Sir Walter Raleigh: In Life & Legend (58 page)

Carew supported his King in the First Civil War, but in time recognized that the English Republic offered opportunities to the family of its foremost 'martyr'. Or, as the uncharitable Wood put it, he 'cringed afterwards to the men in power'. The Digbys remained determined Royalists, and their hold on Sherborne now appeared superficially vulnerable. Carew sat as MP for Haslemere in the Rump Parliament from 1650 to 1653, serving on the Committee for Trial of Petitions and himself petitioning time and again for the restoration of his father's lands in Dorset.
9
One of these petitions was published after his death in 1669, under the title A Brief Relation of Sir Walter Raleghs Troubles. But despite their Royalism the Digbys' title was well documented, and legislators proved reluctant to contemplate the arbitrary abrogation of property rights after all the upheavals and misfortunes in the past decade. Carew secured only a consolation prize: an annuity of £500 out of the estate. He also found time to renew in a second generation his father's bitter dispute with William Sanderson. Sanderson's son, another William, was the author of a popular 1656 history of Mary Stewart and Janes VI, which contains a hostile analysis of Ralegh's involvement in the plots of 1603. Unfortunately, Sanderson's work, Ralegh's rejoinder, and Sanderson's rejoinder to the rejoinder leave us none the wiser as to who, ultimately, prevailed in the protracted legal exchanges during the 1610s.
10

After Richard Cromwell's resignation as Lord Protector in 1659 Carew returned to Westminster with the restored Rump Parliament, sitting frequently until its dissolution in March 1660. Again he walked pragmatically with the times; there was always something of the politician in Carew, a touch of his mother's persistence alongside his father's pragmatism, and perhaps he showed rather more common sense than either parent. A supporter of George Monck's efforts to reach an accommodation with Charles II, he was appointed to his father's former office, the governorship of Jersey, on 29 February 1660. At the Restoration he declined a knighthood; the honour was instead conferred upon his son Walter on 15 June 1660, but young Walter died in or about 1663, as did both his own children. With these deaths, the family's hopes of recovering lost fortunes seem to vanish away. The fight at last goes out of Carew. Two years later he sold the West Horsley estate to Sir Edward Nicholas. Dying at his London house in St Martin's Lane, Carew was buried with his father at St Margaret's Westminster, on 1 January 1667. It is said that Sir Walter's head was interred at the same time.

Nothing is straightforward with the Raleghs, and a mystery surrounds Carew's death. The parish register records that he was 'kild', and without doubt his passing was sudden, for a nuncupative will was subsequently registered in which he left his entire estate to his wife.
11
The will dates Carew's death by implication to 28 December, when he is supposed to have declared his testamentary wishes in the presence of his wife, Sir Peter Tyrrell and Francis Cox.
12
Curiously, the register for West Horsley maintains that Carew was interred in the burial place of the manor in September 1680. One interpretation, perhaps the only one, is that the body was reburied.

Carew's surviving son, Philip, lived on to 1705, making every attempt to honour the memory of his grandfather. He published three discourses by Sir Walter in 1702.
13
Of Philip's four sons, Walter, Brudenell, Grenville and Carew, three predeceased him. Brudenell, an unmarried naval officer, left everything to his father and named Philip as his executor when he died in the West Indies during 1699.
14
The last surviving boy, Grenville Ralegh, an army officer, died at Chester in 1717.
15

PREFACE

1 For an admirable list of books and articles on Ralegh, see C. M. Armitage, Sir Walter Rah:Qh: an annotated bibliography (Chapel Hill, NC, 1987).

CHAPTER 1

1 E. Spenser, 'Colin Clouts Come Home Againe', 11. 688-94, in Poetical Works, eds J. C. Smith and E. de Selincourt (Oxford, 1912), pp. 535-45.

2 T. N. Brushfield, Raleghana (Plymouth, 1896-1907), iii, pp. 8-10.

3 J. Youings, RaleEihc Country: the south west of England in the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (Raleigh, NC, 1986), pp. 1-2.

4 On Ralegh senior see M. J. G. Stanford and M. W. Turner, 'The Raleghs, father and son', in J. Youings (ed.), Ralegh in Exeter, 1985: privateering and colonisation in the reign of Elizabeth I (Exeter, 1985), pp. 91-104, at 91-5.

5 Bruslifield, Ral(ghaca, i, pp. 4-7.

6 J. Youings, 'Raleigh's Devon', in H. G. Jones (ed.), Ralegh and Quinn: the explorer and his Boswell (Chapel Hill, 1987), p. 69.

7 W. Stebbing, Sir Walter Ralegh: a biography (Oxford, 1891), p. 6.

8 Brushfield, Raleihana, i, pp. 8-10;j. Roberts, 'The second marriage of Walter Rawley', Devon and Cornwall Notes and Queries 34:1 (1978), 11-13.

9 Brushfield, Ralechana, i, p. 19.

10 Stanford and Turner, 'The Raleghs, father and son', p. 93.

11 E. Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars: traditional religion in England c. 1400-c. 1580 (London, 1992), pp. 467-8.

12 Duffy, Stripping of thcAltars, pp. 488-9.

13 Stanford and Turner, 'The Raleghs, father and son', p. 94.

14 Ibid.

15 Bruslifield, Ralci hana, i, p. 4.

16 M. J. G. Stanford, 'The Raleghs take to the sea', Mariner's Mirror 48 (1962), 18-35.

17 Brushfield, Ralechana, i, p. 4.

18 Youings, 'Raleigh's Devon', p. 72.

19 Brushfield, Raleghana, i, p. 23; R. Trevelyan, Sir Walter Raleigh (London, 2002), p. 8.

20 Youings, 'Raleigh's Devon', p. 73.

21 Brushfield, Raleghana, i, p. 21.

22 John Foxe, Actes and Monuments (London, 1570), p. 2,251. The details of Ralegh's wife were added to the account of Prest's martyrdom in the 1570 second edition of the book. We are indebted to Dr Toni Freeman for this information.

23 Brushfield, Raleghana, i, p. 22, where the will is printed in full.

24 A. M. C. Latham, 'A birth-date for Sir Walter Ralegh', Etudes anu'laises 9 (1956), 243-5 argues persuasively for 1554, but Brushfield (Raleghana, i, p. 27) favoured 1552, while another eminent Ralegh scholar, Pierre Lefranc, remained convinced that Ralegh was born considerably earlier: 'La date du manage de Sir Walter Ralegh: un document inedit', Etudes 9 (1956), 193-211.

25 Brushfield, Ral(ghaua, i, p. 27.

26 R. Naunton, Fra~inenta Regalia, or observations on the late Queen Elizabeth (London,1641), p.31.

27 O. L. Dick (ed.), Aubrey'c Brief Lives (London, 1949), p. 254; see also Hatfield House, Salisbury-Cecil papers, MS 102/84, Cecil to Sir George Harvey, 20 December 1603.

28 We owe this information to the kindness of Dr Bruce Barker-Benfield.

29 See the interesting insights in B. Schmidt, 'Reading Ralegh's America: texts, books, and readers in the early modern Atlantic world', in PC. Mancall (ed.), The A flan tic World and Virginia, 1550-1624 (Chapel Hill, 2007), pp. 454-88.

30 W. Camden, Annals, or, the historic of the most renowned and victorious princesse Elizabeth (London, 1635), p. 117. R. B. Manning, Swordsmen: the martial ethos in the three kingdoms (Oxford, 2003), p. 109. The first and second volumes of Chronicles: comprising 1. The description and historic of England, 2. The description and historic of Ireland, 3. The description and historic of Scotland /first collected and published by Raphaell Holinshed, William Harrison, and others (London, 1586-7),'epistle dedicatorie'by Hooker, addressed to Ralegh and dated 12 October 1586.

31 Quoted from The History of the World in Stanford and Turner, 'The Raleghs, father and son', p. 98.

32 HW, Book 5, Chapter 2, Section 3.

33 HW, Book 5, Chapter 2, Section 8.

34 A notable historic containing f ure voyages made by certaine French captaynes unto Florida/ written all, saving the last, by Monsieur Laudonnier...; newly translated out of French into English by R. H. (London, 1587).

35 Brushfield, Raleghana, i, pp. 26-7. J. Foster, Alumni Oxonienses: early series (Oxford, 1891-2), p. 1,230, which cautiously favours 1568.

36 Dick, Aubrey's Brief Lives, p. 253

37 J. Spedding, R. L. Ellis and D. D. Heath (eds), The Works of Francis Bacon (London, 1857-74), vii, p. 163.

38 See S. W. May, Sir Walter Ralegh (Boston, 1989), p. 130.

39 H. A. C. Sturgess (ed.), Register of Admissions to the Honourable Society of the Middle Temple (London, 1949), i, p. 39, where he is described as 'late of Lyons Inne', one of the Inns of Chancery.

40 See V. F. Stern, Sir Stephen Pow1e of Court and Country (Selinsgrove, PA, 1992), and ODNB.

41 Naunton, Fragmenta Regalia, pp. 30-1.

42 Rudick, Pocros, p. 1.

43 Brushfield, Ralci /iaua, v, pp.10-11.

44 Ibid.

45 See P. Ackroyd, London: the biography (London, 2001), pp. 364, 528.

46 Brushfield, Ralci Izaua, v, p. 11.

47 For a handy description of the Court see D. Loades, The Tudor Court (Oxford, 2003), and in more condensed form, D. Loades, Intrigue and Treason: theTiudor court 1547-1558 (Harlow, 2004), pp. 303-8.

48 C. Falls, Elizabeth'a Irish Wars (London, 1950), p. 106.

49 Quoted in N. Canny, The Elizabethan Conquest of Ireland (Hassocks, 1976), p. 122.

50 See below, p. 14.

51 J. Hooker, in extension to Holinshed, Chronicles (London, 1587), iii, p. 1369; Hooker, dedication of his translation of Giraldus Cambrensis to Ralegh, in Chronicles (1587), ii, sig. A3-3v;1). B. Quinn (ed.), The Voyages and Colonising Enterprises o[Sir Humphrey Gilbert (London, 1940), i, pp. 236-7.

52 APC, 1578-80, pp. 109, 142-3, 146-7. Below, Chapter Three, on the later story of Ralegh's privateering.

53 APC, 1579-80, pp. 384,388,421-2.

54 Lefranc, Rale,Eh, p. 29; Latham, 'A birth-date for Sir Walter Ralegh'.

55 APC, 1580-1, pp. 96-7, 100.

56 Quoted in R. Bagwell, Ireland under the Tudors (London, 1890), iii, p. 56.

57 Calendar of Carenv Manuscripts, 1575-88, edsJ. S. Brewer and W. Bullen (London, 1868), p. 268.

58 J. Hooker, Description and Chronicles of Ireland (1587), part of Hooker's extension to Holinshed's Chronicles, pp. 170-1. See fn. 30 and Bibliography, sub. The first and second volwnes.

59 E. Spenser, A View of the Present State of Ireland, ed. W L. Renwick (Oxford, 1970), pp. 214-15.

60 Curiously, there is nothing to tell the visitor what happened there - only a metal notice forbidding her/him to cause any damage.

61 Spenser, A View of the Present State of Ireland, p. 108

62 Ibid., p. 216.

63 CSP Span., III, 1580-6, pp. 69-70; C. P. Meehan (trans.), The Rise, Increase and Exit of the Geraldines (Dublin, 1878), p. 91; J. O'Donovan (ed.) Annals of the Four Masters (Dublin, 1856), pp. 1,739-43.

64 Letters of Ralegh, p. 3.

65 Hooker, Description and Chronicles of Ireland, p. 173.

66 Ibid., pp. 173-4.

67 C. Brady, 'The captains' games', in T. Bartlett and K. Jeffery (eds), A Military History of Ireland (Cambridge, 1996), pp. 136-60; N. Canny, 'Ralegh's Ireland', in H. G. Jones (ed.), Raleigh and Quinn: the explorer and his Boswell (Chapel Hill, 1987), pp. 87-101.

68 Letters of Ralegh, pp. 5-7.

69 Ibid.

70 Ibid., pp. 8-10.

71 Ibid., pp. 10-11.

72 ODNB; N. Canny, Making Ireland British (Oxford, 2001), pp. 73-7.

73 HMC, Salisbury, ii, p. 498.

74 TNA, SP 63/88/12.

75 TNA, SP 63/92/10.

76 TNA, SP 63/96/30,3 1; Pope Hennessy, Ralegh in Ireland, pp. 226-32; R. Bagwell, Ireland wider fheT6dors, iii, p. 101.

77 Contrast the view in P. E. J. Hanznmer, Elizabeth's Wars: war, government and society in Tudor England (Basingstoke, 2003), pp. 109-10.

78 On Spenser, see B. Bradshaw, 'Edmund Spenser on justice and mercy' inT. Dunne (ed.), The writer as witness, Historical Studies 16 (Cork, 1987), 76-89. C. Brady, 'Spenser's Irish crisis', Past and Present 111 (1986), 17-49; N. Canny, Making Ireland British, ch. 1.

CHAPTER 2

1 W. Stebbing, Sir Walter Ralegh: a biography (Oxford, 1891), p. 21. See too S. W. May, 'How Ralegh became a courtier',John DonneJournal27 (2008), 131-40.

2 We need not, however, stretch the interpretation too far, and give credence to salacious contemporary gossip that Elizabeth rewarded her favourites commensurate to their sexual prowess. R. P. Shephard, 'Sexual rumours in English politics', in J. Murray and K. Eisenbichler (eds), Desire and discipline: sex and sexuality in the premodern West (Toronto, 1996), pp. 101-22, at 103-4. On the complexities of favour at the Court see P. E. J. Hamner, "'Absolute and sovereign mistress of her grace"? Queen Elizabeth I and her favourites, 1581-1592', in J. H. Elliott, and L. W. B. Brockliss (eds), The World of the Favourite (London, 1999), pp. 38-53.

3 O. L. Dick (ed.), Aubrey's Brief Lives (London, 1949), p. 253.

4 Ibid., p. 255.

5 R. Naunton, Fragrnenta Regalia, or, observations on the late Queen Elisabeth (London, 1641), p. 31.

6 Ibid.

7 S. W May, Sir Walter Ralegh (Boston, 1989), p. 6.

8 Roze Hentschell suggests that Ralegh's gesture invited the Queen to step over an altogether broader puddle, the Atlantic Ocean, and to exploit the potential of the New World. See Hentschell, The Culture of Cloth in Early Modern England: textual constructions of a national identity (Aldershot, 2008), pp. 75-6.

9 T. Fuller, History of the worthies of England (1662), pp. 261-2.

10 See Rudick, Poems, p. Lxii. In an earlier version of the 1630s, the lines are written 'in the queens gardin' (Rudick, Poems, p. 172).

11 See Letters of Ralegh, pp. 14-15.

12 ODNB under Browne.

13 HMC, Salisbury, iii, p. 73.

14 HMC, Salisbury, iii, p. 97.

15 Quoted in R. Trevelyan, Sir Walter Raleigh (London, 2002), p. 91.

16 Dick, Aubrey's Brief Lives, pp. 255-6. William Oldys, Ralegh's eighteenth-century biographer, concludes that the maid is Ralegh's wife, Bess Throckmorton, and that this hanky-panky, 'this matter of devirginating a maid of honour', was the prelude to a happy and faithful married life! An author's generosity of spirit is in this case not entirely without foundation.