Born of an honorable and ancient family in Devonshire, he early came to London, in order to push his fortunes, as was the custom in those days with the cadets of illustrious families whose worldly wealth was unequal to their birth and station, by the chances of court favor, or the readier advancement of the sword.  At this period, Elizabeth was desirous of lending assistance to the French Huguenots, who had been recently defeated in the bloody battle of Jarnac, and who seemed to be in considerable peril of being utterly overpowered by their cruel and relentless enemies the Guises; while she was at the same time wholly disinclined to involve England in actual strife, by regular and declared hostilities.

She gave permission, therefore, to Henry Champernon to raise a regiment of gentlemen volunteers, and to transport them into France.  In the number of these, young Walter Raleigh enrolled, and thenceforth his career may be said to have commenced; for from that time scarce a desperate or glorious adventure was essayed, either by sea or land, in which he was not a participator.  In this, his first great school of military valor and distinction, he served with so much spirit, and such display of gallantry and aptitude for arms, that he immediately attracted attention, and, on his return to England in 1570, after the pacification, and renewal of the edicts for liberty of conscience, found himself at once a marked man.

It seems that, about this time, in connection with Nicholas Blount and others, who afterward attained to both rank and eminence, Raleigh attached himself to the Earl of Essex, who at that time disputed with Leicester the favors, if not the affection, of Elizabeth; and, while in his suite, had the fortune to attract the notice of that princess by the handsomeness of his figure and the gallantry of his attire; she, like her father, Henry, being quick to observe and apt to admire those who were eminently gifted with the thews and sinews of a man.

A strangely romantic incident was connected with his first rise in the favor of the Virgin Queen, which is so vigorously and brilliantly described by another and even more renowned Sir Walter in his splendid romance of Kenilworth, that it shames us to attempt it with our far inferior pen; but it is so characteristic of the man and of the times that it may not be passed over in silence.

Being sent once on a mission—­so runs the tale—­by his lord to the queen, at Greenwich, he arrived just as she was issuing in state from the palace to take her barge, which lay manned and ready at the stairs.  Repulsed by the gentlemen pensioners, and refused access to her majesty until after her return from the excursion, the young esquire stood aloof, to observe the passing of the pageant; and, seeing the queen pause and hesitate on the brink of a pool of rain-water which intersected her path, no convenience being at hand wherewith to bridge it, took off his crimson cloak, handsomely laid down with gold lace, his only courtlike garment, fell on one knee, and with doffed cap and downcast eyes threw it over the puddle, so that the queen passed across dry shod, and swore by God’s life, her favorite oath, that there was chivalry and manhood still in England.