Raleigh had naturally a very active mind, and when he was not engaged in war, he would be busily employed in planning expeditions to the New World, some of which were carried out partly at his own expense. He had read the voyages of Columbus and of Vasco de Gama with the deepest interest, and, like many other ardent men of his time, desired earnestly to follow in the path of those brave pioneers.

In the year 1580 he commanded the royal troops in Ireland at the time of Desmond's rebellion. Philip II., to punish Elizabeth for having helped his Flemish subjects, sent a number of Spaniards and Italians to join the rebels. The Spanish general was besieged in a fort he had built at Kerry; he was forced to surrender, and the enemies of Raleigh cast great blame on him for the cruelties exercised towards the unhappy prisoners, whilst in reality he was only carrying out the orders of Lord Grey, the deputy of Ireland.

In a dispute he had with Lord Grey on his return to England, Raleigh defended himself so cleverly, that he drew upon him the attention of the queen; and an incident which occurred about this time served to bring him into great favour at court.

The queen was out walking with some of her courtiers, and having come to a muddy place, she paused, as if in doubt whether to cross it or not. Raleigh was present, and he immediately threw off a beautiful new cloak he wore, and spread it on the ground. The queen tripped lightly over it, much pleased with the gallant action, which she never forgot.

Raleigh was of middle height; he had dark hair, and was said to have been very handsome, although he had an exceedingly high forehead, and was "long-faced and sour-lidded." His dress as he stood amongst the courtiers would have consisted of a doublet of silk or satin fitting closely to the body, with enormous silken or velvet hose, richly ornamented; a peaked hat, and the cloak of gay hue, "fronted with gold and silver lace," would have completed the costume. Raleigh was always richly attired; at one time of his life he had a suit of armour composed of solid plates of silver, with which he wore a belt adorned with precious stones; and Sir Walter Scott describes a portrait he had seen of him which represented him clad in white satin, with a chain of very large pearls hanging around his neck.

The queen in the course of time bestowed on him lands in Ireland, both in the counties of Cork and Waterford. She also gave him an estate at Sherborne, in Dorsetshire, where he laid out some beautiful gardens. He asked so many favours for his friends, as well as for himself, that Elizabeth once said to him soon after she had knighted him, "When shall you cease to be a beggar, Sir Walter?"

"When your Majesty ceases to be benevolent," he replied.

The court life, however gay and pleasant, did not satisfy his eager spirit, and he rejoiced very much when the queen granted him a patent for the discovery and planting of new lands in America. For this purpose he fitted out two small vessels, which reached the coast of Florida in the year 1585. They sailed northward as far as an island called Roanoke, and found a tract of land on the continent, to which Elizabeth gave the name of Virginia, but it did not really become a flourishing colony until the reign of her successor.

Raleigh, like many other noble-minded men of his time, bore a great hatred to Spain on account of her tyrannies; and when the invincible Armada came to invade England, he was amongst the bravest of those who fought for their queen and their country. And the next year he held an important command under Drake and Norris in an expedition to place Don Antonio on the throne of Portugal.

When he returned to England, after having won great fame by his valour, he found that the young Earl of Essex was rising rapidly in the queen's favour. Much jealousy existed between these two courtiers; they were constantly quarrelling, and the following incident will show how petty were the means used by Essex to annoy his rival.

The nobles used to make a very splendid appearance at the jousts and tournaments which were held on the queen's birthday, and on one of these occasions Raleigh took it into his head to accoutre all his followers in orange-coloured plumes. Essex hearing of this, got together a much more numerous cavalcade, decked all in the colour chosen by Raleigh, and appeared at the head of his followers dressed in a complete suit of orange-colour, so that when he entered the tilt-yard in sight of Elizabeth, the followers of his rival only looked "like so many appendages to his own train."[23] Raleigh once set out at the head of a fleet with two of the queen's ships, and had the good fortune to capture a Portuguese vessel which had a very rich cargo. It was in the year 1595 that he sailed with five vessels for the discovery and conquest of Guiana,[24] a country of South America, which was called "El Dorado," on account of the gold mines it was supposed to contain. This was an enterprise he had planned during some months that he had been living in retirement at Sherborne, having incurred the displeasure of the queen. First of all he had sent out a captain to the spot, who made a favourable report of his voyage when he returned home. So Raleigh put out to sea and landed in the island of Trinidad, where he burnt the fort of Saint Joseph, which had been lately constructed by the Spaniards, and took Don Antonio, the Spanish governor, prisoner. He treated Antonio very kindly, and gained from him some valuable information in reference to the country he desired to explore. He was now very eager to set out on his enterprise, and liked the idea of it all the better because it would undoubtedly be attended with danger. He left his ships at Cariapan, in Trinidad, and sailed with a hundred men in several small barks to find "the golden land." And before he returned to England he had sailed 400 miles up the river Orinoco, which flows through Guiana, thus being the first Englishman who had ventured in that direction.

Sir Walter Raleigh wrote some strange accounts of the people he found in the new country. Those that inhabited the mouth of the Orinoco upon the northern branches of the river were called "Tissitinas;" they were very brave, and talked slowly and sensibly. In dry weather they had their dwellings on the ground like most other people, but between May and September the Orinoco rising thirty feet and overflowing the broken land, they lived up in the trees, as Columbus had already found men living in other parts a century before. They never eat anything that was planted or sown, and for bread they used the tops of the palmitos.[25] The people dwelling on the branches of the Orinoco called Capuri, and Macureo, were skilful makers of canoes, and sold them for gold and tobacco. When their chief, or king, died, they had the strange custom of keeping his body until all the flesh fell off its bones, and then they adorned the skull with gay-coloured feathers, and the limbs with gold plates, and hung up the skeleton in the house the chief had dwelt in when alive. The more gentle natives used to make war on the cannibals, but all tribes were at peace with one another, and held the Spaniards for their common enemy when the English appeared amongst them.

Sometimes the adventurers suffered greatly from thirst and from the excessive heat of the climate, since Guiana lies all in the torrid zone, the hottest part of the earth. In one district they passed through, which was low and marshy, the water that issued out of the boggy ground was almost red, and they could only fill their waterpots with it about noon, for if they filled them at morning or evening, it was as bad to drink as poison, and at night it was worst of all. The wine that was used in some parts was very strong; it was made of the juice of different fruits and herbs, and highly seasoned with pepper. The natives kept it in great earthen pots, which held ten or twelve gallons each.

At one time during their travels the weather became fearfully hot. The rivers were bordered with high trees, which met overhead and shut out the air, so that they panted for breath; the currents were against them; the water was very unwholesome to drink, and their bread was all gone. They lived on fish, and the fruits they plucked along the banks of the rivers. The beautiful flowers of the tropics twined around the great trees in the shade, and there were birds flitting about, as Sir Walter writes, "crimson, carnation, orange, tawny, and purple!" Still, they were in great want of bread, and an old native pilot whom they had taken, promised them that if they would enter a branch of the river on their right hand, with only their barge and wherries, and leave the galley they had come in to anchor in the great river, he would take them to a town, where they would find bread and poultry. So they set off in their wherries, and, because they thought the place was so near, they took no food with them at all. The day wore on, and still the pilot said "a little farther," until the sun was low in the sky, and they had glided down the stream forty miles. Then all at once it became dark, because there is no twilight in the tropics; dark as pitch, they said; the river narrowed and the trees bent over it so closely, that they had to cut their passage through the branches with their swords. They distrusted the pilot, although the poor old man, who must have been somewhat out of his reckoning, still kept assuring them that they had only a little further to go; and an hour after midnight, to their great joy they saw a light, and heard the barking of dogs, and came to a village or town which was almost empty, because nearly all its inhabitants had gone to the head of the Orinoco to trade for gold. Here they found plenty of fish, and fowls, and Indian wine, and bread, for which they gave the people things in exchange. Raleigh says that the Spaniards used to get a hundred pounds of cassava bread for a knife.

There is frequent mention in his narrative of an old king named Topiawari, whose son he brought with him to England. He was a hundred and ten years old, and had been taken prisoner by the Spaniards under Berreo, and led about by them in a chain for seventeen days, that he might guide them from place to place, for he was "a man of great understanding and policy." He purchased his freedom with a hundred plates of gold. This old king came fourteen miles on foot to see the English commander, and returned to his home the same day; which must have been a long journey for one who, as he touchingly observed himself, was "old, weak, and every day called for by death." A number of people came with him from the villages laden with provisions, and amongst these were delicious pine-apples in plenty. One of the people gave Raleigh an armadillo, which he calls "a very wonderful creature, barred all over with small scales, with a horn growing out of it," the powder of which he was told cured deafness.

Raleigh found out, as he thought, where the mines were, and brought some spar with him to England, which was considered to afford satisfactory promise of gold. The old king told him of a mountain of pure gold which Sir Walter believed himself to have seen in the distance; it seemed to him like a white tower, and had a great stream of water flowing over the top of it. But since the rivers had begun to rise, and he had no tools to work the supposed mines with, he resolved to return to England, well pleased that he had found "El Dorado;" and prepared to give a glowing account of the fertility of its soil, its valuable woods and rich gums, its different berries, which dyed the most vivid crimson and carnation hues, its cotton and silk, its pepper, sugar, and ginger, which flourished there as luxuriantly as in the West Indian islands.

Just as the adventurers were about to return to Trinidad, they encountered a terrific storm in the broad mouth of the river Capuri, and were obliged to lie in the dark, close to the shore. At midnight, when the wind began to abate, Raleigh says, "We put ourselves to God's keeping and thrust out into the sea, and left the galley to anchor until daylight. And so, being all very sober and melancholy, one faintly cheering another to show courage, it pleased God that the next day we descried the island of Trinidad."

When Sir Walter arrived in England he published an account of the discovery of the large and beautiful country of Guiana. Either he must have been carried away by the excitement of the adventure, or he must have wilfully exaggerated when he described the gold mines so confidently, since no one who followed him ever found so great a treasure of the precious metal as he declared was in existence. Queen Elizabeth could not be prevailed upon to give orders for the planting of a colony in the new land, much as she desired to increase her dominions, and so it was that the English did not really make a settlement in Guiana until the year 1634.

Raleigh went after his return on a great expedition, which ended in the conquest of Cadiz. In this Essex had the chief command, but it was Raleigh's courage and daring that assured the taking of the city.

The favour he was held in at court now began to decline, and the great fame he had earned as a soldier and a navigator had made him many enemies. It is said that he connived with Cecil for the downfall of Essex, and he was charged by those who bore him ill-will with having taken pleasure in witnessing the execution of that nobleman. His own words, spoken just before his death on the scaffold many years later, will best vindicate him from such an accusation. He said that he was all the time in the armory of the Tower, at the end where he could only just see Essex. He shed tears at his death, and grieved that he was not with him, for he had heard that he had desired to be reconciled with him before he died. And it is natural to suppose that these two men, each one indeed at fault, would have been happier, one in dying and the other while he lived, if they had exchanged a few kind words, at which the old bitterness and hatred would have melted away.

The remaining part of the life of Sir Walter Raleigh was a succession of misfortunes and sorrows: at the death of the queen his good fortune may be said to have deserted him. The same year that James the Sixth of Scotland succeeded his cousin Elizabeth, a plot was formed to place on the throne of England in his stead the Lady Arabella Stuart, who was equally descended from Henry the Seventh with himself. The Lords Grey and Cobham, Sir Walter Raleigh, two Catholic priests, and several others were accused of conniving at it, and arrested for high treason. How far Raleigh was implicated it is difficult now to decide: it is probable that he knew of the plot, because he was the intimate friend of Lord Cobham. He was carried to Winchester, where sentence of death was passed upon him, and he remained there a whole month, daily expecting to be led to the scaffold. At the urgent entreaty of Lady Raleigh the king commuted the sentence of death to imprisonment in the Tower; and there, on the 15th of December, 1603, Raleigh took up his abode, followed by his affectionate wife and his son Walter, who had obtained permission to share his captivity. Most English boys have looked on the rooms in the Tower where this brave man passed more than twelve years, a large portion out of the life on earth, especially on the narrow sleeping-room, to enter which, he had to creep under a low stone archway.

Those years must have contrasted strangely with his past life, full of brave deeds and adventures in a land where all things seemed new. His friends and his enemies alike pitied him now that he was shut up within his gloomy walls. The young Prince Henry had a great regard for him, and admired his brilliant qualities. "Surely," he used to say, "no man but my father would keep such a bird in a cage!"

After his first despair was over he employed himself in making chemical experiments, in educating his children—for his second son Carew was born in the Tower,—and in writing several works, one of which, entitled "The History of the World," has been much admired.

And when, after so many years had passed, and the doors of his prison were opened, he came out into the free air, "a worn, weak, and aged man," almost without fortune, haughty, and prone to take offence no more, but still brave and hopeful. He obtained his liberty chiefly through the interest of the Duke of Buckingham, whose services he paid with the sum of fifteen hundred pounds. He was released on condition of finding the gold mines of Guiana, and having embarked in the enterprise all that remained of his own and his wife's fortunes he set sail for South America, taking with him his son Walter, all the while the sentence of death once passed upon him was still hanging over his head.

But failure and sorrow were in store for him: two of his ships abandoned him; sickness broke out amongst the crews of those that remained, Sir Walter Raleigh was attacked by it himself, and was not able to land when they drew near the shore of Guiana. He deputed Captain Keymis to land with the adventurers, and to repel any Spaniards he might find near the mine. An affray took place in which young Raleigh was killed; and Keymis, attempting to keep a footing on shore, a second time was surprised by some Spaniards who had been lying in wait for him. The failure of the enterprise and the disappointment of Raleigh weighed so heavily upon him, that he killed himself in despair.

Raleigh thus went back to England in sorrow for the loss of his son, and with little hope left that his own life would be spared. When he landed in England he found that the king was very angry with him for having attacked the Spaniards, because he was at peace with their sovereign; and that he intended to renew all his former accusations against him. This King James was led to do by Gondemar, the Spanish ambassador, who bore an extreme hatred to Raleigh; it is even supposed that the Spaniards in Guiana had been secretly told to prepare to resist. James made a proclamation to the effect that he had forbidden all acts of hostility on land belonging to the Spaniards. Directly Raleigh heard this he wrote a letter to the king in defence of his conduct. He was repairing to London, and was met on the road by Sir Lewis Stukely, one of his relations, who told him that he was to arrest him. Then it was that Raleigh yielded to weakness which he repented of in after hours. He pretended that he was ill, that he had lost his reason, anything to delay the moment of his arrest.

Once he planned an escape to France, but when he had got in disguise from the Tower Docks as far as Woolwich he was overtaken by some people in the pay of the Government; and at Greenwich was formally arrested by his kinsman, who had accompanied him in his flight. The next morning, August 7th, he was conducted to the Tower, where he took a kind farewell of the king, and remained imprisoned there until the 28th of October. And on that day, as he was lying ill, the king's officers came at eight o'clock in the morning to convey him to Westminster. Thence he was taken to Gate House, and the next morning to the Old Palace Yard, where the scaffold was erected on which he was to die, that the king might preserve peace with Spain! The people of England thought James was very unkind to condemn a man whose guilt had never been proved, and who was the most valiant and spirited in the whole land. And indeed the execution of Raleigh has ever been considered unjust.

He appeared upon the scaffold with a smiling countenance, and saluted all of his friends and acquaintances who were present. Then he spoke in his own defence, but notwithstanding the deep silence around, his words were not heard by the Lords Arundel and Doncaster, and some other lords and knights who sat at a window looking into the yard, and he begged them to come upon the scaffold. When he had saluted them all he thanked God for having brought him into the light to die, instead of suffering him to die in the dark prison of the Tower. Then he defended himself eloquently against the numerous charges that had been made against him, and ended by entreating all his friends to pray for him, because he said that since he had been a soldier, a captain, a sea-captain, and a courtier, he must needs have fallen into many sins.

The lords and knights departed sorrowfully from the scaffold, and Raleigh prepared for death; he gave away his hat, his wrought night-cap, and some money to some of those who remained near him. "I have a long journey to go," he said, "and therefore I will take my leave." And when he had taken off his black velvet gown and his satin doublet, he called to the headsman, and examined the axe, saying, as he felt along its edge, "This is a sharp medicine, but it is a physician for all disorders." Being asked which way he would lay his head on the block, he said, "So the heart be right, it is no matter which way the head lieth." A minute later his head was severed with two blows from his body; the story of his life was ended, and the unjust king could keep the peace he had purchased with the sacrifice of a man who, although faulty, had many of the attributes of true greatness.

The body of Sir Walter Raleigh was buried in St. Margaret's Church. His sorrowing widow kept his head in a case during her lifetime; it was afterwards buried with her son Carew at West Horsley, in Surrey. Raleigh was tenderly attached to his wife, and wrote her an affectionate and solemn letter during the early part of his imprisonment, in which he gave her some good advice. "If you can live free from want," he said, "care for no more, for the rest is but vanity. Love God, and begin betimes; in Him you shall have everlasting felicity. When you have travelled and wearied yourself with all sorts of worldly cogitations, you shall sit down in sorrow at the end.... Teach your son also to serve and fear God whilst he is young, that the fear of God may grow up in him."

[23] This story is mentioned in the "British Biography."