Raleigh mixed
scholarship with soldiering from an early age, fighting on the
Protestant side in the French Wars of religion. After this he
attended Oriel College, Oxford. In 1580 his courage and outspoken
manner distinguished him in a campaign against Irish rebels in
Munster. He soon attracted the attention of Elizabeth I.
He became the Queen's favorite at court, receiving a knighthood in
1585 as well as numerous other favors, and huge estates in Ireland.
Sir Humphrey Gilbert, the great navigator, was his half brother. He
took part in many expeditions abroad, including attempts to establish
colonies in both North and South America, and several literary works
resulted from these travels. After Gilbert went down on The Golden
Hind, Raleigh set out "to discover and conquer unknown
lands and take possession of them in the Queen's name."
He founded the colony which, in honor of the Virgin Queen was named
Virginia. Raleigh was a very cultured man, and a close friend of the
poet Edmund Spenser, whom he met in Ireland in 1580. He was also
linked with a group known as the 'School of Atheism', whose circle
included Christopher Marlowe and George Chapman.
Raleigh's fiery character ensured that his fortunes at court were
very unstable; in 1592 a jealous Queen Elizabeth imprisoned him for a
short time for marrying one of her maids of honor, Elizabeth
Throckmorton. He eventually regained favor with Elizabeth, but his
enemies successfully conspired against him when James I ascended the
throne. Raleigh was convicted of treason and spent the next thirteen
years in the Tower of London. He passed his time in prison by writing
several books, including A Discourse of War and his History of the
World. The History was intended for ordinary readers, not just
experts, and its outspoken criticisms of unjust kings amount to an
indirect attack on James I.
In 1616 he was released from the Tower to lead a gold-hunting
expedition to Guiana. The trip was his last chance to prove his worth
to King James, but it was a spectacular disaster. Raleigh was struck
down by a tropical fever and the officer he entrusted with command not
only failed to find any gold, but attacked and burned a Spanish
settlement, an action which had been strictly forbidden by the King.
Raleigh's eldest son was killed in the fighting, and the officer later
committed suicide. Returning home in disgrace, Raleigh was tried, and
found guilty, and then beheaded outside Westminster Hall on October
29, 1618. The poem 'Even Such is Time' is traditionally said to have
been composed on the eve of his execution
His most famous poems include an 'Epitaph of Sir Philip Sidney',
'Even Such is Time' and the sonnets 'Methought I Saw the Grave Where
Laura Lay' which prefaced Spenser's Faerie Queene, and 'Sir Walter
Raleigh to His Son'. The standard edition of his Poems was produced by
A. Latham in 1951. His prose 'Report of the Truth of the Fight about
the Isles of Açores' (1591) inspired Tennyson's poem 'The Revenge'.
Other notable prose works are The Discoverie of Guiana (1596) and The
History of the World (1614), written during his long imprisonment for
the Prince of Wales. Raleigh braves the opinion of the worldly in 'The
Lie'; mixes grimness and humor in 'The Wood, The Weed, The Wag'; and
rises out of bitterness in "The Passionate Man's Pilgrimage," bearing
the subtitle 'Supposed to be written by one at the point of death,"
and alternately thought to serve as Raleigh's own elegy.
