RALEIGH, SIR WALTER (c. British ex plorer, was born about 1552, the son of Walter Raleigh, of Far dell, and Catherine, daughter of Sir Philip Champernown of Modbury. He was born at the farmhouse of Hayes near Budleigh Salterton Bay. In 1568 he was entered as a commoner of Oriel College, Oxford. In 1569 he followed his cousin Henry Champer nown, who took over a body of English volunteers to serve with the French Huguenots and was perhaps present at the battle of Jarnac (Mar. 13, 1569). Nothing is known with certainty of his life until February, 1575, when he was resident in the Temple. In June 1578 his half-brother Sir Humphrey Gilbert obtained a patent for six years authorizing him to take possession of "any remote barbarous and heathen lands not possessed by any Chris tian prince or people." During 1578 Gilbert led a piratical expedi tion against the Spaniards. Raleigh accompanied his half-brother as captain of the "Falcon," and was perhaps with him in an un successful voyage in 1579. In 158o Raleigh was twice arrested for duels, and he attached himself to the earl of Leicester, and to the earl of Oxford. Late in 158o he was serving as captain of a company of foot in Munster. He took an active part in suppress ing the rebellion of the Desmonds; he advocated a ruthless policy against the Irish, and recommended assassination as a means of getting rid of their leaders.
In December 1581 he was sent home with despatches and his great fortune dates from his arrival at court, where he was already known through his correspondence with Walsingham. He had corresponded with Walsingham for some time. It is possible that Raleigh did throw his mantle on the ground to help the queen to walk dry-shod over a puddle, and that he scribbled verses with a diamond on a pane of glass to attract her attention. His tall and handsome person, his caressing manners and his quick wit cer tainly pleased the queen, and the stories in Sir Robert Naunton's Fragmenta Regalia and in Fuller's Worthies represent at least the mythical truth as to his rise into favour. The rewards showered on him were out of all proportion to his services in Ireland. In February 1583 he accompanied the duke of Anjou to Flanders. In 1583 he received the grant of Durham House, Strand, and in the same year the queen's influence secured him two beneficial leases from All Souls, Oxford, which he sold to his advantage, and a patent to grant licences to "vintners"—that is, tavern keepers, which he subleased. In 1584 he had a licence for exporting
woollen cloths. He was knighted in 1584. In 1585 he succeeded the earl of Bedford as Warden of the Stannaries. Raleigh made a good use of his new powers in the mining districts of the west. He reduced the old customs to order, and showed himself fair to the workers. In 1586 he was given 40,000 acres of the forfeited lands of the Desmonds, on the Blackwater in Ireland. He planted English settlers, and introduced the potato and tobacco. In 1587 he received a grant of part of Babington's forfeited land.
Raleigh was now at the height of his favour; Queen Elizabeth always had several favourites at once, lest any one might be sup posed to influence her. She treated Raleigh exclusively as a court favourite, but never gave him any great office, nor admitted him to the council. Even his post of captain of the Guard, given in 1587, was mainly ornamental. The patent given to his half-brother Sir Humphrey Gilbert ran out in 1584. To avert this loss Raleigh, partly out of his own pocket, provided the means for the expedi tion to Newfoundland in 1583, in which Gilbert died. The patent was renewed in Raleigh's favour in March Raleigh now began the series of ventures in the colonization of Virginia. His patent gave him and his heirs the proprietary right over all territory they occupied on payment of one-fifth of the produce of all mines of precious metals to the crown. In April 1584 Raleigh sent out two captains, Philip Amadas and Arthur Barlowe, on a voyage of exploration. They sailed by the Canaries to Florida, and followed the coast of North America as far as the inlet between Albemarle and Pamlico sounds in modern North Carolina. The name of Virginia was given to a vast and undefined territory, but none of Raleigh's captains or settlers reached the state of Virginia. In the same year he became M.P. for Devonshire. His first body of settlers, sent out in 1585 under Sir Richard Grenville, landed on what is now Roanoke Island in North Carolina. The settlers got on bad terms with the natives, and deserted the colony when Drake visited the coast in 1586. Attempts at colonization at the same place in 1586 and 1587 failed (see NORTH CAROLINA), and in 1589 Raleigh resigned his rights to a company of merchants, preserving to himself a rent, and a fifth of whatever gold might be discovered.