The Ralph Lane Colony

  • 1553

    Ralph Lane attended Oxford University

  • 1560

    Ralph Lane served in the English Parliament

  • 1563

    Lane was serving in Queen Elizabeth I's court

  • 1569

    Lane participated in a force that suppressed a rebellion in Scotland

  • 1571

    Lane had involved himself in maritime affairs which included a queen’s commission to seize ships in

  • 1580

    Ralph Lane was developing plans and offering his services in helping England struggle with Spain

  • 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). Raleigh evidently personally invited Lane to command the land expedition.

  • Seven ships with about 600 men under the overall command of Sir Richard Grenville left England. After a storm scattered the fleet and reduced it to five ships, the company regrouped.

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

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

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

  • Lane was back 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.

  • Lane died in Dublin, Ireland and was buried at St. Patrick’s Church on the 28th of that month.