Raleigh was now high in the queen’s favor, and with large influence at court. He was in or about his thirty-second year, of rugged manhood, handsome, and debonair. The son of a country gentleman, well connected through his father’s three marriages with families of prominence, and taking young to adventure, he was early concerned in lively affairs. He was born about the year 1552, at Hayes, near Budlegh Salterton, South Devonshire, the second son of his father’s third wife, who was the widow of Otho Gilbert and the mother of Sir Humphrey Gilbert. Through his father’s first wife, who was Joan Drake, he was related to Sir Francis Drake. His own brother was Sir Carew Raleigh, who was concerned with him in Gilbert’s first expedition of 1578. As a boy he became interested in seamanship and the life of the sea from talks with sailors returned from distant voyages. At fifteen he was at Oxford, entered in Oriel College. At seventeen he was serving as a volunteer in the French Huguenot army. He remained in France through the next five years. Back in London in 1576, he was variously employed. The next year, or early in 1578, he was warring in the Low Countries under Sir John Norris. Later in September he was at Dartmouth, busied with Humphrey Gilbert in fitting out the fleet for that year’s venture, in which he sailed in command of the “Falcon.” In 1580 he was serving in Ireland as captain of a company, and he had part in the awful and cruel massacre at Somerwich in November of that year. Toward the end of 1581 he was sent home to England with despatches from the new governor of Münster. Coming to the court he attracted the fancy of the queen by his manly presence, bearing, and gallantry, and he rose instantly into the royal favor. With this time is dated the tradition of his spreading his new plush coat over a muddy way for the queen to walk upon. He was granted lucrative monopolies, particularly the “wine licenses,” the profits of which enabled him liberally to prosecute the schemes of Western adventure he was then developing. Raleigh’s patent received the royal signature on the twenty-fifth day of March, 1584, and only a month later, as we have seen (Chapter I), his preliminary expedition, comprising his two barks under the experienced captains Amadas and Barlow, charged to investigate, hasten back, and report, had sailed off; and under the inspiration of the warm-coloured story that these captains told upon their return in September, the first colonization band was formed. This fascinating narrative, therefore, is the prologue to the epic of true English colonization in America, culminating in the permanent settlement at Jamestown.