Scholars seek to spread word on Sir Walter Raleigh

Sir Walter Raleigh was a swashbuckler, an adventurer and a favorite of Queen Elizabeth I. He was the man who charmed her highness for permission to explore the New World. At least that's the Raleigh most North Carolinians know.

As it turns out, the little that's known about the man whose name is found from the state capital to the streets of Manteo - and as a principal character in "The Lost Colony" production - is mostly myth.

"Our perspective on Raleigh in North Carolina is really one-dimensional," said Robert Anthony, curator of the North Carolina collection at the Wilson Special Collections Library at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. "He was one of the leading poets of his day. He was part of the settlement of Northern Ireland. He wrote about military strategy, naval history. He talked about naval ships.

"He's so diverse. I think that's something we don't really appreciate here. People are just fascinated with him."

Anthony was one of the 24 scholars who holed up last month in the Tower of London, the dank quarters where Raleigh spent most of the last 15 years of his life working on Volume I of the "History of the World."

When the academics emerged from the Tower after two days, it was agreed that a critical analysis of the writings and works of the man largely responsible for persuading the queen to launch the 1584-87 Roanoke Voyages is long overdue. Although Raleigh was a renowned writer, akin to a bestselling author today, the last time his principal works have been published as a whole was in 1829.

With the 400th anniversary of the publication of the "History of the World" in 2014, the Raleigh Research Circle agreed to collaborate in efforts to bring together Raleigh's works, digitalized, critiqued and analyzed when possible.

Mark Nicholls, a St. John's College University of Cambridge professor and an organizer of the conference, also plans to publish a biography of Raleigh this fall. Larry Tise, a professor at Thomas Harriot College of Arts and Sciences at East Carolina University in Greenville, was co-organizer of the gathering.

Although it is not known just how besotted Elizabeth was with the younger Raleigh, Anthony said the queen favored vigorous men who were leaders. Raleigh, in turn, did little to discourage her attention.

"Raleigh would write these very elaborate poems to her, comparing her to the most beautiful thing in the universe," he said.

It was Raleigh's secret marriage to one of the queen's maids that landed him in the Tower the first time. After a year, the queen released him. King James, however, was less merciful. Raleigh was beheaded in 1618.

"It was a very interesting period," Anthony said of those years of the English monarchy.

The North Carolina collection at UNC has about 1,500 titles on Raleigh, one of the largest printed collections in one place.

While imprisoned, Raleigh had access to a large library, said Frank Romer, professor of classics and chairman of the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures at East Carolina University.

In writing his first volume of the "History of the World," Raleigh covered vast territory, from Genesis to Hannibal to Rome's Macedonian wars. According to an outline of the conference provided by Tise, Nicholas Popper, a CalTech scholar who spoke to the group, said Raleigh cited 500 published sources in the work, many of them written in the century before Raleigh embarked on his volume.

It was the first time anyone had attempted to write a world history in English, Popper said.

As significant as the book was, it was, after all, written while the author was held in the Tower.

"It was Raleigh's biggest work," Romer said. "It's really a political writing and his interpretation of history. In part, he was writing to show that he was a loyal and trustworthy person and had acceptable views and should be let out of the Tower of London."

Unfortunately, Raleigh was killed before he could get to his planned Volumes II and III.

Romer said the group saw the rooms where Raleigh wrote. "They were small and cold and a little bit noisy." Even though he was in prison, Raleigh

was allowed to live there with his family, partly because he was not your ordinary prisoner.

Raleigh - also spelled Ralegh - could benefit greatly, the group agreed, with a modern eye cast beyond his mythical history.

"He played a significant role in Elizabethan life," Romer said. "I was very glad there was interest and support getting his lesser works into print."

Cate Kozak, (252) 441-1711 cate.kozak@pilotonline.com