Ralph Lane

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  • 1550

    He served in the English Parliament

  • 1554

    He attended Oxford University

  • 1563

    Lane was serving in Queen Elizabeth I’s court, marking the beginning of a career of service to queen and country

  • 1569

    Lane participated in a force that suppressed a rebellion in Scotland

  • Lane received a commission to go to Ireland and direct the construction of forts.

  • the queen recalled Lane from Ireland and he was given command of the colony that Sir Walter Raleigh was organizing to sail to Virginia (Roanoke Island).

  • seven ships with about 600 men under the overall command of Sir Richard Grenville left England.

  • a fleet led by Sir Francis Drake left Roanoke carrying the first English colonists back home.

  • He provided the foreword to Thomas Harriot’s Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia

  • his account of the colony appeared in Richard Hakluyt’s Principal Navigations

  • Lane was back in Ireland serving as “muster master general” and “clerk of the check of the garrison” and remained in that country for the rest of his life

  • Lane’s physical weakness had made him unfit as muster master.

  • and was buried at St. Patrick’s Church on the 28th of that month