8. The Lost Colony and Raleigh’s faltering prestige
In July 1587, Governor White left the struggling settlement in North America and returned to England to request additional settlers and support for the colony. Before he could return the Anglo-Spanish War, which featured the great fleet known as the Spanish Armada, intervened. When White finally arrived at the colony site in 1590, all that remained of the settlement were dismantled houses and fortifications, and the cryptic word CROATOAN carved into a fence post, with a nearby tree bearing the letters CRO. A signal which had been previously instructed by White to be left behind should the colonists be forced to evacuate, that of a Maltese Cross carved into a tree, was not to be found. Raleigh’s colony had vanished, its fate never to be fully ascertained.