Ralegh, Sir Walter (1554-1618).

manuscript, folio (317 x 195mm.), 38 leaves with 70 pages of text (the last 3 leaves ruled but blank), lines of text within a red-ruled frame, catchwords, written in ink in a professional scribal hand on paper (pillars watermark, of a type found in Heawood series 3485-3535, mostly from the 1630s), binding: early eighteenth-century vellum-backed blue paper boards lettered on spine s^{r walter raleigh's letters}

The Letters of Sir Walter Ralegh, edited by Agnes Latham and Joyce Youings (University of Exeter Press, 1999); Peter Beal, Index of English Literary Manuscripts, Volume I, Part 2 (London & New York, 1980)

these are near-contemporary copies of some of sir walter ralegh’s most dramatic writings.

The great naval commander, adventurer, courtier and author Sir Walter Ralegh became popular in England and virtually a national hero only following his execution by James I, which was widely regarded as unjust. In consequence, there was for a number of years a flourishing "underground" market for manuscript copies of unpublished writings by him, of which the present manuscript is a good example.

The texts represented here reflect some of the most dramatic and revealing events of Ralegh’s life. The two letters to James I, pleading for mercy, date from “before his tryall” and “after his Condemnation”: i.e. from before 10 November and after 17 November 1603 (Latham nos 168, 170), when Ralegh was tried for his life for treason after James had come to the English throne, was found guilty and sentenced to death – a sentence suspended for fifteen years while, for the most part, he languished in the Tower. Released in 1616 to undertake his final, ill-fated voyage to Guiana in search of gold, his clash with Spanish forces there (contrary to the King’s instructions) led to the death of his favourite son, Wat. His letter to Lady Ralegh, from St Christophers, 22 March 1617/18 (Latham no. 219), is his heart-rending attempt to comfort and share his grief with her:

"...god knowes I never knewe what sorrowe meant till nowe... I shall sorrowe for us both, and I shall sorrowe the lesse, because I have not long to sorrowe, because not long to live... my braines are broken, and tis a torment to mee to write..."

In a postscript the letter also gives an account of the suicide of his lieutenant Lawrence Keymis, who “shutt himself into his Cabbin, and shott himself with a pockett Pistoll, which broke one of his ribs, and finding that it had not prevailed, hee thrust a long knife under his short Ribbs upp to the handle, & dyed”.

A letter (here set out as two letters) to Secretary Sir Ralph Winwood, from St Christophers, 21 March 1617/18 (Latham no. 218), explains at length the failure of their Guiana enterprise. Finally, what is usually known as Ralegh’s “long Apology” (as opposed to his “short Apology” to Lord Carew: Latham no. 222) is his lengthy, 46-page account of, and attempted justification for, the whole disastrous expedition. This “apology”, surviving in at least thirty manuscript versions (Beal RaW 543-570, where the present copy is not recorded), was first printed in Judicious and Select Essays and Observations (1650).