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Essay On Sir Walter Raleigh

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Sir Walter Raleigh the explorer was born in 1552, or possibly 1554 and died in 1618. He grew up in a farmhouse near a village called East Budleigh in Devon. He had four older brothers. He was also raised as a strict Protestant. Raleigh’s family faced oppression under Queen Mary I, a Catholic, and as a result, young Walter developed a lifelong hatred of the Roman Catholics. In 1578, Raleigh set out with his half-brother, Sir Humphrey Gilbert on a voyage to North America to find the Northwest Passage. Never reaching its destination, the mission turned into a privateering raid against Spanish shipping. His brash actions were not well received by the Privy Council, and he was briefly imprisoned. Over time he turned into an adventurer, writer and nobleman. After growing close to Queen Elizabeth I during his time in the army, Raleigh was knighted in 1585 and became captain of the guard. During …show more content…

After buying his freedom, Raleigh married Bessy and distanced himself from the jealous English queen. After Elizabeth’s death in 1603, Raleigh was implicated as an enemy of her descendant, King James I, and was given a death sentence. Mainly because Sir Walter Raleigh’s aggressive actions toward the Spanish did not sit well with the anti-war King James I. Raleigh’s enemies worked to taint his reputation with the new king and he was soon charged with treason and condemned to death. However, his sentence was disputed, and Raleigh was freed to lead an expedition to the New World. For this particular expedition, his goal was to launch a gold mine by the Orinoco River, in South America. He told the in debt king that if he was released and charges were dropped, he would find gold and make England richer than Spain. The king thought it would be possible for Raleigh to

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