The Raleighs seem to have been gentlefolk of long descent, of many relationships among the storied names of Devon—the Carews, the Grenvilles, Gilberts, and others—but of only modest worldly possessions. The Raleigh genealogy is fragmentary, and the early history of the family vague, but that they had once been locally rich and powerful, before the famous Sir Walter’s day, seems evident enough in the names of the two neighbouring parishes of Withycombe Raleigh and Colaton Raleigh, which show that in more prosperous times his forbears had been lords of those manors. In common with many of their contemporaries, the Raleighs seem to have spelt their name according to individual taste and fancy; nor even did the same individual always select, and adhere to, one method. Thus we find the father of the greatest of all Raleighs signing himself “Ralegh,” his eldest son, Carew, affecting “Rawlegh,” and the future Sir Walter, in his first known signature, writing “Rauleygh,” and afterwards adopting “Ralegh,” and the form “Raleigh,” which posterity has finally decided to accept. Queen Elizabeth herself spelled the name “Rawley.”
Sentimentalists have united to draw a wholly imaginary picture of the boy, Walter Raleigh, ranging from the inland valley in which his birthplace stands, climbing the intermediate woody hill, and straying down to the margin of the sea at Budleigh Saltern, as Budleigh Salterton was then styled. They have drawn fanciful pictures of him among the amazing pebbles of that beach, listening wide-eyed, to the yarns of sailor-folk telling of strange histories from the Spanish Main; and they have pictured him exploring away down to Exmouth, which was in those times a port of considerable commerce. I have no doubt he did all these things, and for my part can readily envisage them; can see, too, the little, crisp-haired, ruddy-cheeked Walter, in russet doublet and stockings of the same, being taken to church on Sundays at East Budleigh, half a mile away, where you may still see the family pew with the heraldic “fusils” of Raleigh impaling the “rests” of Grenville, boldly sculptured in heart of oak on a massive bench-end.
But while we can picture all these things, with sufficient readiness, it yet remains certain that we know nothing of the hero’s earlier years, and but vaguely gather that from Oxford, whither he was sent, he went to the wars on the Continent, between the Protestants and the Catholics, and then, by some occult family influence, became attached to the brilliant Court of our own astounding virginal Gloriana. They were a coruscating Renaissance group, who circled round Elizabeth, and were gifted in a singular variety of ways. They were noblemen and gentlemen who could, and did, turn their hands to anything, from captaining some desperate enterprise, negotiating treaties, steering frail flotillas through unknown seas into unheard-of lands, buccaneering, and filibustering, down to duelling, intriguing and backbiting among each other; practising literature and the liberal art of sonneteering, and dallying in the dangerous pastime of flirting with that too towardly Queen herself. One thing only they could not do; they could not be commonplace. None may say how much of truth, or how much legend there may be in the famous story of how Raleigh first attracted the Queen’s notice by flinging down his velvet cloak over a muddy place, so that she might pass, clean-footed; but the story was current, in the time of those contemporary with both, and being possible at all, shows us the spirit of the time and of the Queen’s surroundings.
Raleigh’s excellent early services in Ireland, where he broke down the rebellion in the south, recommended him to the Queen, his youthfulness interested her middle-aged sentimentalism, and his dark, florid manhood enslaved her. For this was a very hero in look, as in deed; standing six feet high, with black hair, full-bearded, ruddy-cheeked, like the apples of his native shire; and Elizabeth loaded him with gifts and grants. Meanwhile he had begun the colonising schemes and the exploratory enterprises by which his name is largely known. He equipped, and was at the cost of, the expedition which in 1584 discovered that shore of North America he christened, in honour of the “Eternal Maiden Queen,” “Virginia.” At the close of that year a knighthood rewarded his flattery.
Already he was become a man of vast wealth, the holder of highly remunerative grants and monopolies, and was keenly desirous of refounding the house of Raleigh in visible form in Devon. To this end he wrote in July, 1584, to Mr. Duke of Otterton, into whose possession this farm of Hayes Barton had by some unexplained means come, desiring to repurchase it. The letter is still in existence, and runs:
“Mr. Duke,
“I wrote to Mr. Prideux to move yow for the purchase of hayes a farme som tyme in my fathers prossession. I will most willingly give yow what so: ever in your conscience yow shall deeme it worthe, and if yow shall att any tyme have occasion to vse mee yow Shall find mee a thanckfull frind to yow and youres. I have dealt wᵗʰ Mʳ. Sprint for suche things as he hathe att colliton and ther abouts and he hath pmised mee to dept wᵗʰ ye moety of otertowne vnto yow in consideration of hayes accordinge to ye valew and yow shall not find mee an ill neighbore vnto yow here after. I am resolved if I cannot intreat yow to build at colliton but for the naturall dispositio’ I have to that place being borne in that howse I had rather seat my sealf ther than any wher els this leving the mattr att large vnto Mr. Sprint I take my leve resting redy to countervaile all your courteses to ye uttermost of my power.
“Court the xxvj of July 1584
“Your very willing frinde
“in all I shall be able”