Walter Raleigh (dean)

Walter Raleigh or Ralegh (1586 – 10 October 1646) was an English divine, Dean of Wells from 1641. He died after a violent attack, a prisoner in his own deanery.

Raleigh was the second son of Sir Walter Raleigh's elder brother, Sir Carew Raleigh, of Downton, Wiltshire. His mother was Dorothy, widow of Sir John Thynne, of Longleat, Wiltshire, and daughter of Sir William Wroughton, of Broadheighton, Wiltshire. He was educated at Winchester School and at Magdalen Hall, Oxford, where he matriculated as commoner on 5 November 1602. He graduated B.A. in 1605 and M.A. in 1608.

Raleigh took holy orders, and in 1618 became chaplain to William Herbert, 3rd Earl of Pembroke. In 1620 he was presented by his patron to the rectory of Chedzoy, near Bridgwater, Somerset; in the following year he received the rectory of Wilton St Mary, Wiltshire. About 1630 he was chosen a chaplain-in-ordinary to Charles I, who admired his preaching. In 1632 he was made rector of Elingdon or Wroughton, and in 1635 of Street, Somerset. In 1634 he was minor prebendary of Combe in Wells Cathedral, and received besides the rectory of Street-cum-Walton. In 1636 he was created D.D. In 1637 he became dean and rector of St Buryan, Cornwall, and in 1641 he was chosen to succeed Dr George Warburton as dean of Wells.

Among Raleigh's friends were Lucius Cary, 2nd Viscount Falkland, Henry Hammond, William Chillingworth, and Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon. A royalist and a member of the Falkland circle, Raleigh suffered during the First English Civil War. While he was attending the king, his rectory-house at Chedzoy was plundered by the parliamentarians, his property stolen, his cattle driven away, and his wife and children expelled from their home. But in the western counties fortune was for some time favourable to the king, and Raleigh was enabled to return to Chedzoy. He continued to live there in safety until the defeat of George Goring, lord Goring, at Langport in 1645. Raleigh then fled to Bridgwater, and on the fall of the town (21 July 1645) surrendered to the parliamentarians. From Bridgwater he was sent a prisoner to Chedzoy, but on account of his weakness he was allowed to live in free custody in his own house.

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