Q1. What is your name?

‘ I have had an eternity, my cousin, an eternity to think on the errors of my ways, and they are many and unforgivable. I see now, dear cousin, and for the first time too, that my gravest error was ever to leave the farm and the countryside.’ ‘Why did you leave, then?’ I asked. ‘I did not wish it,’ he sighed. ‘I was sent away from home as were all young men of rank in those days. I went to Oxford first, but I cared neither for books nor grey men in the cloisters who were my tutors, and I left for the wars. That’s what a young man did if he wanted to make his mark in the world. And I wanted to make my mark, cousin.’ ‘What do you mean?’ I asked. Walter wasn’t always easy to understand and he seemed to know it. ‘I speak of ambition, cousin. Walter Raleigh had to be great in the land, he had to be powerful, and rich and admired. And to be that he had to go to court. And so I went to court and was noticed at last by good Queen Bess, Queen Elizabeth; and she favoured me with her love and her attention.’ ‘Was that when you spread your coat in a puddle for her?’ I asked. He nodded and smiled. ‘That was the start of it, I grant you. I was always one for a grand gesture. So I became Captain of her guard and was soon rich beyond dreams, as powerful as almost the queen herself. Truly, cousin, the world was at my feet. Then I met and married Bess Throckmorton, your ancestor and my dear wife, and she won my heart. She was suddenly more important to me than all the world, all the gold and all the glory. But the queen would not have it.’ ‘Couldn’t you marry who you wanted to?’ I asked. ‘Aye, so long as the queen wanted it too, and she did not want it. I think she would not have minded if I had not loved Bess so well. But she know I did and that made her mad with me. She sent me to the tower’. ‘Is that why they cut off your head, because you married someone she didn’t like?’ Walter laughed. ‘ No sweet cousin, no; but I was never again to be so high in the esteem of my queen, nor never again so high in the land’. ‘ So why did she cut off your head?’ ‘Twas not the queen that destroyed me’ His brow lowered as he went on. ‘Twas the monstrous king that followed her- King James. He it was that had me tried for high treason and condemned as a traitor- Walter Raleigh as a traitor!’ His eyes blazed. ‘And twas this same villainous king who robbed my family of all we had. He it was that took away my lands, and my farms and estates- and even the jewels from my fingers.’

Q3. Find the word ‘gravest’ in a dictionary and write down its definition.

Q4. Find and copy a word from the text that means ‘motivation’.

Q5. Find and copy a phrase from the text which shows that Sir Walter Raleigh had done really well for himself.