Sir Walter Raleigh: Ubermensch

We all know that there are some people who appear to have multiple talents to such a degree that they operate on a different level from most of us. Reading Roy Jenkins' biography of Winston Churchill shows, not suprisingly, that Winston Churchill was one of these individuals. They have intellectual brilliance, charisma, charm, athletic ability, creativity, perseverence, and dedication, and they face defeat by simply moving on, and on, and on. This does not, of course, mean that Ubermenschen are perfect human beings. In fact, their shortcomings are sometimes as strongly negative, as their talents are positive. And often these negative qualities stem from their strengths. They tend to have a certain arrogance and disdain towards mere mortals that lead to their own eventual decline.

Until I read The Shepherd of the Ocean by University of Utah professors J. H. adamson and H. F. Holland, I did not know that Walter Raleigh was also a Ubermensch.

In fact, my knowledge of Sir Walter was embarrassingly limited. I recalled that he put down his cloak in order to let the Queen of England keep her feet dry (my image of this was that his cloak got so dirty that it could never be properly cleaned). And I knew he had something to do with a lost colony in Virginia, and the mysterious word "Croatan".

That was it.

Walter Raleigh was born in Devon, which along with its further neighbor Cornwall, was still frontier country in the 16th century, where Celts and others had retreated after the Norman conquest, and which was just beginning to show some economic development with the growth of oceanic trade (and piracy). Nothing is known of his childhood. It appears that his family was neither poor, nor wealthy, and young Walter did spend one year (no more) at Oxford, until his wanderlust got the better of him.

England was, of course, Protestant, but not for that long, and Catholic-Protestant hatred was at a high point. When the French Protestants, the Huguenots and the Catholic majority were at war with each other, England backed the Huguenots, and the sons of England went to prove themselves in battle. Walter Raleigh was one of these young men.

He later wrote of himself in battle; there is no corroboration, but no reason to doubt his account, either. The time he spent in France was very important in his development. He developed self-confidence, a degree of intellectual maturity, respect for talented and charismatic leadership, and knowledge of how wars are, and could be, won and lost.

Raleigh was away from England five years. He was not that long a soldier, and it is not clear what else he did during that period, but he came back to London and enrolled at the Inns of Court, but apparently with no intention to complete the studies and activities needed to be elevated to the bar. It was here, however, that he developed his social skills, his reputation as a bon vivant and racanteur.

He also became close to his older half-brother, Humphrey Gilbert (his mother's son by an earlier marriage), who had gained a reputation for audacity and courage and who was sent by Queen Elizabeth (how he gained the queen's favor, I do not know) to help English troops in Holland withstand attacks by French and Spanish Catholics. Walter went with them; the mission was a disaster.

But now Walter was ready to aim for bigger things. The first of his many projects was to locate the Northwest Passage, through the New World to China, going with two of his brothers. Again, failure and, worse, a sea battle with a Spanish warship. The glory went to rival, Francis Drake, who sailed to the orient and back.

Raleigh now decided to try his luck in the wilds of Ireland (England was trying to pacify the Emerald Isle and its Catholic population, and the Irish were objecting; not much has changed, has it?). Attempts at colonization; brutal battles.

Having enough of Ireland, he, along with brother Gilbert, now decided to colonize the New World, and it is here that the colony at Roanoke was started, amongst great hope, and attempts at good relationships with the Indians, the goal being to become the favorite colonizers of the western hemisphere by avoiding the brutality of the Spaniards. But the colony was not successful, weather problems, crop failures, and an Indian policy that did not quite succeed. Gilbert and most of their ships were lost.

But meanwhile, Walter had met the queen. Queen Elizabeth, apparently truly the Virgin Queen (hence "Virginia") had a series of young, dashing favorites, one at a time. Now it was Walter's turn, and he and queen became inseparable. According to the authors, what made Raleigh different from the queen's previous favorites was his intellect, his ability to speak on such a wide variety of subjects, to be able to talk about warfare, religious conflict (although he himself does not appear devout), Ireland, and America.

While spending time with the Queen, Walter (not yet "sir") began to write poetry, and some of it apparently not bad, although perhaps not as good as the writings of two his close friends, Edmund Spenser and Christopher Marlowe. He became interested in religion as a study, and in the sciences, as they then were.

To allow him to increase his wealth, Elizabeth gave him a wine monopoly over a portion of the country, and then put him in charge of the tin mines. He was knighted. He was put in charge of the revenues of Cornwall. He was made a member of the elite Privy Council. He dressed in the best of style. He began to make enemies.

He then turned his attention back to military affairs. It was becoming increasingly clear to him that, while England could never hope to raise armies of the size and strength of those exisiting on the continent, it could create a navy that would control the seas. Raleigh helped create that navy, not only in encouraging increasing ship building, but in helping design new kinds of ships, for new kinds of battle. The defeat of the Spanish Armada, though not a battle in which Raleigh himself took an active role (Elizabeth did not want her favorites in harm's way), his development of naval stores and naval theory was crucial.

Throughout all these years, the English navy, the pacification and colonization of Ireland, the colonization of the New World and the search for the wealth of the world, all remained activities in which he, sometimes simultaneously, devoted great energy, and a large part of his new found wealth.

But eventually, Elizabeth tired of him as favorite and turned her attention elsewhere, particularly to the Earl of Essex, Robert Devereux, who became Raleigh's rival in so many ways.

Raleigh's relationship with one of the queen's ladies in waiting resulted in a pregnancy, and not surprising knowing Raleigh's sense of devotion and duty, a marriage. In fact, the marriage was apparently very strong, and lasted his entire life. They dared not tell the queen, for fear it would estrange her from him more, and clearly his livelihood depended on continued good relationships. But, through Essex she found out and had Raleigh imprisoned in the Tower of London. He was later released, when the queen decided that a certain job of protecting the cargo of a Portuguese treasure ship was pulled into an English port.

More attempts at colonization, this time heading further south, to Guiana, looking for gold in the jungles of South America. Failure one more time, but extraordinary adventure along the way, for a man no longer young.

Then again fighting with Spain and Portugal, bringing the Spanish empire to its end as a power. Decisions of strategy being made, now by Raleigh, now by Essex, now by the entire council the queen had appointed, of which the two were members. Raleigh appears by now to have developed the reputation of an adventurer, who has had too many failures, and thus the failures of these battles, when they occurred, were laid to him. Both Essex and Raleigh commanded ships. Their relationship was contorted, however, because Essex was in charge of the fleet in battle, but Raleigh ranked higher in overall control of Naval affairs.

Throughout most of this time, Sir Walter was also a member of Parliament, and the authors give a good account of his achievements, in policy and oratory, there. He became expert in economic policy, and respected in that field, as well as becoming an authority on the treatment of religious dissidents.

With the death of the childless Elizabeth imminent, succession became the question of the day, with a number of possibilities. Essex became mentally unbalanced, was accused of treason, tried, convicted and hanged. King James, the relatively weak successor to Elizabeth, was also convinced that Raleigh was a danger, had him arrested and again put in the Tower of London.
This time he stayed there 25 years.

But, while there, he developed a business of harvesting herbs from the New World, experimenting with them, drying them, and having them sold for medicinal use. Like the Birdman of Alcatraz, he had his own business within the walls of the prison.

At the same time, in addition to continuing to write poetry and short articles on all kinds of subjects (you know he would have had a blog if they let him have a computer), he became his ambitious multi-volume history of the world. And, because of his charm, he became the confident of King James' wife, Queen Anne (of Danish royalty) and their son, the crown prince. It was to Prince Henry that his history was dedicated.

Tragedy struck, and the Prince (in spite of the use of Raleigh's medicinal herbs) died. The Queen (and, I am sure, the King) were heartbroken, as was Raleigh, who looked upon himself as a surrogate father to the young man.

King James' kingdom was in terrible financial straights, and it was decided that Raleigh could be let out of the Tower, for the sole purpose of leading another expedition to Guiana to locate Spanish gold. Raleigh assumed that success would bring him freedom.

Of course the attempt, again, was a failure. Worse than that, Sir Walter's son, young Walter, a sailor on the expedition was killed.

When Raleigh got back to England, time had run out. The full sentence had to be carried out, and Sir Walter Raleigh died of hanging. You would think that this would not have been the end of such an illustrious career, but it seems par for the course in those days (and we are not talkng so very long ago).

Everything he did was not a success, as we see, but he did so very much, that there is no question that he was a human being of super human capacity. How could one person do so much in so many different fields in so many different places, at a time when everything conspired against him, and he spent 25+ years in the Tower of London? It seems uncanny. And I thought all he did was put his coat down (unnecessarily) to gain the favor of the Queen.