Sir Walter Raleigh: In Life & Legend (3 page)

16. A page from The Ocean to Scinthia in Ralegh's hand.

17. Sir Walter as Captain of the Guard at Elizabeth's funeral procession, a post he was shortly to lose.

18. Sir Walter's Lager. An advertising poster from the Apex Brewery Co. of North Carolina.

During his lifetime, and ever since, Sir Walter's surname has been spelt in many different ways. The authors have chosen, and have followed consistently, the spelling preferred by Ralegh himself throughout most of his life. The title of the book, however, recognizes a spelling preferred by many modern popular sources on both sides of the Atlantic.

'Why write another biography of Sir Walter Ralegh?'
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 We have often been asked that question and part of our reply must be that we wrote it because we wanted to understand this man, who was soldier, voyager, visionary, courtier, politician, poet, historian, patriot and 'traitor'. There are more specific reasons. We are both students of Elizabethan and Jacobean history and feel that we are well placed to understand the world in which Ralegh lived and died, in particular his friendships and alliances with prominent courtiers and the procedures of the law-courts that condemned him. A great volume of research has appeared in the last twenty years on Elizabethan and Jacobean politics, and the context of his public career is now much better understood. While many valuable critical works have been devoted to his writings, we believe that most biographers have paid too little attention to them. Much can be learned from Ralegh's prose and his poetry about his ideas, personality, feelings and values. Important new texts of his works have recently been published: we now possess reliable versions of his poems, his letters and his travel narratives. Finally, we believe that no biography of Ralegh can be complete without an assessment of his posthumous reputation. The myths that accumulated around him tell us something about the man himself, but far more about the perceptions of his own and subsequent generations.

In the course of writing this book we have incurred many debts and wish particularly to thank the Duke of Northumberland, for permission to quote from the library and archival collections at Alnwick Castle; the Marquess of Salisbury, for permission to quote from the archives and papers at Hatfield House; Mr J. Wingfield Digby, for permission to quote from manuscripts at Sherborne Castle; Robert Anthony, Curator of the North Carolina Collection and the staff at the Wilson Library, Chapel Hill; and staff at the National Archives, the British Library and the Bodleian Library. We greatly appreciate the advice and guidance given at various times by Dr Bruce Barker-Benfield, Dr Anna Beer, Dr Allen Boyer, Dr Stephen Clucas, Professor Pauline Croft, Dr Tom Freeman, Miss Barbara Hird, Ms Deborah Hodder, Miss Lebame Houston,The Master and Fellows of St John's College, Cambridge, Miss Sara-May Mallett, Mr Simon Murray, Dr Will Poole, Dr N. S. Popper, Dr Colin Shrimpton, Mrs Ann Smith, Professor Larry Tise, Mr Brett Usher, Dr Linda Washington, Dr Vivienne Westbrook, Professor Alan White, Mr John Williams and the participants in the Spenser and Raleigh Conference, University of East Carolina, April 2008, and the Tower of London Seminar on Ralegh in January 2009.

Penry Williams wishes to thank his partner Sylvia Platt for her constant support during the writing of this book and for reading and commenting on the entire text in typescript.