Walter Raleigh, or Ralegh, the son of …

Years: 1584 - 1584

Walter Raleigh, or Ralegh, the son of a Devonshire gentleman and the half-brother of Sir Humphrey Gilbert, had as a teenager in in 1569 fought on the Huguenot side in the Wars of Religion in France, and he is known in 1572 to have been at Oriel College, Oxford, and at the Middle Temple law college in 1575.

He had fought against the Irish rebels in Munster in 1580, and his outspoken criticism of the way English policy had been being implemented in Ireland had brought him to the attention of Queen Elizabeth.

He had become the monarch's favorite by 1582, and he began to acquire lucrative monopolies, properties, and influential positions.

His Irish service has been rewarded by vast estates in Munster.

The queen had in1583 secured him a lease of part of Durham House in the Strand, London, where he had in this year been granted a monopoly of wine licenses.

He receives from Elizabeth a charter for the colonization of Virginia, specifying that Raleigh has ten years in which to establish a settlement in North America or lose his colonization rights.

Raleigh and Elizabeth intend that the venture should both provide New World riches, and a privateering base from which to steal from the treasure fleets of Spain, with whom the English are at perennial war.

With this in mind, an expedition is sent in 1584 to explore the eastern coast of North America for an appropriate location.

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