“The lives of few public men have offered more scope for controversy than has the life of Sir Walter Raleigh”
Born around 1552 to a well-connected gentry family, Sir Walter Raleigh’s life spanned the reigns of Elizabeth I and James I.
He lived in the world of countless literary figures such as William Shakespeare and Ben Jonson.
An adventurer, courtier, poet, navigator, and author, Sir Walter Raleigh was a man of many faces.
Famous for popularising tobacco in England, it also speculated that Raleigh introduced England to the exotic potato.
In Sir Walter Raleigh Sir Rennell Rodd takes the reader through Raleigh’s remarkable life, inlcluding his early years in Ireland, his introduction to court, and his role in repelling the Spanish Armada.
Raleigh’s relationships with other prominent men of the day, such as Essex and Cecil, are explored, along with his several trips to the new world, including his failed attempts to found a colony in Virginia and his search for the fabled golden land of El Dorado.
But even Raleigh’s fame could not protect him from King James’s execution block…
James Rennell Rodd (1858-1941) was the first Baron Rennell. A British politician, diplomat, and poet, he also served as the British ambassador to Italy during the First World War. A published poet, he published his memoirs, and his diaries were published posthumously. He was the recipient of a number of honours and was raised to the peerage in 1933. With his wife, Lilias Georgina Guthrie, he had four sons and two daughters.
