Born 1554,
Devon, England
Died October 29, 1618,
England
The dramatic course of Sir Walter Raleigh’s life was repeatedly altered by tensions between England and Spain, the two great naval powers of the sixteenth century. His fortunes were also closely linked with Queen Elizabeth I. Raleigh attained a powerful position at court, but he regularly fell in and out of favor with the queen; once she even had him put in the Tower of London because he had secretly married one of her maids of honor. Raleigh was eventually sentenced to death for disobeying the orders of King James I, who succeeded to the throne after Elizabeth’s death.
Walter Raleigh was born in the English county of Devon, the birthplace of many of England’s famous navigators. In 1578 he sailed to North America with his half-brother Sir Humphrey Gilbert, who later founded the first permanent North American colony in New Zealand. This expedition was supposedly a “voyage of discovery,” but historians believe Gilbert and Raleigh actually planned to attack and rob Spanish ships. Whatever their motive, they were forced to return to England in 1579, without having reached the newly discovered continent, after their own ship was attacked by the Spanish.
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