlers to North America, where they established a colony on present-day Roanoke Island in North Carolina (213).
"Royal disgrace, South American voyage, imprisonment"
The life of Sir Walter Raleigh, as St. John reminds us, was "filled with adventure and intrigue," and although he witnessed much tragedy, Raleigh remained a gallant and brave soldier who was "eternally dedicated to Queen Elizabeth I and to his beloved England" (256).
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