Sir
Walter Raleigh
Raleigh Trevelyan
London: Penguin-Allen Lane, 2002.
£25.00, 622 pages, ISBN 0-71-399326-X (hardback).
Detlev Mares
Technische Universität Darmstadt
If
you happen to approach English Renaissance culture and Tudor politics
for the first time, you could do worse than start with a biography
of Walter Raleigh. Raleigh was one of the quintessential figures in
Elizabethan politics and culture. As a courtier and favourite of the
Queen, he had made a quick rise to the centre of power in the early
years of the British empire; his talent as a poet served him well
to fulfil his manly duty of lavishing praise and admiration on the
Virgin Queen. He was, of course, a renowned explorer and adventurer,
being involved in early attempts at establishing settlements in Virginia
and leading expeditions into Guyana, where he followed the course
of the Orinoco river in search of El Dorado, the fabled land of gold.
At the same time, he also was a gifted administrator, organising the
land defence during the Armada crisis of 1588 and taking a leading
part in the raid of Cadiz in 1596. All this besides being one of the
big landowners in Ireland, responsible for strengthening English settlement
in this closest part of the colonial empire. And finally, his life
does not lack romance and drama, with years spent in alienation from
Elizabeth after marrying one of her ladies in waiting. Even more drama
is provided by the long period he spent in the Tower, accused of being
a traitor by James I and eventually executed in 1618.
Raleigh Trevelyan (who does not fail to play on the theme of his first
name to account for a special relationship with Sir Walter) craftily
exploits the dramatic dimensions in Raleigh's life in a gripping narrative
of intrigue, adventure and culture in Elizabethan England. The book
is full of colourful detail and countless anecdotes about a man who
was among the most erudite minds of his time, but who could also be
a severe, even ruthless commander. Trevelyan strives to show both
sides of the man, his generosity and religious tolerance as well as
his self-serving politics and his yearning for glory and recognition.
Some facets of these two sides can be seen in an incident of 1591.
At Tyburn, Raleigh supervised the execution of a young Jesuit who
was to be hanged, drawn and quartered. When Raleigh heard the priest
pray for the Queen, he stopped the execution and interrogated the
man, obviously prepared to show leniency if the Jesuit confirmed his
attachment to the Queen. But when the priest insisted on the superiority
of the Pope over the Queen in religious matters, Raleigh had no qualms
to order the execution to proceed, although his religious views were
deist and freethinking rather than an expression of common Christianity
(167/168).
Trevelyan also emphasizes Raleigh's manifold qualities by dealing
at some length with his productions as a writer. Raleigh was not only
well-acquainted with Edmund Spenser, who alluded to his friend in
The Faerie Queene (141); as a poet, he also was in a sort of
intellectual conversation with Christopher Marlowe and William Shakespeare
(119-123), although his own works were mainly written for private
amusement. However, in his later years, Raleigh also wrote treatises
and larger works, which partly aimed at a larger audience. The main
examples are his account of his Discoverie of Guiana voyage
(1596) and his masterpiece, The History of the World. It was
mainly composed with the help of friends from intellectual circles
during his years in the Tower and published in 1614 (427-432). Strangely,
the bibliography at the end of Trevelyan's book does not include a
list of Raleigh's own writings.
Trevelyan's narrative gathers particular speed when it comes to describing
the famous battles Raleigh took part in or his exploration trips.
The Guyana chapters show a fine sense of cultural differences between
the native population and the British, whose concepts of time and
distances might differ considerably from the ones of the inhabitants
of the area that was explored. A fair number of illustrations and
several maps in this well-produced book add to the pleasure of reading
these chapters.
However, the narrative sweep of the book also has its drawbacks when
it comes to the systematic analysis of issues. The wide array of people
and themes covered in the book tends to favour the surface level over
the exploration of more fundamental questions. For example, there
might be some interest in the question of whether the relationship
between Raleigh and the Queen went up to or even beyond "touching".
But behind this question lays the politically more important one why
it was deemed a political necessity for Elizabeth to be seen as the
Virgin Queen. Despite his detailed account of the favourite's role
at court, Trevelyan hardly probes into this. Neither does he always
try to make the culture of the time accessible to the modern reader.
Several times he mentions the astrologer and scientist John Dee. Trevelyan
stresses Dee's role as an adviser in the preparation of exploratory
journeys, but his magical interests leave the author bemused. Classifying
much of Dee's thought as "nonsense" (66) does not help to
understand the intimate connection between science and magic in much
Renaissance thinking. Trevelyan does not go deeply either into the
financial and economic background of Raleigh's privateering and exploration
ventures. Admittedly, there are few sources which would allow the
historian to reconstruct the procedures involved in preparing such
enterprises. But several times Trevelyan mentions the importance of
friendship, family relationship and personal liaison for privateering
and colonizing ventures. Again, a more systematic expansion on these
themes might have yielded fascinating insights into the career of
Walter Raleigh. The same goes for the narrow line between privateering
and national commitment, which is not explicitly dealt with.
Thus, analysis is not the strongest aspect of this biography, and
probably it was not meant to be so in the first place. It would have
helped to clarify the deeper structures that were the foundation for
Raleigh's personal experiences, but the purpose of the book rather
seems to have been to provide a large-scale, source-based and lively
account of an adventurous and dramatic life. In this, Trevelyan succeeds
brilliantly. The book, even at its size, is a pleasure to read and
a quarry of information and insights into Elizabethan culture and
politics. The cast of characters is impressive; besides the protagonist
and the other names already mentioned, the pages of the book are peopled
by the like of Francis Drake, Francis Bacon, Robert Cecil, Burleigh,
Ben Jonson and dozens of today lesser-known characters. Thus, Trevelyan
uses the life of Sir Walter Raleigh to introduce the reader to the
political and cultural elite of Elizabethan England. Someone approaching
English Renaissance culture and Tudor politics for the first time
could do much worse than start with this biography of Sir Walter Raleigh.