Spend a milder moment with the quiet taste of Raleigh

Sir Walter Raleigh

I said at the outset of this project that I wouldn't just chronicle the lives of our ancestors but would attempt to use their spots in the history of the world as a jumping off point to look at aspects of the past I knew little about.

This is what will happen this week.

I'm switching back to Sharon's side of the family for a bit. I traced her father's lineage back as far as it would go in Family Search, the free, online genealogy resource from The Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-Day Saints. One of the individuals I ran across, Cornelius Shehane, was featured in a previous post that centered on indentured servanthood. 

The end of that part of the tree lies with Daniel Shehane, Cornelius' father. In the records associated with Daniel is a list of passengers for the ship Encrease, sailing out of Youghal, County Cork, Ireland (now Republic of Ireland). 

Youghal is located on the southern coast, with roots going back to the 5th century, when a church was founded there, supposedly by St. Declan, who was commissioned by St. Patrick (yes, that St. Patrick) to build a monastery and to convert to Christianity the ethnic group Declan belonged to. 

The town officially incorporated in 1209, but it also served as a base for Viking raids in the 1100s. Since we found out about the Viking involvement in England and Ireland -- not, I must admit from working this project but from the TV show Vikings, which drove me to read some actual histories -- I've said that if we did one of those DNA tests they advertise, we might discover Viking ancestry. Alas, nothing in my research so far shows any Norsemen in our past, but we can dream.

One of the names associated with Youghal caught my attention, that of Sir Walter Raleigh. I thought, hmm, I know some silly legend attaches to him, but beyond that, I can't say I know much about him at all.

The legend, I'm sure you remember, was that he was a favorite of Queen Elizabeth I, and that once, as they were walking together, they encountered a large puddle of water. Raleigh gallantly whipped his cloak from his shoulders and covered the puddle so the queen could walk over it. 

The part about his being a favorite of the Queen is true. It's how he became associated with Youghal. The queen granted him property there as a reward for his service in quelling a rebellion. The part about the cloak is another story. It probably belongs in the dust bin with the debunked story of Washington admitting to chopping down a cherry tree. 

Raleigh stayed in the queen's favor until he had the audacity to marry one of her ladies in waiting on the QT, whereupon she tossed him into the Tower of London. Sounds like the Virgin Queen might have     had other ideas about Walter. She didn't keep him there long, and he was able to regain some favor with her before her death.

Raleigh had done some exploring, looking for the Northwest Passage in the Americas, and hoped to do more, including establishing a colony in the New World, while he had the Queen's favor. She didn't want his sailing off to parts unknown and maybe not coming back, but she allowed him to put together expeditions that resulted in the founding of a colony at Roanoke, and he's the one who dubbed the territory "Virginia" in the Queen's honor (see Virgin Queen reference above). The Roanoke colony eventually failed.

Raleigh was virulently anti-Catholic, which fueled his hatred of the Spanish. After Elizabeth died, James I succeeded to the throne and proceeded to try make nice with Spain. Raleigh participated in raids on Spanish ships, causing James to toss him back into the Tower on charges of treason. Note that imprisonment in the Tower was pretty cushy for people of Raleigh's stature. The biggest problem was being stuck there.

Raleigh lived in the Tower with his wife and children for a little more than a decade, when James let him out to do some exploring in South America in the hopes of finding gold. But Raleigh attacked Spanish settlements, found no gold, and was forced to return to England, whereupon James had him arrested, tossed back in the Tower, and reinstated the treason charge, which carried the penalty of death.

Raleigh was beheaded shortly after. Gruesomely, his head was embalmed and given to his wife, who maintained possession of it until her death. The head passed on to the son, who had it buried with him when he died. 

Two other legends that attach to Raleigh involved potatoes and tobacco. He allegedly brought both to Ireland and Great Britain, but the likelihood is that members of the Roanoke expedition brought those items back from the colony, and Raleigh planted them on his farm in Youghal, which helped popularize them as crops.