Raleigh, Sir Walter: Early Life

Early Life

As a youth Raleigh served (1569) as a volunteer in the Huguenot army in France. In 1572 he was listed as an undergraduate at Oxford, where he may have studied before going to France, and his name appears in the registry of the Middle Temple in 1575. In 1578, Raleigh and his brother Carew joined their half-brother Sir Humphrey Gilbert in outfitting a heavily armed fleet, ostensibly for a “voyage of discovery.” Storms and desertions soon ended the project. In 1580, Raleigh served in Ireland, suppressing the rebels in Munster.

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