| Title | Master Lane |
| Origtitle | Plan of a fortified encampment at Mosquetal, Puerto Rico |
| Caption | There is no image of Master Lane's physical likeness. In this John White image you see his quarters on the island of Puerto Rico. |
| Source | Kim Sloan. A New World: England's First view of America. page 100-101 |
| Date | 1585 |
| Creator | John White |
| Type | watercolor |
| Origin | Scanned image |
| Notes | Image was scanned from Kim Sloan's book |
Master Ralph Lane / Master Ralph Lane
Additional Notes
Lane, Sir Ralph (ca. 1530-1603):; Ralph Lane, most notable as the first (rather incompetent) governor of Virginia, was an adventurer and soldier of Elizabethan England, one of the sort who makes his name and living alternating between currying favor in court and relying perhaps a bit too heavily on the might of the sword in military or exploratory adventures in Ireland and the New World. With a military background typical of men of his type, Lane entered the court scene in 1563 in the service of Queen Elizabeth, and appears to have pestered influential friends for positions of authority for his whole life, eventually gaining an appointment as sheriff in Country Kerry Ireland from 1583-85. Recruited by Raleigh for his 1585 Roanoke expedition, Lane sailed to the New World, with Sir Richard Grenville acting as commander of their little fleet, and Lane acting as governor of the colony. The pair did not get along well, but nevertheless, following an unfortunate incident in which Simon Ferdinando ran their flagship aground on Wococon Island near Pimlico Sound, they explored the area and began to build and settle on Roanoke Island. The following months involved exploration, a great deal of discomfort, and diplomatic troubles stemming from Lane’s tendency to exercise his martial talents rather than diplomacy when dealing with the Native Americans. As the tensions mounted between the colonists and the various surrounding tribes, Lane opted to surprise and murder Wingina, a local Algonquian king who was plotting to unite the tribes in alliance against the colonists. The Algonquians did not take kindly to this brand of diplomacy, and though Lane and most of the colonists, by now in dire straits, were able to return to England within days due to the timely arrival of Drake’s fleet, it is likely that the bad blood fostered by Lane did not work much in the favor of Raleigh’s subsequent Roanoke expeditions. In the following years Lane served as muster-master, first in Essex, then on the Spanish-Portuguese Coast, and finally in Ireland, where he periodically broke up the monotony of life by putting down the occasional Irish rebellion until his death in 1603.;
Works Cited:; Dictionary of North Carolina Biography, ed. William S. Powell. (Chapel Hill: UNC Press, 1991), s.v. “Lane, Sir Ralph.”;