Sir Walter Raleigh (1552?-1618), English adventurer and writer, who was prominent at the court of Queen Elizabeth I, and became an explorer of the Americas.

Born at Hayes Barton in Devonshire, Raleigh attended the University of Oxford for a time, served in the French religious wars on the Huguenot side, and later studied law in London, where he became familiar with both court life and the intellectual community.

In 1578 Raleigh sailed to America with his half brother, Sir Humphrey Gilbert, a voyage that may have stimulated his plan to found an English empire there. In 1585, Raleigh sponsored the first English colony in America on Roanoke Island in present-day North Carolina. The colony failed, as did another one in 1587. His explorations in South America fared little better; his search in 1595 in what is now Guyana for El Dorado, the city of gold, achieved no practical success.

Raleigh first came to Queen Elizabeth's attention through his work in Ireland, where he went in 1580 to help suppress a rebellion. He used his Irish experiences to pose as an expert on Irish affairs in London, and became the queen's favorite. He was soon knighted, and became one of the most powerful figures in England.

Raleigh temporarily fell from the queen's favor when she discovered in 1592 that he had secretly married one of her maids of honor. His eventual return to power in the last years of Elizabeth was short-lived; her successor, James I, disliked Raleigh. In 1603 he was accused of plotting against the king and was convicted and sentenced to death. King James, however, commuted the sentence to life imprisonment, and Raleigh was sent to the Tower of London, where he remained for the next 13 years. During his imprisonment he completed the first volume of his History of the World (1614), which, with his other works—several poems, The Last Fight of the Revenge (1591), and The Discovery of Guiana (1596)—gave him an important place among Elizabethan intellectuals. He became a hero to the heir to the throne, Prince Henry, who tried to secure Raleigh's release from prison. Prince Henry's death in 1612 so frustrated Raleigh that he proposed to give King James a fortune in gold if the king would allow him to return to Guiana. James agreed on the condition that no offense be given the Spanish. The expedition in 1616 was a disaster. In Guiana, Raleigh sent his son and an aide to search for El Dorado. They attacked a Spanish settlement, and his son was killed. Raleigh returned to England, where King James invoked the death sentence of 1603; Raleigh was beheaded on October 29, 1618.