Sir Walter Ralegh

Like his later compatriate Sir Winston Churchill, Sir Walter Ralegh is one of those historical figures about whom virtually everyone knows something. From the old yarn about cloaks and puddles (though this actually happened), to his sponsorship of the tobacco industry (this happened too), to his tragic expedition to the Orinoco, Ralegh lore is a recurring theme in school history classes on both sides of the Atlantic. Lacey's great achievement is to blend these facets of his life seamlessly with the other, less familiar, episodes. One of the most interesting revelations is that for all the early and mid-life glories of his Elizabethan years - the poetry, the daring exploits and bon mots - his "finest hour" was in adversity, when (under sentence of death in the Tower) he wrote his brilliant multi-volume "History of the World." This is one of those rare biographies (Carlo D'Este's "Patton" comes to mind as another) where the reader is completely absorbed into the subject's mind and world.

I had always loved Ralegh's poetry, I fell enamored of the fictional account of his life entitled "Death of a Fox" by George Garrett some 30 odd years ago, but had never really comprehended the sweep of Ralegh's life. In his own way, according to Lacey, Ralegh's household became almost the equivalent of our Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Draper Labs, or even NASA. The story about the cloak and Elizabeth is true, but the depth of his love for his wife was new to me.Fascinating, well-written book. Truly fascinating man.

To write a biography of a man with as much vitality and variety as Ralegh would seem at first sight a daunting task for any author: however well the tale is told, it will pale beside the real life exploits of this, the most remarkable of Englishmen.The success of Robert Lacey's account is largely due to the way he reflects the multifaceted nature of his subject in the book's structure. There are some 50 chapters, divided into seven sections, each charting the ups and downs of Ralegh's uniquely chequered career. From country upstart to royal favourite, from privateer to traitor in the Tower, his life was never still - a continuum of change within a world that was constantly reassessing itself.It is above all an account of a man who was almost uniquely human: capable of immense bravery and ingenuity, creativity and arrogance, one moment acquitting himself with a rare brilliance, the next with sublime recklessness. Ralegh was the epitome of man, warts and all, and a man who struggled daily to achieve ends that were destined to lie forever beyond him, whether they were glories of the gold of El Dorado or the love of his virgin Queen.Far from being a trip down the honeysuckled lane of nostalgia, this is a book that is uniquely relevant to the present day. Many readers will be aware of the legends of Ralegh's bejewelled cloak, or acquainted with verses of his gilded poetry; many more will be surprised to learn that he was the founding father of the British colony, and that his experiments in Munster, Virginia and Guyana led directly to the vast empire that was only a couple of centuries later to cover one third of the globe. Yet he was in his explorations and expeditions a great philanthropist, and his treatment of the local inhabitants in the Americas was to earn him a respect that lasted many generations, as opposed to the legacy of mistrust and hatred that the Spanish pioneers engendered.Ralegh was a man whose talents and faults, when fuelled by his rare energy, shone like beacons. He lived the kind of life that most of us only dream of, and few can live up to. Lacey's greatest achievement is never to lapse into the kind of starry-eyed hero-worshipping that often accompanies biographies of remarkable men. It is a profoundly moving book, particularly in its final chapters, when the voice of Ralegh in his final speech before his execution is allowed to resonate down the years with few embellishments and, as such, is all the more powerful. The book is a testament to the unique powers of one man: the man, to the powers that lie within us all.