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The Real Raleigh
Jun. 22nd, 2008 02:22 pmFeb 2008
Lady in Waiting - Rosemary Sutcliffe - Heywood Books, 1989
* * * *
Quick, name all the things you can remember about Sir Walter Raleigh (without clicking the link). If your knowledge of history is as patchy as mine your list will probably be something along the lines of: favourite of Queen Elizabeth, explorer who went to America, introduced tobacco and potatoes to England, curried favour by laying his cloak over a puddle. Which only goes to show the power of myth over reality, for none of them is strictly true. Yes, he was a favourite of the Queen, but also earned her ire by marrying her lady-in-waiting Bess Throckmorton which led to his imprisonment and exile for five years. When he was in favour, the Queen refused to let him go on any expeditions, and those that he did succeed in arranging, like the colony on Roanoke Island and the quest for El Dorado, were failures (he also never set foot on the American mainland). He probably made smoking popular at court, but both the potato and tobacco were already known in England through trade with the Spanish. And the cloak story is probably a myth, invented by Thomas Fuller and popularised by Sir Walter Scott in his novel Kenilworth (this is disputed and a cloak does feature in Raleigh's coat of arms, though in my view it could just as easily signify his love of travel). Rosemary Sutcliffe, one of our best historical novelists, was clearly aware of the myths, which is why none of them appear in this book.
( Read more... )
Lady in Waiting - Rosemary Sutcliffe - Heywood Books, 1989
* * * *
Quick, name all the things you can remember about Sir Walter Raleigh (without clicking the link). If your knowledge of history is as patchy as mine your list will probably be something along the lines of: favourite of Queen Elizabeth, explorer who went to America, introduced tobacco and potatoes to England, curried favour by laying his cloak over a puddle. Which only goes to show the power of myth over reality, for none of them is strictly true. Yes, he was a favourite of the Queen, but also earned her ire by marrying her lady-in-waiting Bess Throckmorton which led to his imprisonment and exile for five years. When he was in favour, the Queen refused to let him go on any expeditions, and those that he did succeed in arranging, like the colony on Roanoke Island and the quest for El Dorado, were failures (he also never set foot on the American mainland). He probably made smoking popular at court, but both the potato and tobacco were already known in England through trade with the Spanish. And the cloak story is probably a myth, invented by Thomas Fuller and popularised by Sir Walter Scott in his novel Kenilworth (this is disputed and a cloak does feature in Raleigh's coat of arms, though in my view it could just as easily signify his love of travel). Rosemary Sutcliffe, one of our best historical novelists, was clearly aware of the myths, which is why none of them appear in this book.
( Read more... )