THE name Sir Walter Ralegh conjures up images of gallant Elizabethans and daredevil mariners in small boats defying hordes of Spaniards.

But Sir Walter lived on after the death of Elizabeth I into the more monochrome reign of James I. There was nothing romantic or death-defying about the last 15 years of his life, lived in the Tower of London under the shadow of a suspended sentence of death for treason, until, in 1617, he was released on condition that he found gold in Guinea.

Ralegh's Last Journey concentrates on his journey from Plymouth where he docked at the end of the disastrous Guinea expedition to his much-delayed execution in Westminster's Old Palace Yard in 1618.

Paul Hyland writes with a purple pen and though he knows his subject, approaches it from a literary rather than an historical viewpoint. This is almost a novel, with long verbatim passages from various documents of the time and scenes where he embroiders extensively on the scarce facts available.

The Ralegh who emerges is a mixture of naivet and cunning, a man perhaps slow to realise that times had changed when his Queen died.

Worth a read for a different view of the brilliant man of letters, courtier and seaman.

Updated: 08:47 Wednesday, March 10, 2004