82 Books & arts The EconomistNovember 30th 2019
21P
erhaps it wasthe fact that he was al-
ready dead that enabled Walter Raleigh
to face his execution with such equanim-
ity. On October 19th1618 he wasled from the
Tower of London; along the way he smiled
and joked. Seeing a bald man in the assem-
bled crowd, he offered him his hat (“Thou
hast more need of it now than I”). Then he
laid his head upon the block. Legally speak-
ing, Raleigh had already been “dead” for 15
years, after being found guilty of plotting
against James I and deprived of his rights.
Now, an axe added sharpened steel to sharp
legal practice.
Life, wrote Raleigh, is a “Tragedie”, and
it proved so for him. He not only had the
misfortune to die twice in life; he also, Alan
Gallay argues in “Walter Ralegh”, has suf-
fered a third death posthumously, that of
his reputation. (Mr Gallay employs the var-
iant of Raleigh’s name that omits the “i”,
which his subject preferred in his later
years.) Much of the good in Raleigh—his
humanity, his curiosity, his brilliant poet-
ry—has been buried with him. Today, he
tends to be remembered as a failed colo-
niser or a popinjay courtier, covering a
puddle with his cloak for Elizabeth I.
His true achievements, Mr Gallay ar-
gues, were deeper than that (apocryphal)
puddle tale. In his lifetime Raleigh’s influ-
ence spanned the oceans, reshaped territo-
ries and pervaded the very air of England.
He named the American state of Virginia
(after the Virgin Queen) and inspired
Edmund Spenser’s monumental poem,
“The Faerie Queene”. He probably brought
Ireland the potato; he scented the air of the
English court with tobacco. The minds,
lands—and lungs—of the English would
never be the same again.
Mr Gallay’s subtitle calls Raleigh “Archi-
tect of Empire”. That was a vital role in the
16th century, as the foundations of Eng-
land’s empire were shaky. Elizabeth partly
wanted an empire to further her own de-
sires and partly—as Raleigh’s half-brother
explained in his “Discourse on how hir
Majestie may annoy the K: of Spayne”—to
thwart Spain’s. So far, things had not gone
well. The previous English attempt to colo-
nise America had involved exporting Mor-
ris dancers (“to delight the Savage people”)
and Catholics (to delight the Protestants at
home). It failed wretchedly. The savage
people were undelighted; the K: of SpayneEarly modern historyCaped crusader
Walter Ralegh: Architect of Empire. By
Alan Gallay.Basic Books; 576 pages; $40 and
£30.95the jewellery hoard is a part), claimed in
2010 that “the Green Vault is secured like
Fort Knox”. Roth thought “the human fac-
tor” and “insider knowledge” posed the
greatest risk, and the Green Vault’s staff
will doubtless be questioned closely. On
the other hand, points out Julian Radcliffe
of the Art Loss Register, an art-database in
London, crooks can often pick up ample in-
telligence as paying visitors.
The artefacts are as storied as they are
valuable. They survived the devastating Al-
lied bombing of Dresden during the second
world war, only to be seized by the Soviet
Union. They were miraculously returned
in their entirety to East Germany, contrib-
uting to the city’s resurgence, though the
full trove has been on display only since
2006, after the painstaking restoration of
Dresden Castle. The fear now is that, since
the pieces are too recognisable to be sold
intact, the robbers will break out the dia-
monds and sapphires to flog them sepa-
rately. The coin stolen from the Bode Muse-
um is widely assumed to have been melted
and sold off. The loss of the Dresden jewel-
lery would be much sadder. 7E
vered andAda Best are “still young-
sters” when their parents die, leaving
them alone on the bleak Newfoundland
coast. “They were left together in the cove
then with its dirt-floored stud tilt,” writes
Michael Crummey, “with its garden of root
vegetables and its scatter of outbuildings,
with its looming circle of hills and rattling
brook and its view of the ocean’s grey ex-
panse beyond the harbour skerries.” In“The Innocents”, Mr Crummey, a New-
foundland native, captures in hypnotic
prose the force of the driving sea and the
ways of a beautiful, barren place where
Evered and Ada are cast adrift.
Their lives are bound by seasonal
rhythms—of the sea rather than the land,
for brother and sister must subsist as their
parents did, catching cod, salting and dry-
ing it, exchanging what they preserve for
the supplies they need when a ship aptly
called the Hopeappears over the horizon.
In brutal poetry, Mr Crummey invokes the
work they do to survive, “the two children
wielding knives honed to a razor’s edge, up
to their slender wrists in blood and offal”.
The book’s tension is built on language
which has the clean power of folk-tale.
When is the story set? Sometime in the ear-
ly 19th century, the reader can infer from
references to war and convict ships, but
time has little meaning here.
As Evered and Ada huddle for warmth in
winter, their closeness evolves into some-
thing else. With compelling eroticism, Mr
Crummey depicts them awakening to their
physical selves; Ada first learned of plea-
sure when, at nine, she pressed herself
against the keel of the boat that Evered and
their father were preparing for the season,
by raking oakum from its seams. As the
craft vibrated, she sensed “the quiver until
she felt an answering quiver pass through
her like an echo coming off a cliff face”.
With their parents gone, half-asleep in
their bed in the tilt, they rock against each
other for comfort and gratification. They
do not speak of what they do there.
The world intrudes intermittently: the
reader is in the same position as this lonely
pair, waiting to see what it will bring. They
find a shipwreck, but what looks at first like
bounty turns out to be something else en-
tirely. The HMS Medusaanchors offshore,
bringing the raucous company of sailors.
But at the centre of it all are Evered and Ada,
sealed in their companionship, making
their new life alone. What they discover—
about the land and about themselves—is
both gorgeous and terrifying. 7Canadian fictionAlone, together
The Innocents. By Michael Crummey.
Doubleday; 289 pages; $26.95Love on the rocks