Little is known about Sir Walter Raleigh's birth[3] but he is believed to have been born on 22 January 1552 (or possibly 1554[4]). He grew up in the house of Hayes Barton[5] (in the parish of East Budleigh), in East Devon. He was the youngest of the five sons of Walter Raleigh (1510–1581) (or Rawleigh) of Fardel Manor (in the parish of Cornwood),[6] in South Devon. Raleigh's family is generally assumed to have been a junior branch of the Raleigh family, 11th-century lords of the manor of Raleigh, Pilton[7] in North Devon, although the two branches are known to have borne entirely dissimilar coats of arms,[b] adopted at the start of the age of heraldry (c. 1200–1215).
Arms of Katherine Champernowne, mother of Sir Walter Raleigh, impaled by the arms of her first husband, Otes Gilbert. Churston Ferrers ChurchHis mother was Katherine Champernowne, the third wife of Walter Raleigh senior. She was the fourth daughter of Sir Philip Champernowne (1479–1545), lord of the manor of Modbury, Devon, by his wife Catherine Carew, a daughter of Sir Edmund Carew (d. 1513) of Mohuns Ottery (in the parish of Luppitt), Devon,[8]. Katherine was the widow of Otes Gilbert (1513–1546/7) of Greenway (in the parish of Brixham) and of Compton Castle (in the parish of Marldon), both in Devon. (The coat of arms of Otes Gilbert and Katherine Champernowne survives in a stained glass window in Churston Ferrers Church, near Greenway.)
Katherine Champernowne's paternal aunt was Kat Ashley, governess of Queen Elizabeth I, who introduced Raleigh and his brothers to the court.[9] Raleigh's maternal uncle was Sir Arthur Champernowne (c. 1524–1578), a Member of Parliament, Sheriff of Devon and Admiral of the West.
Walter Raleigh junior's immediate family included his full brother Carew Raleigh, and half-brothers John Gilbert, Humphrey Gilbert and Adrian Gilbert. As a consequence of their kinship with the Champernowne family, all of the Raleigh and Gilbert brothers became prominent during the reigns of Elizabeth I and James I.
Raleigh's family was highly Protestant in religious orientation and had a number of near escapes during the reign of Roman Catholic Queen Mary I of England. In the most notable of these, his father had to hide in a tower to avoid execution. As a result, Raleigh developed a hatred of Roman Catholicism during his childhood, and proved himself quick to express it after Protestant Queen Elizabeth I came to the throne in 1558. In matters of religion, Elizabeth was more moderate than her half-sister Mary.[10]
In 1569, Raleigh went to France to serve with the Huguenots in the French religious civil wars.[3] In 1572, Raleigh was registered as an undergraduate at Oriel College, Oxford, but he left in 1574 without a degree.[11] Raleigh proceeded to finish his education in the Inns of Court.[3] In 1575, he was admitted to the Middle Temple, having previously been a member of Lyon's Inn, one of the Inns of Chancery.[12] At his trial in 1603, he stated that he had never studied law. Much of his life is uncertain between 1569 and 1575, but in his History of the World, he claimed to have been an eyewitness at the Battle of Moncontour (3 October 1569) in France. In 1575 or 1576, Raleigh returned to England.[13]
In 1577 and again in 1579 Raleigh made voyages with his half-brother Sir Humphrey Gilbert in attempts to find a Northwest Passage.[11] They failed to find a passage, but succeeded in raiding Spanish ships.[11]
