General Notes

[Joanne's Tree.1 GED.GED]

2  SOUR S332582
3  DATA
4  TEXT Date of Import: 14 Jan 2004


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Alias:<ALIA> Sir Walter /Raleigh/
Custom Field:<_FA#> attended the University of Oxford
REFN2619
English adventurer and writer, who was prominent at the court of Queen
Elizabeth I, and became an explorer of the America's.
In 1578 he sailed to America with his half brother, Sir Humphrey
Gilbert.
He was Knighted by Queen Elizabeth sometime around 1580, and soon became
one of the mostpowerful figures in England.

<img src="http://freepages.geneal ogy.rootsweb.com/~floyer/jpegs/07506.jpg" align="right" width="223" height="288" alt="Sir Walter raleigh">
<a href="http://www.devon-cc.gov. uk/tourism/pages/woodbury/raleigh.html">Sir Walter Raleigh</a> was born at Hayes Barton, Devon in 1552. He was half brother to Sir Humphrey and Sir John Gilbert, from his mother's first marriage. He was a favourite of Queen Elizabeth I, although there is little to confirm the famous story of how he spread his cloak across a puddle so that the Queen could walk over it, except for the cloak included in his coat of arms.

Raleigh never actually set foot in North America, he just organised and helped finance the expeditions. The Queen refused to permit him to risk his life by going expeditions. One of his employees brought back the first potato to the British Isles which was first planted on Raleigh's Irish estate at Youghall. Raleigh made smoking fashionable, but it was Sir John Hawkins (or possibly Thomas Hariot, according to one account) who introduced tobacco to England.

The Treasury was very short of money to finance a fleet to fight the Armada, so Raleigh arranged for the construction of  "The Ark Royal", which weighed 800 tons and was completed in 1587.  Raleigh donated the ship in exchange for an I.O.U. of Ð5,000.  In 1588 Sir Richard Grenville and Raleigh took over the joint defense of Devon and Cornwall against the expected Spanish Armada. They arranged the construction of a series of beacons along the coasts. These were to be lit when the Armada was first sighted. As it happened, land-based soldiers did little but watch the sea battles from the coast and guard some Spanish prisoners.

The Queen was not happy with Raleigh's love affair with Bessie Throckmorton, one of her Maids of Honour, so she had him thrown in the Tower of London.She released him after one of his ships brought back a huge treasure from the Spanish ship "Madre De Dios".  Sir Walter and Bessie married and retired to his manor at Sherborne, Dorset, where he built Sherborne Castle in 1594.

After Queen Elizabeth died in 1603, James I took the throne, and Raleigh was framed as a member of a plot against the throne and sentenced to life imprisonment. During his imprisonment in the Bloody Tower he wrote the "History of the World" which was first printed in 1614.  He was released from prison but was then involved in another expedition against the Spanish. The expedition failed and he was re-arrested on the previous charges of conspiracy and sentenced to be beheaded.

For an interesting story of the interaction between Sir Walter and the Floyer and Carew families please see
<a href="http://familytreemaker.g enealogy.com/users/s/a/n/Timothy-M-Sandberg/FILE/0002page.html" target="_blank">
Two Devonshire Papists in the Time of Queen Elizabeth</a> by J. K. Floyer.

Source: Tim Sandberg's GEDCOM V. Oct. 29, 2001
WARNING! THIS GENEALOGY IS, AND WILL REMAIN FOREVER, A WORK IN PROGRESS. THE AUTHOR IS NOT A PROFESSIONAL GENEALOGIST, BUT HAS TRIED TO VERIFY ALL DATA. IT CANNOT BE GUARANTEED FREE OF ERRORS!

Lieutenant of Cornwall, Vice admiral of Devon and Cornwall, Member of Parliament. In 1587, two years after he had been knighted, Raleigh became Captain of the Queen's guard. His last appointment under the crown was as Governor of Jersey (one of the Channel Islands) in 1600.
Between 1584 and 1589 he had tried to establish a colony near Roanoke Island (in present North Carolina), which he named Virginia; but he never set foot there himself. In 1595 he led an expedition to what is now Guyana, in South America, sailing up the Orinoco River in the heart of Spain's colonial empire. In 1596 he went with Robert Devereux, earl of Essex, on an unsuccessful expedition against the Spanish city of Cádiz, and he was Essex' rear admiral on the Islands voyage, in 1597, an expedition to the Azores.
In 1603 he and others were accused of plotting to dethrone King James I. Raleigh was convicted on the written evidence of Henry Brooke, Lord Cobham, and, after a last-minute reprieve from the death sentence, was consigned to the Tower. He fought to save Sherborne, which he had conveyed in trust for his son, but a clerical error invalidated the deed. In 1616 he was released but not pardoned.
In 1595. With the King's permission, he financed and led a second expedition to Guyana, promising to open a gold mine without offending Spain. A severe fever prevented his leading his men upriver. His lieutenant, Lawrence Kemys, burned a Spanish settlement but found no gold. Raleigh's son Walter died in the action. King James invoked the suspended sentence of 1603, and in 1618, after writing a spirited defense of his acts, Raleigh was executed.
At his execution in 1618 he asked to see the axe and said "This is a sharp Medicine, but it is a Physician for all Diseases."
As was common at the time, his head was embalmed and presented to his wife. She apparently carried it with her at all times until she died 29 years later at the age of 82.
The head was finally buried with their son (Carew - like Sir Walter, a one-time Governor of Jersey) alongside the body of Sir Walter to the South side of the alter at St. Margaret's Church. This is just next to Westminster Abbey. It was founded in the 12th century and is the parish church of the House of Parliament.
He was also a renowned poet.