or Ralegh Raleigh Sir Walter

Raleigh, or Ralegh, Sir Walter (1554?–1618), English adventurer and poet, a favorite of Queen Elizabeth I. His efforts to organize colonization of the New World resulted in the tragedy of the Lost Colony of Roanoke Island, Va. In 1589 he left court and consolidated his friendship with Sir Edmund Spenser, whose Faerie Queene was written partly under Raleigh's patronage. Returning, he distinguished himself in raids at Cadiz (1596) and the Azores (1597). James I imprisoned him for treason in the Tower of London (1603–16), where he wrote poetry and his uncompleted History of the World. After two years' freedom, during which he made an unsuccessful expedition to the Orinoco River, he was executed in England under the original treason charge.