he intended to follow the profession of the law,
and took the orthodox steps towards initiation into it, having
commenced, as was usual, with admission into an Inn of Chancery, the
bygone little collection of brick tenements in Newcastle-street. There
is no reason to suppose that he was ever called to the Bar.

[Sidenote: _About the Court._]

In the year following the publication of the _Steele Glasse_ he
undoubtedly was living in London, though in a different quarter. William
and Richard Paunsford, two servants of his, as appears from the
Middlesex Registers edited by Mr. Jeaffreson, were in December, 1577,
taken up for defying the watch. They had to be bailed out. In the
recognizance for one Ralegh was described as 'Walter Rawley, Esq. of
Islington,' and in the other as 'Walter Rawley, Esq. de Curia,' that is
of the Court. Young men of good family and ambition were in the habit of
obtaining an introduction to the Court. They used it as a club, though
they might not advance beyond the threshold. Ralegh on his return from
France had pursued the regular course. He sought for opportunities of
advancement where they most abounded; and, while he waited for them, he
enjoyed the pleasures of life. In the use of his leisure he may not
always have been more discreet than his riotous dependents. His wife is
reported to have remarked of a censure upon their elder son's addiction
to equivocal society, that she had heard Ralegh in his youth showed
similar tastes. Aubrey, whom nobody believes and everybody quotes, the
'credulous, maggotty-headed, and sometimes little better than crazed'
antiquarian, as Wood, his debtor for much curious unsifted gossip,
courteously characterizes him, relates how, at a tavern revel, Ralegh
quieted a noisy fellow, named Charles Chester. He sealed up his mouth by
knotting together the beard and moustache. It is on record that in the
February of 1580 he was in trouble for a brawl with Sir Thomas Perrot,
who afterwards married the sister of Lord Essex, Lady Dorothy Devereux.
Ralegh and Perrot were committed by the Council to the Fleet for six
days. The affray is not creditable; but it indicates that Ralegh
associated with courtiers.

[Sidenote: _Maritime adventures._]

The company he kept was not all of Chester's or of Perrot's kind. His
later correspondence proves that at this early period he must have
become known to Walsingham and Burleigh, and have found means for
allying himself with Leicester.