Walter Raleigh

1554-1618

Place of Birth: Devon, England

Biography:

Historians believe Walter Raleigh was born in 1552, or possibly 1554, and grew up in a farmhouse near the village of East Budleigh in Devon. The youngest of five sons born to Catherine Champermowne in two successive marriages, his father, Walter Raleigh, was his mother’s second husband. Like young Walter, his relatives, Sir Richard Grenville and Sir Humphry Gilbert were prominent during the reigns of Elizabeth I and James I. Raised as a devout Protestant, Raleigh’s family faced persecution under Queen Mary I, a Catholic, and as a result, young Walter developed a life-long hatred of Roman Catholicism.

At the age of 17, Walter Raleigh left England for France to fight with the Huguenots (French Protestants) in the Wars of Religion. In 1572, he attended Oriel College, Oxford, and studied law at the Middle Temple law college. During this time, he began his life-long interest in writing poetry. In 1578, Raleigh set out with his half-brother, Sir Humphrey Gilbert on a voyage to North America to find the Northwest Passage. Never reaching its destination, the mission degenerated into a privateering foray against Spanish shipping. His brash actions were not well received by the Privy Council, the monarch’s advisors, and he was briefly imprisoned.

Legacy:

Sir Walter Raleigh was an English adventurer and writer who established a colony near Roanoke Island, in present-day North Carolina. He was imprisoned in the Tower of London and eventually put to death for treason.