Sir Walter Raleigh: An Elizabethan Adventurer

Sir Walter Raleigh, was a poet, soldier, explorer, and adventurer. He was a favourite of the Queen, one of the greatest names in English history, and an Elizabethan hero. He was also a murderer, a pirate, a Protestant bigot, and was to die on the scaffold.

Walter Raleigh was born on 22 January, 1552, near Budleigh Salterton in Devonshire. He was the youngest of 5 boys, 3 of whom were his half-brothers by his mother, Catherine Champermowne’s, previous marriage. His family were wealthy landowners who were also Protestants who lived in fear of their lives during the reign of the Catholic Queen Mary. They were friends of Agnes Prest who was burned to death for practising her faith at Exeter, and at one point Walter’s father, also Walter, was forced to go into hiding to avoid execution. So early in his most formative years he developed  a life-long hatred of Roman Catholicism. Despite the family’s perilous position, however, they had connections to the Royal Court; Raleigh’s mother was the niece of Kat Ashley, the Governess of the future Queen Elizabeth.

Little is known of Walter’s early life but in 1568, aged 16, he was registered as an Undergraduate at Oxford University, though he never attended. Likewise, in 1575, he was down to study Law at the Middle Temple but again never attended. It would appear that throughout this time he was on the Continent serving as a soldier of fortune.

By 1579, Walter Raleigh was in Ireland where he helped put down the so-called Desmond Rebellions against increasing English influence in the country. On 12 September, 1580, 600 Italian troops who had been dispatched by the Vatican to support the Rebellion were forced to surrender at the fortress of Dunan Oir. Disarmed they were then summarily put to death. Raleigh was a pivotal figure in the massacre and personally killed a great many, giving full vent to his fury at anyone associated with the Roman Catholic faith.

Raleigh was richly rewarded for his loyal service in Ireland. He was granted lands and estates of more than 40,000 acres and became one of the wealthiest landowners in the newly-established colony of Munster, and he was by all accounts an unremittingly harsh and unsympathetic landlord.

His 17 years as an Irish landowner were not particularly profitable, he had little head for business, and did little to assist his tenant farmers. He was, however, credited with having introduced the potato to Ireland. During his time there he also became friends with another Englishman who had profited from the colonisation, the poet Edmund Spenser, who encouraged him in his own writing and introduced him to many influential people.  His estates in Ireland did though provide him with the money to pursue his seafaring activities.