Sir Walter Raleigh, navigator, warrior, statesman, and writer in the reigns of Elizabeth and James I., he was born, probably in the year 1552, at Hayes Barton in Devon. He was the second son of a gentleman of a large ancient, his father having married three times, the third time to a widow who already had three children of her own. Altogether, there were nine children in the family. One of these went to Eton; the rest grew up and were educated at Hayes Barton. When they were not being schooled, they roamed the countryside and no doubt spent many pleasant and profitable hours at the nearby ports of Exmouth and Budleigh Salterton.
SIR WALTER RALEIGH		At the age of fifteen, in pursuit of more formal teaching, Walter was sent to study at Oriel College, Oxford,

At the age of seventeen (1569) he joined a body of gentlemen volunteers raised to assist the French Protestant Huguenots.

Four years later, he was back in London, with a view that he should study law. In 1578, Raleigh's half-brother, Humphrey Gilbert was given the royal permission for an attempt to discover a north-west passage to the Indies, Raleigh joined him but the expedition was a failure. In 1580, Raleigh obtained, through influence, the command of a hundred men in the suppression of the Desmond Rebellion in Ireland. he distinguished himself in the Irish rebellion, both by ability and severity and in 1581, as a mark of favour, he was sent to London with dispatches for the Queen.

The tall, handsome, witty Raleigh was immediately established as the court favourite. A result which has been traditionally attributed to an act of gallantry, namely, his throwing his embroidered cloak in a puddle in order that the queen might pass. In 1584 he obtained a charter of colonization and attempted the settlement of Virginia, the five ships reached Newfoundland and, for eleven days, England had a colony there. Then the settlers demanded to be taken away from the land of cold and fogs. On the homeward voyage, all but one of the ships foundered. Humphrey Gilbert was among those drowned. Raleigh promptly had the dead man's patent transferred to himself and, along with several friends, he formed a Fellowship for the Discovery of the North-West Passage. In 1584, the first Fellowship expedition set out and founded the colony of Virginia, returning the following year with a number of settlers. Again the venture failed and the survivors were brought back to England by Francis Drake. He also, obtained a large share of the forfeited Desmond lands in Ireland, and introduced here the cultivation of the potato. Through the queen's favour he obtained licenses to sell wine and to export woollens, was knighted and made lord - warden of the Stannaries or tin mines (1585), vice-admiral of Devon and Cornwall, and captain of the queen's guard (1587).

Raleigh was in Ireland when news of the Spanish Armada reached him and he hurried home to take up his duties as Vice-Admiral of Devon and Cornwall. He rendered excellent service against the Spanish Armada, (1588) and subsequently vessels were fitted out by him to attack the Spaniards.There is no record of his activities about this time but the following year he was very prominent in an action against the Spaniards off Gravelines. He took part, too, in an attempt, which failed, to set a king, hostile to Spain, on the Portuguese throne.

THE QUEEN'S DISPLEASURE

His star, as favourite, had set, at least temporarily. The new favourite was the Earl of Essex, and Raleigh was severely reprimanded for challenging him to a duel. A tactical retreat seemed to be in order and Raleigh retired to his estates in Ireland. By 1590 he was again in London and reinstated in favour. In 1592 Raleigh acquired the manor of Sherborne in Dorset, he wanted to settle and found a family. His marriage to Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Nicholas Throckmorton, possibly as early as 1588, had been kept a secret from the jealous queen. The birth of a son betrayed him, and he and his wife were both imprisoned in the Tower of London. Raleigh bought his release with profits from a privateering voyage in which he had invested, but he never regained his ascendancy at court.

THE SEARCH FOR EL DORADO

At last, Raleigh was free to attempt something that had long been in his mind - to discover the fabled El Dorado or region of gold he planned an expedition to Guiana., Early in 1595, he set out with a fleet of five ships and having overcome the Spanish at Trinidad, he embarked with a hundred men towards what he hoped was the final goal of his ambition. He reached the Orinoco; The story of his four-hundred-mile journey up the Orinoco may be read in The Discovery of Guiana which Raleigh wrote and published on his return to England, did little more than take formal possession of the country in the name of Elizabeth. In 1596 and the year following, he held a naval command against Spain under Lord Howard and the Earl of Essex, and assisted in the defeat of the Spanish fleet and the capture of Cadiz. Next year he captured Fayal in the Azores;

ON TRIAL FOR CONSPIRACY

In 1600 he became governor of Jersey. James I., on his accession in 1603, had his mind soon poisoned against Raleigh, whom he deprived of all his offices. Raleigh, was accused of complicity in Lord Cobham's treason in favour of Arabella Stuart.He tried to commit suicide; but when he was finally brought to trial, at Winchester in November 1603, his conduct, in face of the hectoring Attorney-General was calm, brave and entirely admirable. When the trial began," an enemy said, "I would have gone a thousand miles to see Raleigh hang; before the trial closed I would have gone a thousand miles to save his life." The trial was a sheer fabrication and an obedient jury convicted Raleigh of treason. He was, however, reprieved and confined to the Tower.

IN THE TOWER

As a politician and public character Raleigh is doubtless open to much animadversion; but in extent of capacity and vigour of mind he had few equals, even in an age of great men. Raleigh was left in the Tower of London, for the next thirteen years, characteristically, he made the most of his time. There were the chemical experiments by which he thought to discover the elixir of life or the magic stone of the philosophers. His writings are on a variety of topics, there was the prose History of the World which he was writing for Prince Henry, the ill-fated heir to the throne who died in 1611 and who, with his mother, was one of Raleigh's great admirers and champions. A few poetical pieces which stand comparison with anything else in the Elizabethan anthology. There were, too, the letters to the King himself in which Raleigh pleaded to be allowed to renew his search for El Dorado.

In 1616 he obtained his release by bribing the favourite Villiers, and by offering to open a fabulous gold mine which he believed to exist near the Orinoco. Raleigh, now 65, was forced to promise not to come into conflict with the Spaniards. The enterprise proved disastrous, Raleigh's force attacked the Spaniards, the Spanish Ambassador demanded his execution as a pirate when he returned home, having failed in his object and leaving his son dead on a foreign shore. James, to favour the Spanish court, with his usual meanness and pusillanimity determined to execute him on his former sentence. After a trial before a commission of the privy-council his former sentence which had never been revoked, was confirmed. On the scaffold, he asked to see the axe and commended the sharpness of its edge. This is a sharp medicine, but it is a sure cure for all diseases." his execution was carried out on October 29, 1618.

Thus, bravely, died Sir Walter Raleigh, a man who never succeeded in founding a colony but succeeded in establishing the colonising spirit, the man who introduced tobacco to this country, the man who had enough talents for several ordinary men, one of the greatest figures in one of the greatest eras of English history.

THE ARK ROYAL

In 1583, Sir Walter Raleigh joined with his half-brother in an attempt to establish an English colony in the New World. For this he built a four-masted ship, the Ark Raleigh.

		The Ark Raleigh was sold to Elizabeth for £5000. Her tonnage was 800, and crew 400; Her hull was still on galley lines, there is, starting from the bows, first the forecastle, then the waist of the ship; of the remaining part, the first half was called the half-deck, the nest portion the quarter-deck, because it occupied roughly one-quarter of the space, the remaining portion aft was the poop.The rig is the same as that described for the galleon, only the mizzens are more liberally provided with lateen sails. It was Raleigh's intention to command the new ship but the Queen refused to sanction this and the expedition sailed without him. The Ark Royal began a famous naval tradition.
The Ark Royal

She was the flagship of Lord Howard of Effingham against the Armada. Froude gives us a picture of the memorable council of war which was held in the main cabin of the Ark, on Sunday afternoon, August 8, 1588.

The Armada had been chased up Channel, and if left undisturbed would have recovered and been ready for Parma and his troops at Dunkirk, so "Howard, Drake, Seymour, Hawkins, Martin Frobisher, and two or three others met to consult, knowing that on them at that moment were depending the liberties of England." they decided on fire ships.

In1608 she was rebuilt and named the Anne Royal.